Reflections on Community & HAPIfork's Kickstarter Campaign

I've done so many launches in my life that I'm not even sure I could count them all and yet a launch in and around crowdfunding is a relatively new experience for most of us.

Some launches alert the world that a product is shipping, that there's an IPO or a new partnership, that there are four new features than the previous version, that there's a new management hire, that the CEO is speaking on a panel, that product Z just won an award, or that an office is opening in Singapore...the list goes on. I've done them all.

Kickstarter, while not a new concept for the early adopters and technologists within my circles, my sisters who live in an East Coast small town have never heard of it nor have my friends in Florida, Minnesota and Canada. In other words, it's still a relatively new way for consumers to order a product, especially one which in many cases hasn't been built yet and there's only a basic prototype to show when the campaign goes live.

We're in day four of the HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign and plenty of press gave HAPIfork some love this week as part of the kick-off, the kind that is, that would cover this kind of announcement. The good news is that as a result of heightened media activity this week which comes on the heals of over 900+ media hits worldwide from its initial unveiling at CES in January, more and more mainstream press are intrigued and want to play with the fork.

From Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, Good Housekeeping, Penthouse and Men's Health, we've had discussions and coverage; it's a no brainer for their audience since its the kind of device mainstream consumers would want to try out just as they did when electric toothbrushes first hit the market and dentists confirmed that they can clean your teeth more comprehensively than a regular brush.  In both cases, there's a "mindful component" to it.

Why wouldn't consumers reading consumer magazines want to learn about a new digital device that can help them eat better, improve their digestion and eat less, thereby consuming less calories. In an eager-to-consume everything and anything country with astonishing obesity rates, the timing of HAPIfork couldn't be better. Even ABC News was intrigued and Jay Leno and The Colbert Report gave the smart fork a call out in mid-January while NBC News Scott Budman covered it the day after Kickstarter went live.

It is precisely the kind of device that will make people think more carefully about their eating habits and suddenly, a "new pattern" of thinking and eating more mindfully kicks in. The goal is to modify "speed" behavior at the onslought and then extend into more mindful habits beyond a plate of food over a meal.

The Benefits of an Early Community:

While there are clearly other ways to get funded, Kickstarter helps to identify the early adopters and fans who really understand the inherent value of a "smart fork". Beyond a fad, people who jump on board early assume faith in a product that embraces a way of thinking that goes something like this:

"A connected fork isn't the only way to get healthy and lose weight, because at the end of the day, it's always my own decision about what I eat, when I eat and how fast I eat. While human input is a big part of leading a healthier lifestyle, I for one, could use a little help. HAPIfork can remind me, prodding me with each bite I take, to eat healthier, slower and be more mindful in the process. Most importantly, I understand this is a starting point and realize that this fork can act as a digital coach to help modify my behavior over time...and alone, is an important first step to the path of mindful eating and living."

The above mantra or statement if you like, isn't an official statement from the company...it's how I personally think about HAPIfork as an enabler of healthy habits, starting with food.

Education will be a big part of this campaign, starting with Kickstarter and well into the coming months ahead. With Kickstarter, we will see the formation of an early community who is willing to take a healthy step into that universe, one that leads to a HAPier and more fulfilling life. 

Building a community isn't new, nor was it new at the birth of social media. Smart marketers have always understood that the customer is king and he/she leads the way, not the CEO. Customers aka your community is critical at the beginning of a product launch and throughout its entire lifestyle.

30 years later and I still flash a smile and feel an emotional bond when I see the Pillsbury Doughboy on TV. Great branding? You could say so, especially since I'm not their target audience. For decades, they achieved sustainable success inside their community (moms and women who bake with their products) and outside their community, people like me who have a warm and fuzzy feeling about their brand even though I'm not a user.

Regardless of what kind of product launch you're doing -- inside a crowdfunding paradigm like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo or out -- it always goes back to the customer and making them happy again and again and again. In recent years, I've seen far too many companies forget how important customer feedback is, for without them, there is no sustainable growth. There is no product. There is no company.

For HAPILABs and HAPIfork, it's the start of learning about a community that embraces the concept of happiness, mindful eating and health early on. It's been a thrilling ride to be driving the marketing and PR efforts since the prototype kick off, but as I watch the Kickstarter numbers rise hour after hour, and excitement runs up and down my spine, I remind myself that this is just the beginning. The exciting days are ahead as we learn from customers using the fork, how it has positively affected their lives.   

