Tag Archives: health

Mask of the Road Warrior – The Xupermask

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Xupermask on WILL.I.AM

WILL.I.AM and Honeywell have collaborated to bring the Xupermask to market.

What is the Xupermask?

It’s probably easiest to describe the Xupermask as equal parts: health & safety equipment, personal electronics, and fashion statement.

At its heart the Xupermask is a human-centered design intended to empower the user to feel both safe AND productive. It addresses the following set of user needs that are mostly unmet by traditional mask options:

1. Fits well to the face so escaping air doesn’t fog up your glasses
2. Fit also better prevents unsafe air from entering
3. Fans improve the ease of respiration
4. HEPA filters improve air quality
5. Built-in microphone for easier and safer phone calls
6. Built-in Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones for phone and entertainment

For me, the Xupermask seems like overkill for many day to day situations.

But, when I think about getting on public transport every day or flying on a commercial airline cross-country or across an ocean, the idea of having a Xupermask to wear becomes quite appealing.

And for those of us in the western United States, this could come in quite handy during forest fire season – just saying.

What do you think about the Xupermask?

Innovation or not?

Image credit: Xupermask


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Innovation is Human

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Innovation is Human

In many ways organizations are like humans, and others have described organizations and organizational change in biological terms before. But this biological context applies to innovation as well, and I’d like to put it forward quickly in simple terms.

As humans we must eat to survive, but if we focus too much on eating, we get unhealthy.

If we don’t focus enough on eating or if we eat the wrong things, we get unhealthy.

If we don’t enjoy enough variety in our experiences, we get unhealthy.

If we don’t spend enough time synthesizing those new experiences to uncover insights via sleep, we get unhealthy.

If we don’t eliminate our waste, we get unhealthy.

And finally, and probably most important to our health, we must exercise to increase our strength, flexibility, agility, reduce our stress levels, to build new capabilities, and to increase our longevity.

But, you can exercise too much, and get unhealthy as well.

The key is balance.

And the same is true for organizations, and parallels for all of these human activities can be drawn to the activities of organizations as well.

And while our interactions with food can be compared to our focus on the day to day operations within the context of the organization, the pursuit of innovation is the exercise for the organization.

And in much the same way that many people resist exercise even though they know it is good for them, many organizations do as well.

But for organizations to stay fit and enjoy a long and productive life, they must strike that balance between a healthy diet and exercise.

So, is your organization going to be fit or fat?

And next time someone in your organization says that innovation isn’t important, or that they can’t focus on it right now, ask them if they think exercise is important, then remind them that innovation like exercise is how we reinvigorate our organizations and keep them vibrant and alive, and go find yourself a carrot stick.

Keep innovating!

Image credit: fitinafatworld.wordpress.com

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Will Health Sensors Make iWatch the Must Have Wearable?

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iWatch Concept with Health SensorsBack in the 1990’s NBC referred to Thursday night as must watch television, and when it comes to making the transformation from invention to innovation, an innovation often needs a ‘Must Have’ feature.

So, with rumors swirling about the potential introduction today of an Apple iWatch, will Health Sensors make the iWatch a ‘Must Have’ or a ‘Must Wear’?

Will the iWatch do to the Fitbit and Nike Fuelband what the iPhone did to the Flip video camera?

If so, it will be yet another example of how it is more important to build a product or service that moves people. Move them not in a spiritual way (although creating something akin to a spiritual experience can help), but in an emotional way where the product or service (through value creation, value access, and value translation) provides enough ‘Must Have’ (or at least ‘Must Try’) to move people to abandon their existing solution (even if it is the ‘Do Nothing’ solution) to try and ultimately adopt your new solution in large numbers.

Moving people in this way is what moves your product or service from being an invention, to being an innovation.

Will the purported ten sensors of the iWatch provide enough entertainment, functionality, and actionable information to make the iWatch a ‘Must Wear’, make it a device that you won’t want to take it off?

If Apple can pull that off, then they will have a huge hit on their hands.

Are they too early like Samsung?

Have they seeded an ecosystem to grow after the launch of the iWatch?

After all it was the ecosystem created around the App Store that turned the iPhone into the market leader, it was the ecosystem created around the iTunes Store (and a Windows version of the software to access it) that turned the iPod into the market leader.

Or is it too early for Apple to launch an iWatch?

What ten sensors would make an iWatch a ‘Must Wear’?

