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Summer is all but here in Sydney. It’s a fantastic time of year especially if you are a waterman. Long warm days with loads of surf and flat water to paddle on. As a fanatical believer in the transformative power of sport and especially of stand up paddling I thought it was timely to share this movie trailer – get out on the water this summer!
Over at The Next Web, Kim Heras has done a fun interview with me on the connection between surfing and technology.
In it I discuss the need for more leading brands and success stories to flow from the Australian tech and sporting industries.
There’s a key quote from the piece I particularly want to repeat:
One area that I am really excited about in the surf arena right now is the scale at which stand up paddlesurfing is taking off – it’s the fastest growing water sport on the planet and there is a lot of tech experimentation around shapes and materials for both surfing and racing as well as with boards, paddles and clothing, not to mention tapping into social media to grow awareness and participation for the sport.
I am really interested in exploring the creation of a world class Australian SUP/sport brand – it’s an exciting time.
Analysts are predicting huge growth in the mobile health applications arena. However, I believe the market is chasing its tail and it is only those players who are bold enough to venture beyond the status quo and seek step change innovation who will succeed.
THE NUMBERS
Firstly, what are the analysts saying:
Drilling down, Juniper Research expects mobile remote patient monitoring to be a $2bn market by 2014 and Parks Associates believes wireless home health monitoring will be a $4.4bn market by 2013.
All in all, if the analysts are correct, this is a sizeable opportunity.
BUSINESS MODELS
What though, is the right model for achieving success in this market?
Jane Sarasohn-Khan has some interesting insights in this respect. Traditionally, consumers rely heavily on some form of medical aid to cover all or some of their medical costs. She says, “When it comes to mobile health, consumers aren’t yet connecting the dots towards “my health” and value.”
She believes that it is perhaps better to be asking consumers not what they’d pay for a mobile health app, but instead, “What’s your health worth to you?”
I think she is right, but only partially. My theory is that we need to turn the entire health + mobile app paradigm on its head.
AN ANALOGY
Let me explain what I mean by way of an example from the bricks and mortar end of the healthcare spectrum. Healthcare these days is more sickcare: 70% of the total healthcare cost is spent on the management of chronic diseases.
Faced with this reality and the desire to set up a new hospital, Nancy Schlichting, the CEO of the Henry Ford Health System, made an interesting choice. She recruited one of the world’s most successful hoteliers, Gerard van Grinsven, to design and run the new hospital in the township of West Bloomfield, which lies within the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan.
Gerard was previously a VP with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and freely admits that prior to his appointment in 2006 he had no exposure to the health industry. Yet there he was, tasked with bringing to fruition a 300-bed, $310m hospital.
Rather than following in the footsteps of countless other hospitals he took his inspiration from the Blue Ocean Strategy theory that to succeed you need to differentiate yourself so much from your competitors that you make them obsolete and force them to change. He wanted to create the Cirque du Soleil of healthcare.
His research uncovered that in healthcare 90% of the purchasing power lies with women. He also found that women are not satisfied with traditional medical care, they want programs that help them in their physical and mental well being.
HEALTH COACH
Armed with this knowledge he set out to challenge the entire industry by creating an entirely new vision that would position his new facility in a completely different way. His premise was that rather than treating chronic health, a hospital should be more of a healing campus and their role within the community should be one of a health coach.
They set out to create an environment in which healthy people actually want to come to their facility to partake in activities and programs that will help them to stay healthy.
The result: the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital is more of a community centre for well being than a typical hospital. For example, the main entrance looks nothing like a traditional hospital entrance. Drawing on his hotel industry insight that first impressions are what it is all about, Gerard created a northern Michigan small town main street effect – lots of activity, lots of nature coming in. In essence, the main entrance communicates wellness.
There is a wellness institute with 11 healing rooms, a body and mind studio, water therapies and alternative medicine practitioners. There is a 90 seat auditorium with a state of the art kitchen line that does cooking classes for people with diabetes, cancer, and heart conditions, but also for healthy people wanting to stay that way.
There is a retail space. There is a healthy cafe that seats 300 people a day, 300 people who come there for the food and ambience, not because they are visiting a clinic. Walking and biking paths are being built on the surrounding acres to let the community come and play. And finally, they are creating a Culinary Learning Institute for Healthcare in which they intend to teach other hospital chefs how to positively change their food culture.
Gerard believed his obligation was to change the way healthcare is delivered by really focusing on how they could become a health coach.
It seems he has succeeded. The hospital became cash flow positive after 12 months, has an extremely high retention rate amongst its 1,800 staff and is rated in the top 1% of hospitals in the United States.
INNOVATING mHEALTH
I find Gerard’s story totally inspirational. For me the trick is taking this analogy and applying it to mHealth applications. I hope that as we explore this exciting arena you’ll keep Henry Ford in the back of your mind.
This morning I ventured out in the driving rain and headed off to Palm Beach. I was planning on participating in a paddle session, named Paddle for Pete, which was organised to provide support for a local surfer who had broken his neck over Easter weekend.
On the 40 minute drive I was wondering to myself – would there be a handful of stalwarts on hand for the paddle? Arriving at Pittwater I was blown away – both literally as the wind was up, and figuratively, as there were hundreds of paddlers on hand. All shapes and sizes, from surf boards through skis, SUPs through surfboards — all eager to show their support.
It was a tough paddle – my stand up board is a 10.6, which is great in the surf and as a hybrid on short flat water runs, but when the chop is up it gets very, very tricky. I was most stoked to not only finish the 5km course, but do it without falling in or having to revert to kneeling.
This video from Sean Smith, aka the Fatpaddler really sums up the paddle. I feature near the start of the paddle, but it’s the later sections where you can clearly see the level of chop on the water — great coverage!
Here’s hoping Pete makes a quick recovery.
Tags: Fatpaddler, Paddle for Pete, Pittwater, stand up paddling, SUPThis video of a group of ultra athletes exploring the boundaries of what we can do as humans is very inspiring!
I love some of their comments at the end of the video :-
* “don’t get boxed in”
* “push your horizons further”
I won’t profess to being at the top of my fitness game at present, but as a former professional lifeguard, lifelong surfer and record-breaking athlete I’ve both been there and aspire to be again.
So this morning, five minutes before going for a jog, I was overjoyed and enthused to read Loic Le Meur’s post on 13 tips for geeks to get in shape.
Like Loic I have used a Garmin Forerunner 305 – an awesome device for measuring and pushing your performance. I also believe in the power of music to inspire you and like to mountain bike with a pair of Oakley Thumps blasting U2 into my brain – geeks, this is off-road only and sure you can get that from an iPod too, but when you need to uncouple from your bike at high speed…the less cords around the better!
For me one of the most important aspects of getting going on the road to being in shape is to rip yourself out of your comfort zone. OK, so for me that meant moving half way around the world from Sydney to Palo Alto and moving into an unfurnished cottage.
No need to be so extreme, simply break from your current routines. Had a heavy day at the office and feel entitled to that beer or glass of wine to help you unwind. Bullshit! Get out your running shoes and burn through the day’s stress.
As I mentioned already, music can be a big influencing factor and another serial entrepreneur/venture person who is doing some great stuff in this area is Heidi Roizen. She used to run a billion dollar venture fund, but these days she is the founder of SkinnySongs, a startup that is helping women to lose weight through listening to motivational songs she writes herself.
Whatever you do to start down or keep on the shaping up path, be assured that doing so will lift your sense of well being and make you more effective at, well…everything.
Go to it!
Tags: Heidi Roizen, Loic Le Meur