Here's the link to the Kickstarter campaign if you are interested in supporting the campaign at whatever level - as a supporter, or simply because you can't wait to get your paws on one of these magical HAPIforks.

HAPIfork on Kickstarter: Nearly 3 Days Into the Campaign

I remember being in the offices of a well known mobile and software company ten or so years ago after having lunch with the CEO. They had just completed an IPO and as we walked into the main office space, increasingly becoming overcrowded with cubicles, he noticed how many employees were watching the stock price on their screens.

With me trailing behind him, he abruptly stopped and addressed his teams with a sense of urgency that surprised me. He said in a bold voice: "I don't want to see you starring at numbers on your screen all day - spend your time doing whatever you can to make our existing customers happy."

Hear hear. At the start of the HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign two days ago, I found myself obsessed with checking the screen constantly, even during meetings. The addictive nature of a campaign that has $$'s attached to it is impossible to ignore. After day two, I stopped and returned to a quick check every other hour, as a way to quickly check the progress but not be consumed by it.

That said, a campaign of this nature takes on a life of its own. After four hours, the Kickstarter HAPIfork campaign was 10% towards reaching its $100K goal and on day three, we are at 42,544 at the time of writing this blog post. 

Here's a glimpse of my addictive screen grabs on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're off to a great start and kudos to the HAPILABS team, which is operating across five time zones. Please support us on the Kickstarter HAPILABS page so we can make inventor Jacques Lepine's dream come true.

Here's a sample of the fabulous media coverage since our campaign hit two days ago.....

• CNET - Donna Tam | 4/17 | HapiFork: Vibrating novelty or health revolution?
• Cult of Android - Eli Milchman | 4/17 | Hapifork Tattles To Your Phone About How Much You’re Eating [Kickstarter]
• Engadget - Christopher Trout | 4/17 | HAPILABS launches HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign, we go hands-on and in-mouth
• Fodors: http://www.fodors.com/news/best-new-travel-tech-for-2013-6387.html  
• Forbes - Larry Magid | 4/17 | A HAPI Meal That You Eat Slowly
• Fox - New York - Luke Funk | 4/17 | Fork vibrates when you eat too quickly
• Fox 10 TV - Alabama - Lenise Ligon | 4/17 | HAPIfork; Bluetooth enabled fork
• Health 2.0 News - Laura Montini | 4/17 | An Afternoon with the HAPIfork
• International Business Times - Esther Tanguintic-Misa | 4/17 | Problem Controlling Weight Gain? Curb It With Hapifork…
• Mashable - Chris Taylor | 4/17 | Hands On With the Fork That Tells You to Eat Slower
• Medical Daily - Susan Scutti | 4/17 | Vibrating Forks to Help You Lose Weight? The Unusual Intersection of SmartProducts and Crowdsourcing
• Nature World News - Tamarra Kemsley | 4/17 | 'Smart' Fork Vibrates When You Eat Too Quickly
• Science World Report – Kathleen Lee | 4/17 | Don't Put Your Fork Down, HAPIfork Vibrates if You Eat Too Quickly
• Slash Gear – Craig Lloyd | 4/17 | HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign officially launches
• TechCrunch – Gregory Ferenstein | 4/17 | Eating Fast Is Destroying Your Body. The HAPIfork’s Buzz Can Help
• The New Zealand Herald – AFP | 4/17 | Would you buy a vibrating fork to stop you getting fat? 
• The Washington Times – Jessica Chasmar | 4/17 | Obesity battle gets French weapon: Forks that vibrate on quick eaters
• TUAW – Mike Schramm | 4/17 | HAPIfork Kickstarter campaign goes live
• Ubergizmo – Hubert Nguyen | 4/17 | HAPIfork Starts Crowdfunding on Kickstarter
• Venture Beat – Rebecca Grant | 4/17 | World’s first connected fork could help you eat healthier, slower, and less
• Wall Street Journal – N/A | 4/17 | HAPIfork Now Available for Pre-Order on Kickstarter
• Xconomy – Wade Roush | 4/17 | Testing Kickstarter’s Appetite for a Digital Fork and 'Positive Punishment' 
• Boot Camp - Fred Fishkin | 4/18 | HapiLabs opens Kickstarter campaign for the HapiFork
• Financial Everyday   - N/A | 4/18 | HAPIfork Now Available for PreOrder on Kickstarter
• Gearburn - Bianca Budricks | 4/18 | Is HAPIFork a dumb fad or smart new eating tool?
• Gizmag - Dave Parrack | 4/18 | HAPIfork smart fork hits Kickstarter
• Health Care Asia - AFP | 4/18 | Vibrating Fork Helps Combat Obesity
• CBS Radio & Larrys World - Larry Magid | 4/18 | HAPIFork Helps You Eat More Slowly
• NBC - Bay Area - Scott Budman | 4/18 | 'HAPIfork' a New Tech Diet Tool
• NBC News - N/A | 4/18 | HAPIfork Now Available for PreOrder on Kickstarter

