This guy is workin’ it riffing on Smule’s Leaf Trombone app – I want to be in THAT number.
Speaking of numbers, Getupandmove.me is now just about a month old.
A peek at our stats and what we’ve learned so far:
* 254 users
NOTE: This number = sad face + a big challenge for your creator team – How do we get new friends to move with us? More on how we plan to gain user traction anon, but if we were speaking in Pig Latin our answer might look something like “Acebookfay.”
* 463 challenges
NOTE: Confirming, again, initial ’superusers’ or hyperactive ‘parent’ nodes in our social graph really like to tell other users what to do, cough cough, motivate each other.
We figured out there are 2 basic species of “guammies” – those who like to be told what to do, and those who like to boss others around. Ahem. Guess which I am 
. Even more interesting, however, as we begin to track the spread of contagious challenges from an initial user ‘node’ is that sometimes Guammies who like to ‘be told’ LEVEL UP and become Guammies who motivate. Fascinating future implications for UX design.
* 208 completed challenges
NOTE: Another sad face. We want to stay above 50% completed challenges (where BOTH challenger and responder complete challenge by clicking on “Done my part”). I want us to hit 75%.
In looking at our insanely detailed weekly internal report card, we figured out our open challenge format (challenge anyone on Twitter without making sure they’re ‘logged in’ or signed up for GUAM) means we have a lot of ‘ghosts,’ or Twitter users who have been invited but haven’t logged in to GUAM. We’re working on an enrollment loop to reduce this.
In keeping with our Open Sesame commitment to conversing with you, our users, about where we’re all headed together, Andrey and I figured we’d offer a more basic, FAQ type update on what we think this strange trip is all about.
Please to excuse the ‘yelling’ in subheads…
Q: WHY WE STARTED WITH MICROFITNESS:
A: We specifically targeted the preventive/wellness end of the PHI spectrum that we feel is not currently addressed by CRM systems in place nor in direct-to-consumer personal logging or biometric (”me-tric”) tracking applications like DailyMile.com or LiveStrong.com.
There are a ton of apps out there that help you track things – but NOTHING out there (that we’ve seen) that successfully harnesses existing energy in your social networks.
In 140 characters: There are a ton of apps and services that track activities but none that really motivate you to do the things you want to track.
Some try to mask this by giving you graphs and stats. Graphs and numbers are not motivation. Your friends and family are motivation.
We want to connect you to them so you can make ‘healthy’ contagious, one microfitness challenge at a time.
WHAT’S THE GOAL?
The goal of Getupandmove.me (speaking like a true amateur scientist) is to motivate users to move by harnessing the cascade effect of ‘hyperactive’ or frenetic super user “node” individuals in existing social networks. I just learned this is called ’sociometrics.’ Woo hoo for continuing ed…
WHY DO YOU, THE FOUNDERS, THINK GUAM HAS THE POTENTIAL TO RENOVATE HOW WE MAKE DAILY HEALTH DECISIONS?
One of the most fascinating things about guammies is that you’re not only taking responsibility for your OWN health by committing to a small act of fitness, but you are, in essence, *also* taking responsibility to ‘coach’ or ‘mentor’ another user to get up and move it by ‘bartering’ your fitness for theirs.
I’ve heard a lot of chatter from the bigwigs in healthcare this year about “getting consumers to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing” blah blah blah.
You, my dear guammies, are not just talking or tweeting about this – you are DOING it. One challenge at a time.
It’s important here to look at how current health and wellness apps fail to use the most motivating things in your life – friends and family you ALREADY connect with in your social graph – to help you make better choices.
Motivation isn’t a set of instructions about how to do a pushup in perfect form.
Motivation is someone getting you interested in doing a friggin’ pushup in the first place, and we think meaningful, personally relevant motivation structures are the most critical element missing from the current wellness spectrum of applications.
WHY WE LOVE OUR LEAD USERS OR “RECRUITERS:”
We rely on our lead users to incentivize responders, at least for now. If you are a lead user – wow. Our hats are tipped to you.
Send the funniest or weirdest #getupandmove challenge (keep it clean people!) and we may get you a nifty tee shirt .
Our early lead users (”challengers”) provide social motivation not only to move themselves, but also in effect take responsibility for getting other users (”responders”) motivated and stay on track in that ’space between’ home and work where you may choose to do things OTHER than go for a run or go to the gym.