  1. Accelerometer
  2. Pulse monitor
  3. NFC
  4. Blood pressure monitor?
  5. Temperature sensor?
  6. Barometric pressure sensor?
  7. ?
  8. ?
  9. ?
  10. ?

I guess we’ll find out next year.

Image Credit: techradar


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Your Chance to Help Overworked Entrepreneurs

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Your Chance to Help Overworked Entrepreneurs

Life for a busy entrepreneur regular working 60 hours a week can lead to a struggle with maintaining a healthy weight. You may find that you are eating out for convenience and getting to the gym very infrequently (if at all). This lifestyle may have been fine through your twenties and early thirties, but after 35, it gets difficult to keep active and you might find those few extra pounds you’ve put on every year are really starting to add up.

Have you had similar struggles?

If you have a way to help motivate overworked entrepreneurs to lay off the takeout and introduce more physical activity into their busy lives, we at Premera would love to hear about it.

Simply post your idea to Premera’s Facebook or Twitter page using the hashtag #IGNITEchange, or as a comment to their stories. You are then automatically entered into a drawing to win a $200 Amazon gift card. Best of all, you have the chance to impact a real person’s life. There will be four chances to win, once every week from now until September 8, 2014 (terms and conditions link expired).

Have a true game-changing idea that will spark families to make lasting, realistic improvements to their health?

Premera is rewarding that type of innovation as well through Premera’s Innovate to Motivate challenge (link expired), which offers a grand prize of $5,000!


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Your Chance to Help Working Professionals

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Your Chance to Help Working ProfessionalsToday life in our college years feels somehow more manageable than the hectic pace of the working professional. Somehow it feels like it was easier then to eat reasonably well and to stay in good shape. Recent college graduates feel the pressure to build a strong foundation for a career and a social life, then add in responsibilities like car payments, pets, rent, and student loan debt, and it’s no wonder many working professionals find a focus on a healthy lifestyle often comes last.

With time short, stress high, and energy running low after work, it is often easier to grab a burger or pizza than to make a kale salad, and skip the gym in favor of the siren’s song of Netflix and the couch.

Are you struggling with a similar issue or is this sounding like the problems of a younger you?

Then here is your chance to help working professionals everywhere!
(and possibly win some cash at the same time)

Simply post your idea to Premera’s Facebook or Twitter page using the hashtag #IGNITEchange, or as a comment to their stories. You are then automatically entered into a drawing to win a $200 Amazon gift card. Best of all, you have the chance to impact a real person’s life. There will be four chances to win, once every week from now until September 8, 2014 (terms and conditions link expired).

Have a true game-changing idea that will spark families to make lasting, realistic improvements to their health?

Premera is rewarding that type of innovation as well through Premera’s Innovate to Motivate challenge (link expired), which offers a grand prize of $5,000!


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Your Chance to Help Middle-Age Guys (and Gals) Get Fit

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Your Chance to Help Middle-Age Guys (and Gals) Get FitHere is your chance to help every middle-aged guy (or gal) who’s struggling with the inevitable progression of age. What used to be easy isn’t anymore!

Maybe you (or a friend) used to be a big runner and counted on running to keep weight down and stay active, but lately the motivation to run has waned, and as as a one-trick pony who’s never developed other ways to get regular exercise, with persistent plantar fasciitis that makes anything longer than a one mile walk moderately painful, the weight is starting to accumulate.

How do you re-energize what formerly were healthy eating and workout routines to accommodate the realities of middle age?

Any ideas for new forms of exercise, for establishing new routines that are realistic for an 8 to 6 office worker?

Premera would love to hear your ideas on a middle age makeover.

Simply post your idea to Premera’s Facebook or Twitter page using the hashtag #IGNITEchange, or as a comment to their stories. You are then automatically entered into a drawing to win a $200 Amazon gift card. Best of all, you have the chance to impact a real person’s life. There will be four chances to win, once every week from now until September 8, 2014 (terms and conditions link expired).

Have a true game-changing idea that will spark families to make lasting, realistic improvements to their health?

Premera is rewarding that type of innovation as well through Premera’s Innovate to Motivate challenge (link expired), which offers a grand prize of $5,000!


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Your Chance to Help Working Moms (and Dads)

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Help Working MomsWorking Moms (and Dads) struggle to get a healthy meal on the table for their family every night during the week without resorting to fast food (or any other fast, but unhealthy alternatives).