HAPIfork Launches Kickstarter Campaign: World's First Connected Fork Now Available for Pre-Order

For the last few months, as anyone in my circle can affirm, nothing has consumed more of my time than a magical little device called HAPIfork, referred to as the vibrating fork and also its claim to fame: the world's first connected fork.

Since our initial unveiling at CES, the world has embraced HAPIfork, eager to try this unique device aimed at helping you slow down how fast you eat.

Today, we're kicking a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the manufacturing and distribution of HAPIfork, so alas, people can finally pre-order the device which aims to transform people's relationship with food.

In January, HAPIfork was the recipient of the CES Innovations Award, Health & Wellness category and soon thereafter, the word quickly spread to over 50 countries globally culminating in hundreds of articles, blog posts, tweets, television and radio appearances as well as a fun shout out from The Colbert Report and Jay Leno.

Keeping in line with Kickstarter rewards at various funding levels, the HAPIfork will be offered as a perk for up to 2,500 people funding $89, and at the $99 level for anyone else who would like to be in the first commercial batch. In addition, the opportunity to be part of the beta testing program, receiving the HAPIfork at the earliest possible availability date, is offered at the $300 level perk. The campaign, which starts today and runs until May 31, 2013, has a fundraising target of $100,000.

HAPIfork was designed by French entrepreneur and inventor Jacques Lépine whose idea was based on research which shows that by eating slower, people can improve the way they feel, improve their digestion and lose weight.  

Unlike other health related tools, the HAPIfork is inconspicuous and appropriate for out-of-home use. The smart fork also collects information for future analysis or monitoring in clinical settings. All data is transmitted to a ‘personalized online dashboard’ when the user connects their HAPIfork to their computer or mobile device making it easy to monitor eating habits and health improvement at home or on the road.

The fork will be released in three colors (blue, green and pink) and will ship to Kickstarter funders first before the general public. The product will initially go on sale in the US and EU in the fourth quarter of this year.

Bravo and a well deserved High Five to the entire HAPILABS team. We're excited to move HAPIfork closer to distribution and grateful to Kickstarter for their support to get this campaign to GO!

SO, c'mon over and support us, order a HAPIfork and start eating more slowly, transforming the way you think about food, eat food and digest food. 

Onward & upward to a Healthier and HAPier place!

TEDActive 2013: Bubble Guns & Global Conversations on Lawns & Haystacks

As a long time TEDster, I had never been to its offshoot, an event that happens simultaneously every year called TedActive. It's essentially TED, but less expensive and less bells and whistles.

 

Since it is held a couple of hours from the main event, the speakers are obviously not on-site, however you do experience them through a satellite feed, which includes views of the audience, the main stage and the impact the speakers have on that audience in real time.

For years, TED has something called the 'simulcast' room, which is where you can view the talks in a separate room on a 'screen' not far from the main room.

Why some people love hanging out in the 'simulcast room' rather than the main room is that it allows them to quietly chat in the back, or type away on their keyboard if they have work to get done.

OR, if you're an A++ type who is simply too digitally connected to sit still with nothing but an old fashioned notebook among 1,000 of your "closest" friends, simulcast is the way to go.

All of TEDActive is a bit like that, except that the main room resembles TED's main simulcast room and TEDActive's additional simulcast rooms, which are even more casual, feel like a cross between a silent and creative experiment at a progressive university and an adult's playground.

