Dirk Nowitzki gave me mad props today, and it was awesome.

My Nike+GPS app had a message for me at the end of my run today, and it was from Dirk Nowitzki: "Hey, this is Dirk Nowitzki, and I just wanted to give you mad props for making it out there today."

I couldn't be much more of a cynic, and I HATE patronizing flattery, and what could be more baldly obvious than that a corporate behemoth was shamelessly using a celebrity to make me feel good about buying and using its products? By all rights, I should be sick.

But if I don't get bummed some canned words of encouragement at the end of a run, I'm a little bummed.

The tiny fraction I know about Dirk NowitzkiI is that he's well regarded as a dedicated player and a stand-up guy. When I imagine Mr. Nowitzki sitting in a sound booth somewhere recording his stock accolades, I'm pretty sure he is, in no small degree, genuinely happy for me. I bet he's happy to be encouraging legions of minor athletes out there, and genuinely wants us to keep at it. And it works.

Imagine if it was stock commentary from my doctor?

Getting Played: 3 design thoughts for improving buy-in for mobile health apps.

Just because it's a game doesn't mean it's fun.* With angry birds, you simply fire up the app and start poking at the screen, but in health games you have to do something you'd rather not- eat a vegetable or run a mile or climb some stairs. To overcome this....

It would be simple.
In any game, there's a gap between input of time, energy, and focus, and the output of points earned, leveling up, or saving the princess. While some games thrive on a wide gap that's filled with a rich story line, engaging graphics, or intricate maneuvers, my health app would have a strict minimum of futzing around. This is because, by the time I reach for the health app icon, I've already crossed much of my gap, and I'm ready for my reward. Now.

It would be social.
Yes, social is all the rage, and rightly so. A less obvious feature of the value of social is that it enables healthy people to encourage close friends and family to be healthy, without precipitating an intervention. Motivating loved ones to eat better and exercise is tricky if you don't want to bring anxiety, guilt, and tension into a relationship. A social game is a perfect way for healthy people to casually encourage others, as well to stay motivated themselves.

It would include your doctor.
A family doc I worked with had some success with his own personal diet brochure. It was especially successful because he had personally lost much weight with it. What if he could point patients to a social game app that he himself played too? Consider the ramifications: The doctor's advice about eating better and exercising doesn't end at the office door. The app is good branding for the physician's practice. Buy-in soars because the virtual presence of patients' doctor connects healthy lifestyle choices with significant disease. Hospitals can adopt it as well, and there are lots of hospitals with lots of money. Local businesses can support it too by advertising their healthy offerings of food, gyms, or exercise equipment. I dare say this is only scratching the surface....

*Check out Jane McGonigal's TEDTalk on solving problems, including obesity, with games.

On Surgery, etc.: Revenge of the Nerds

I laughed out loud. Several times. This is, objectively, really funny. About why docs are slow to social media.

On Surgery, etc.: Revenge of the Nerds

A Phalanx of Mobile Apps: Just What the Doctor Ordered

                                                                                                                     "The Cavalry Charge" -Frederick Remington 

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments." - Alfred North Whitehead An Introduction to Mathematics

There's a simple reason the phrase "there's an app for that" has become so trite so quickly: it's a useful expression. But I think the utility of the expression, beyond Apple's branding brilliance, comes from a deeper place: it's primal. 

Using an app in place of a thoughtful operation is, to borrow Whitehead's phrase, like mounting a cavalry charge, but without having to refresh the neural horses. 

Since our brains are finite, capable of only so many cavalry charges a day, progress is two-pronged. It both increases the number of cavalry charges, and continuously promotes the brain to the vanguard. The more apps come along, the more operations are completed, and the more the brain is liberated from mundane operations and promoted to the forefront of what really counts in our day. Crucially, I don't see apps as dumbing us down, but rather, as smartening us up to perform previously unreachable operations of thought.

Today, when I'm faced with the need to operate thought, a little voice asks if "there's an app for that"? It's really not a modern question, but a primitive reflex rustling about in the wisdom of Whitehead's statement. Humans have always sought tools to solve problems that buy us more time to solve more problems (that buy us more time to solve more problems, á la Ray Kurzweil). We corralled herds of mammoth off cliffs to save the time and effort of hunting them one-by-one. There's no real difference when we use the Chipotle app to save the time and effort of waiting in line. 

Much has been made of the impact of apps on healthcare (See Kent Bottles's post for a trove of examples). But I believe the biggest impact has yet to be richly explored, and that is the  the quantified self movement. 

Briefly: consider that monitoring the effects of our behavior clearly benefits our health (See Thomas Goetz's The Decision Tree blog for examples). The trouble is, we behave all day long, and continuously monitoring our the effects of our behavior would use up a lot of cavalry charges. Given that chronic disease is the costliest aspect of healthcare, and that lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise, and smoking are key contributors to such chronic conditions as congestive heart failure, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, then a phalanx of mobile apps might be just what the doctor ordered.