If you have an idea to help working mothers (and fathers) bring healthy creativity to their weeknight meals we at Premera would love to hear it.

Simply post your idea to Premera’s Facebook or Twitter page using the hashtag #IGNITEchange, or as a comment to their stories. You are then automatically entered into a drawing to win a $200 Amazon gift card. Best of all, you have the chance to impact a real person’s life. There will be four chances to win, once every week from now until September 8, 2014 (terms and conditions link expired).

Have a true game-changing idea that will spark families to make lasting, realistic improvements to their health?

Premera is rewarding that type of innovation as well through Premera’s Innovate to Motivate challenge (link expired), which offers a grand prize of $5,000!


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Looking at Healthcare Innovation from the Inside Out

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Taking a Swing at Healthcare InnovationAfter working for the last decade helping organizations from the OUTSIDE IN:

  • Build innovative marketing strategies

  • Manage multiple, simultaneous, cross-functional business projects

  • Optimize complex processes

  • Create an enterprise-wide innovation-focus

I thought it was time to flip things around and go native, and work with an outstanding organization to make some of these things happen from the INSIDE OUT.

I thought it was also time to dig deeper into an industry, get my hands dirty, and really come to know a particular vertical. And what could be more interesting in this time of rapidly escalating costs and innovation than the healthcare industry?

[Especially with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) going into force here in the USA]

It is with all of this in mind that I am happy to announce that I have taken an internal consulting position with Premera, one of the largest health plans in the Pacific Northwest.

Premera serves 1.5 million people—from individuals and families to Fortune 100 employer groups. Premera’s mission is to provide peace of mind to their customers about their healthcare.

As a result of joining up with Premera, I must also announce for this post and all future posts that the views here (and elsewhere) are mine and mine alone, and do not in any way represent the views of Premera.

This isn’t the end of my publishing here on BradenKelley.com or on Innovation Excellence (now Disruptor League) or the other places that I contribute. In my spare time I will still be writing, and doing the occasional innovation keynote or workshop in various places around the globe.

So, please keep in touch, and stay tuned for more to come!


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Food Innovation Sighting – Probiotic Chocolate

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Food Innovation Sighting - Probiotic Chocolate

I came across the inspiration for this latest food innovation sighting through a London Business School announcement of their upcoming TELL Series speakers, and noticing that Nancy Cruickshank, co-Founder of MyShowcase would be speaking on May 21, 2014.

Clicking over to the web site, I noticed that one of the highlighted products was Ohso Probiotic Chocolate which Andrew Marten brands as a healthy chocolate.

“Ohso Probiotic Chocolate is, quite frankly, the best invention since sliced bread. A delicious dark Belgian chocolate, it contains over a billion friendly bacteria per mini bar. If you love dark chocolate, you will love Ohso. And it loves you back, because as well as tasting divine it promotes your wellbeing via your gut.”

Apparently chocolate helps probiotics survive the journey to the gut where they can do some good and potentially help irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) sufferers.

Who knew?

So, here’s the question…

Innovation or not?


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Kentucky ‘Fraud’ Chicken – Food Fail

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Kentucky Fraud Chicken - Food FailCost Cutting Gone Mad

Every time I turn around, food continues to get less and less real.

Imagine my surprise when in a fit of weakness I turned up at my local KFC (yes, the word chicken is no longer in the name) and they simultaneously handed me honey sauce that is only 7% honey and told me that they were going to soon be offering chickens without bones as an option.

How can a chicken walk around without bones? 😉

Needless to say, that was my last visit to KFC unless I get stranded in an airport somewhere with no other option.

Is the unending quest for corporate profits in the food industry and our own quest for convenience killing us?

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but there is no doubt that chain restaurant food is getting less and less real and this is just the latest example of a company crossing the line of decency (in my opinion) in pursuit of profits.

What is your favorite food fail story?

NOTE: While not technically fraud, I bet that if you surveyed 100 people after they consumed honey sauce, that probably 80% of the people would tell you that they just ate honey, not corn syrup with a taste of honey. For what it’s worth.

Stay tuned for more high profile food fails…

P.S. Thanks to Glenn for turning me on to some Far Side humor to the boneless chicken issue.

Boneless Chicken Ranch

Image credit: Gary Larson, Just-Ask-Jill.com


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