In some of the rooms, there were tables with paper cut outs and magic markers if you wanted to jot down your ideas in "color" using "scraps". This year, they also had a 'banana' theme and while I still don't know what was behind it, it was oddly amusing to continuously bump into two guys who didn't know each other, yet both of their lives depended on bananas.

Snakeoil Cocktail mixologist Michael Esposito whipped up some drinks for the crowd late in the evening, as bodies migrated towards the pool and hot tubs in the rear. 

From bananas and spirited drinks to cut outs and designs, we moved to species and the Internet in a nano-second.

An idea was thrown out there by four respected illumaries in different fields: Diana Reiss, Peter Gabriel, Neil Gershefeld and Vint Cerf. The question was: could the internet also connect us with dolphins, apes, elephants and other highly intelligent species?

In a bold talk, the four of them came together to launch the idea of the interspecies Internet. 

When you're having a moment where you don't believe all things are possible, you remind yourself that you're at TED and they are.

There was a 'creative' lab' where Andy Cavatorta set up an exhibit that combined technology, robotics and music.

In that same space, a few of us were inspired to get creative at two am, not long after a martini sipping session where we ate blueberries with M&M's and talked science fiction to young MIT types.

Did I mention that I'm a sucker for fur vests, colored lights and 3D science fiction glasses? And in case you're wondering, yes we were posing.

There was creative energy at the final pool party as well, which included wild hats, squirt guns, funky pants, and bananas of course, all set on a whole lotta grass against a beautiful mountainous desert in a place called LaQuinta you may never have heard of unless a TED Conference happened to be breezing through. Here we consumed some R&R, sunscreen and bubbly whatever.

Speaking of grass, we also had a little lawn time with TED 2013 Prize Winner Sugata Mitra. Known for his work in education research, Mitra won $1 million TED Prize to build his School in the Cloud. 

He invited the world to embrace child-driven learning by setting up something he refers to as Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs) and asked the TED audience for help designing a learning lab in India, where children can “embark on intellectual adventures.”

While people were expanding their creative "juices" in whatever way they could, creative "things" were in place at the lab for people to play with and take in...

Below is a fabulous woman I met by the "so done right" coffee and tea bar set up in an area called the Quad, where we gathered on haystacks and picnic tables for lunch most days. She 'wore' her commitment to eco-living and seemed to have a different name each day. If I recall, she was Cool Carol the day we exchanged TEDities.

One of the things I loved about TedActive was its combination of youthful and international energy. Below, I'm with the curator of TEDx Bordeaux Emmanuelle Roques.  

With 72 countries on-site, I had 'curious' conversations, all of which had global perspectives, with folks from India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Australia, England, Holland, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, China, Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Chile, Colombia, Canada, Malta, Lebanon, Palestine, UAE, Turkey, Germany, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Israel, Belgium and Uganda.

And, those are only the ones that immediately popped into my head without diving into my business cards or the TED mobile app.

This global flare brings a different dynamic into the mix and overall, there were a lot less millionaires, no A+ celebrities and probably no billionaires.

If that's not your thing, then the Active experience is a more laid back way to experience TED where you can still stretch your brain, discover new ideas, be inspired, get your creative juices flowing, get off the grid for five days and have 'unique' conversations that make you think differently, then give it a shot.

Personally, there is always someone I know on the main TED stage every year, often more than one, and many more people I have known, worked, played and cried with for years attend the main event. The other thing you're more likely to get at the main TED event is an overdose of "intellectual high."

Comedian Julia Sweeney had the audience in stitches as she made references to her peeps, you know, the Nobel Prize Winners, Scientists, Authors & Inventors that were part (so not) of her everyday world from TED.

Accolades and titles aside, I've never been one for labels and titles: none of them -- celeb labels, CEO labels, soup labels, hair product labels or shoe labels.

Whether you're into them or not, labels and titles are in abundance at TED, all there to expand their mind, gather new ideas, and many later find a way to contribute to something they were exposed to at the event. I must admit, if I were only a little more "label, title and accolade savvy", it would certainly make the Oscars easier to understand.

While we're on the topic of labels and great design, I'd be remiss if I didn't include a shot of some of Yu Jordy Fu's fabulous design work. I found her fascinating.