WHAT KIND OF NIFTY RELATIONSHIP GRAPHING WILL YOU DO TO STUDY SOCIAL CONTAGION?
Frankly, we don’t have a GD clue.
Well, I’m being modest, we have a few ideas, but nothing concrete at this early stage.
We’re examining all kinds of analytics and graphing APIs.
At minimum, we’re trying to see if it’s possible for your social graph to help inject small bits and bytes of microfitness into your daily life by tracking the ‘path’ of a challenge from user to user to new user etc, but even we aren’t sure yet how to track the contagion of movement motivation from ‘parent’ node users to ‘child’ responders.
WHY WE PUFFY HEART OUR RESPONDERS TOO:
Although we’re kind of relying on the strong backs of frenetically active challengers to motivate the guammie community, we are also very deliberately targeting responders usually are not initial or early adopters with our easy to use challenge formats.
If a challenger’s challenge fell in the forest, and nobody heard it, would it still make a sound? Nope.
Responders – you are the heartbeat of #getupandmove. You’re going out on a limb. You’re doing a favor for a friend that asks you to move. And you’re motivating others in return.
We salute you!
WHY DO YOU THINK THIS MICROFITNESS JAZZ MAY WORK?
We’re keeping challenges small and simple – users don’t have to be a pro athlete or marathoner to use Get Up and Move.
We’re not competing with sites like DailyMile.com and Skimple or RunThere to log what you’ve done…
We’re big fans. In fact, eventually we want our users to move from ‘microfitness’ at the daily level using Get Up and Move to larger macro challenges like training for a marathon using DailyMile.com.
We aren’t enabling logging functions – instead the most primary function of GUAM is that “guammies” (getupandmove.me users) are motivating each other to move…if there are psychological or behavioral stages to working out, we’re in the “pre move” category.
And in the “pre move” category (as opposed to the “actively moving” category and the “I want to move MORE” category addressed by other apps and communities), the most important thing is someone providing that motivation for you to simply get up and do SOMETHING.
That’s where Getupandmove.me comes in.
IF I HAD TO TELL MY COUSIN/SPOUSE/EMPLOYER/3 YO/IMAGINARY FRIEND WHAT GUAM IS ABOUT IN 1 SENTENCE, WHAT WOULD I SAY?
At the most basic level, Getupandmove.me enables users to challenge friends and family to ‘microfitness’ challenges, in real time using simple preset options like “dance to 2 songs” or create your own using our free web app.
DO YOU SEE GUAM EXPANDING INTO THE MORE ‘MAINSTREAM’ HOSPITAL/HEALTHCARE MARKETS?
Sure.
For PHI (personal health information) tracking, the sky’s the limit.
Deploying something like Getupandmove.me for medication adherence, physical therapy exercise tracking, telehealth/home monitoring and self reporting of critical biometrics for, say, diabetes treatments would be awesome.
OK, BUT HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TRACK THAT STUFF? ANY NIFTY DEVICES LIKE FITBIT, NIKE+, ETC PLANNED?
We haven’t yet integrated with personal biometric trackers like FitBit or WakeMate (for sleep), but are considering it in the future – as well as telemedicine integration for challenges and self-reporting on metrics important for preventive health in conditions like diabetes, etc.
SO WHAT SNAZZY NEW FEATURES CAN WE LOOK FOR NEXT?
Planned future features include Facebook Connect integration (version 3.0, mid-January), group challenges, export activity to calorie counters, etc.
HOW THE HECK IS THIS GOING TO MAKE MOOLAH?
Our ambitious B2B enterprise market plan includes:
* gyms (reminders for new clients)
* events/conferences (onsite fitness challenges for attendees and exhibitors)
* colleges/high schools (for sports teams training in the pre or off seasons)
* hospitals/clinics (community wellness programs)
* medication/pharma reminders
* and employer wellness programs
There are a few other sectors we’re in the early stages of exploring viability.
Plus at some point soon we’ll be doing mobile schtuff.
That’s about it for now guammies.
Til next time, may the force be with you.
@jensmccabe
@shazow
PS – Be on the lookout for a new “Stealth Mode” feature release on Monday that protects your privacy to an uber-degree.
