Health-Wii Connection

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano's leadership has helped create the Arizona Health-e Connection. It's an important development on the way to embedding smart health information exchange and effective health information technology for our system. But let's not forget the Health-Wii Connection.

A British study found that "active gaming consoles" such as the Wii get its players to burn 40% more calories and accelerate heart rates of players from a pedestrian 85 bpm to 130 bpm. Not exactly anaerobic threshold, but it counts for something.

Not coincidentally, the Wii has become the first (and likely last) game console to enter my family's life. It provides not just exercise, but family engagement and good old-fashioned fun. My six year-old son and his grandpa (who to my knowledge has never played a video game of any kind, ever) recently became enthusiastically enmeshed in a hilarious and spirited Wii golf tournament. As noted in the Wall St. Journal, I have personally battled my children in Wii Tennis and felt it the next day in my arm muscles. Wiis are being installed on Erickson Retirement Community campuses serving 19,000 older adults, and Wii bowling leagues are forming in older adult residential settings across the country.

Intergenerational engagement and fun? Check. Peer bonding and enlivenment of social ties? Check. Exercise? Check. Happiness? Check. Other than the couch becoming morose from lack of use and the disdain of the dog, I'm not seeing any downsides yet.

Health-Wii indeed.

Wednesday Stretch: Open Desert

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." - Rumi, Sufi Poet

American can-do spirit seems to have morphed into competitive spirit and then mutated into polarization - politically, socially, and in our business dealings. Even in the face of the positive history of a practice like coopetition (that's not a typo, there's a book on this very subject), polarization seems to be sucking the strength from American culture.

What to do? Create a clearing. And no better place to do it than our Open Desert. One of our greatest resources is our literal and figurative wide open space, meaning this: we have relatively blank slates. A young state with young cities and towns has many opportunities and choices that have just been made or are yet to be made. As the prinicipal of my kids' elementary school says on the PA each day, "It's your choice. Make it a good one."

Take a moment today to look at your choices. Are they polarizing? Coopetitive? Collaborative? Or even unifying? I'll be reflecting today as I work, asking the same questions of myself.

BTW: Google the words "Open Desert" and you'll find our neighbors in Coachella Valley, CA have started a group by that name (and note that I pinched a photo from their site.) At first glance, it appears to have no rudder in the water. When you dig a little deeper, it turns out that this is actually a kinder, gentler networking group. This could be an interesting model for business networkers here to consider.

"They Just Don't Care"

John McCain announced his Presidential candidacy yesterday. Apparently not many folks showed up. One attendee holding a McCain for President sign told an NPR reporter that she wasn't really a McCain supporter, but the people passing out signs "looked desperate, so I took one."

It reminds me of a community development admonishment I once heard: Social Capital should never be judged by how many people show up to the meeting.

The tendency is for passionate people who call a community meeting on a critical issue to be deflated and stunned when turnout at the meeting is low. The knee-jerk reaction is, 'they just don't care.'

In actuality, everybody cares about things related to their lives in varying degrees and within a hierarchy of priorities. The people who show up are just those who care about your agenda, were motivated by how you framed it AND could make it without having to honor commitment to a higher priority. Worst case, the people you are counting are those with a passion for coming to meetings.

If people aren't coalescing around your meetings, it is time to rethink what you are doing.

Number Two, Trying Harder?

Phoenix is the number two major metro for new college graduates. That was the conclusion after BizJournals crunched the numbers and we were edged out of the top spot by – surprise – Las Vegas. I assume that this has something to do with Vegas having showgirls.

But hold on. The previously heralded retirement mecca symbolized by Sun City has ostensibly been measured as one of the best large metro areas where job opportunities are strongest for young adults.

Question: do they understand that they are not Medicare-eligible?

Over the Top to Make a Point

My, oh my, oh my. Please do yourself a favor and visit Bob Fuller's Roadside Memorials. It's twisted and wrong, but dead-on right at the same time. Make sure you watch the television commercial and call the 800-number.

Nonprofit advocates are really getting what the web can do. I originally thought that Elect Susie was nicely done. But what 'til you get a hold of this one.

If only Saturday Night Live had writers this good.

Who's Creating The Future in AZ? (Part 1 of a 500 part series)

Answer one: all of us. Whether we know it or not. Whether we realize it or not. Answer two: Hildy Gottlieb. Hildy works every day with a passion that is always worth paying attention to. And you can check out what she is doing two ways: visit her blog, or visit the web site of her Community Driven Institute.

Full disclosure: I've worked with the Community Driven Institute as a consultant to my employer, St. Luke's Health Initiatives. I didn't hire her, but did have the experience of working alongside her and business partner Dimitri Petropolis. When you are looking for smart people with great hearts, you should make a stop here.

Who Are the Strangers? (VTech, Part 2)

More reflection brought to mind the story told by community development expert Jody Kretzmann from Northwestern University. He shared the situation: a diverse, busted-up neighborhood in Chicago was making progress in bringing neighbors together and improving their situation. Everyone was feeling good. Feeling like a community. Kretzmann challenged their good feeling with the question, "who in your neighborhood still feels like a stranger to you?"

Answer one: the police. Answer two went something like: the people who live in that house for crazy people. Indeed, neighbors were uneasy about recently discharged mental patients living in a group home.

Kretzmann reminded the assembled group that these people had unique gifts and contributions to make too. To make a long, compelling and emotional story short, the neighbors even succeeded at involving the one inhabitant who had in turn been marginalized by all of the other home's residents. His name escapes me, but this man of Polish descent had been relegated to a back room with barely enough space for a bed and no windows. He spoke to no one. For years. He was 'invisible,' to borrow a phrase from the VTech situation.

Within a year, this invisible Polish man had become a member of the neighborhood's championship all-Hispanic (except for him) bowling team. He had started talking again - some Polish, but all bowling dialogue was in Spanish. He had been brought back from invisibility. He was no longer a stranger. He belonged.

Could something like this have happpened with Cho Seung-Hui? On the one hand, Cho was severely defensive, angry, calculated, cold and mean. On the other hand, anything's possible. The question is, what kind of social capital do we need to foster to make it probable?

Refocus Phoenix

I appropriated the leaping-out-over-Phoenix photo (top of the page, right hand column) from a guy who attributed it to Refocus Phoenix. I went over to the Refocus Phoenix site and found out that the lensework was by Andy Ferra. I also found pictures of Phoenix that in many cases are much more insightful and inviting than the CVB's. And yet, they're just looking to have fun and raise their skill level. From the site:

"We're a group of photographers in Phoenix, Arizona. We come from all levels of experience and represent many different styles. We go to fun places a few times a month to shoot pictures and hang out."

Now this is what I'm talking about: people getting together, having a good time doing what they like to do and appreciating what their town has to offer. Makes me wonder what they'll do next. And it makes me want to bring my crappy little camera along for the ride at the next event.