Later, a random encounter led to an interview with Upstart Business Journal's Teresa Novellino, a TED virgin, over lunch. See her article here, which takes an entrepreneurship angle. I wouldn't call myself a groupie, but I am most certainly a fan of what TED represents: spreading great ideas, innovation, inspiration and helping the world become a better place through a collective effort.

I'm also a huge fan of the in the between stuff that happens before and after all the organized formalities that events "do," to throw people together. When there's space and time and the 'tossing' is cast aside, real magic happens. Incredible dialogues happen. Life changing observations form. Relationships emerge. New initiatives are created.

And, as a result, 'collective' conversations away from your 'collective' and 'individual' conversations in your daily worlds, make you think about the world differently.

In that moment, an idea sizzles, or more importantly, an old way of thinking gets shattered which brings me to an oldie but a goodie, one of my favorite Helen Keller quotes:

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one opening before us." -Helen Keller

Conversations like these remind you that there are always opportunities in front of us but so often, we're asleep and miss the silent intro.

I had another observation from hanging out with such a 'global 'tribe' over the course of five days. The early American "drive" seems to be getting replaced by more of a laissez faire attitude that no longer induces self ignition. See my write-up on Rescue America, a book released last year by Chris Salamone, that fixates on this shift.

Full of historical and philosophical references, he creates clear and specific connections between the loss of our founding values and the current challenges facing our nation. What is necessary, he suggests, is a fundamental shift back toward a national embodiment of the three primary leadership qualities that sustain all lasting human institutions: gratitude, personal responsibility, and sacrifice.

What I noticed at TedActive was how many people showed up from other parts of the world embracing all three.   

The notion that the "west" knows how to lead is something Americans do incredibly well. Many are good at doing it and even more are really good at giving the perception that they're good at doing it. My grandparents and parents generations learned that there were less boundaries than the countries they left behind, and were taught that hard work and education pays off.

In other parts of the world, boundaries are overcome through great sacrifice and taking personal responsibility to change the status quo, which can come in the form of political oppression, rapes that are brushed under the table, or worse.

TED speakers and attendees from other parts of the world are great examples of where and how they embrace gratitude, personal responsibility and sacrifice in their daily lives.

Take a look at this year's Yu Jordy Fu, who is not afraid to push boundaries, incorporating "raw beauty" and "love" into her design, art and architecture. 

OR, how violinist Ji-Hae Park uses her music to reach people’s hearts. "There are no boundaries,” says Ji-Hae Park on the TED2013 stage. While TED may be a lofty place to perform, she also plays at prisons, hospitals and restricted facilities. She talks about her time when she was depressed and how changing your perspective through music transformed how she viewed music but life itself.

OR, how Lakshmy Pratury with tears in her eyes, talked about the importance of keeping the Delhi rape alive, also reminding us that theres a new kind of revolution happening in India where the youth is breaking down the concept of a leader.

OR, how Hyeonseo Lee made sacrifices to get her family out of North Korea. As a woman who saw her first public execution at age 7, she endured a famine in the 1990s, one which killing an estimated million people. At the time, she didn’t have the frame of reference to understand the government repression going on around her but was later caught by the Chinese police.

Someone had accused her of being North Korean, and she was subjected to brutal tests of her ability to speak Chinese. Every year, countless North Koreans are caught in China, sent back, tortured, imprisoned, publicly executed, and now she is in Long Beach talking to thousands of people who can make a difference with their voices, blogs, connections, social media call outs and their wallets.

Then, there's the Ugandan artist & teacher Ruganzu Bruno Tusingwire, who I hung out with at TedActive. He became the first City 2.0 Award recipient of 2012 in Doha Qatar, at the TEDxSummit, which I attended last April. 

Tusingwire's big idea is to use waste materials to create a movable amusement park for children living in slums of Kampala.

He is using his award to grow his community, grow an woman eco-artist loan program already supporting 15 women to develop their business ideas, and expand the amusement park from a single plane-shaped sculpture made of recycled plastic bottles into a permanent park. I loved his energy, not to mention his visible sense of sacrifice, personal responsibility and gratitude. 

A few of my tweets from the week:

• Humans have made a huge hole in nature! We CAN bring back species we have killed &must repair the damage says Stewart Brand@longnow #TED2013
• .@rodneyabrooks shows off his latest #robot Baxter on the #TEDstage - http://ow.ly/i/1Ayqz  #robotics #factories #China #education
• .@bonovox_ shares updates from his activist work & latest #HIVstats:Child mortality down w/7256 kids being saved each day#health #TED2013
• #Education is not about filling buckets, it's about lighting fires says Stuart Firestein! http://ow.ly/i/1ABun  #TED2013 #TedActive
• Edith Widder shows #squid video: We've only explored 5% of our#oceans! http://ow.ly/i4Scx  + http://ow.ly/i/1ABE1  #TED2013 #TedActive
• Brazilian @SalgadoSebasti shows his strongest B/W images at#TED2013 http://ow.ly/i/1ABSF  #photography #rainforests #TedActive#eco
• Cities are living systems but #technology has always been part of "the city" asserts @SaskiaSassen at #TED2013 - #TedActive
• #Kenyan Richard Turere (13 yr old inventor) & LionLights 2save his familys cattle on TED2013 stage 2day http://bit.ly/KybBhL  #TedActive
• Its not about making learning happen,its about letting it happen@sugatamitra who subscribes2 self organizing learning #educator#TED2013
• Creative ideas from @ideasandaction @mabuzeinab@justwardah @tedxyouthTbird in #PalmSprings this AM:http://ow.ly/i/1AW5L  #TED2013
• Bowmaker @dongwooJANG uses bows 2explore his cultural heritage & create a metaphor for his perfect world #TED2013#TEDActive #design #Korea
• #Music is what restored my soul, changed my perspective & set me free says #violinist. Let music #heal your heart says Ji-Hai Park#TED2013
• Martin Villeneuve aka #MarsEtAvril designs the instruments inspired by a woman's body & the #photographer they both love. #TED2013

Another interesting international 'observation' was what was absent and what was wasn't. A latin band played on one of the nights and I was astonished that my partners on the dance floor were not Brazilian, Argentinian, Chilean or Peruvian, but German, French, Middle Eastern and Italian.

In fact, the Best Dancer Award for TEDActive from a 'partner perspective' goes to Mohammed Abu Zeinab from Qatar who is apparently half Palestinian and half Lebanese. Go figure...and he rocked it to Latin music of all things.

P.S. he even wore funky clothing the rest of the week.

TED reminds you that nothing in your world is really aligned the way you 'think it should be.'

It made me wonder what Wallace Stegner, Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy and Doris Lessing would make of TED talks. Would they be overwhelmed? Would they be able to make sense of the over digitized, over connected world we have created?

Someone who can make sense of it is AutoDesk's Jonathan Knowles who showed up for half of TedActive, wearing fabulous, fun and bright colored socks.

Having just migrated from PC to Mac, I was somewhat sad and somewhat ecstatic that our conversation would end up being largely tech support in nature. Two hours later, I was fully equipped with Mac tricks and tips, though I'm still far less efficient on a Mac than I was on my old trusty Lenovo.  

I couldn't help but get a chuckle over one of his tweets shortly after he arrive in Palm Springs.

Lunch at #TED2013 versus Lunch at #TEDActive #maybeExaggerateAbit: pic.twitter.com/IV3PoVIG8J 

Although excessive, I must admit, we did in fact have a lawn party with picnic baskets, sandwiches and cookies in 80 degree sunshine, the last time we'll likely do such a thing given that TED's new location is in Canadian Vancouver and Whistler next year.

Occasionally, you hang out with people you know and work with: below with Andrew Carton of HAPILABS.

And as always, they had a TED gift bag, which was a backpack made by Target this year. I went for the Explorer bag, which seemed appropriate given that one of my many hats is a travel editor. This of course included a stuffed elephant from World Wildlife Fund, which I named Gambia, and a gift card from Inventables (thx Zach), among umpteen other things. My pals over at TripIt also included a free year subscription and there was a GoToob Bottle from HumanGear I couldn't quite make sense of since the top didn't seem to stay on, which is a disaster for a traveler.

On the last night of TED, I headed back to Long Beach to have drinks and dinner with old friends and musician Amanda Palmer who performed this year, showed up and shared a few tunes with our intimate group, something which has become tradition for as long as I can remember. (the dinner part, not the Amanda part)

And at the end of the evening, there's always room for a little girl bonding or whatever it is we do that makes us feel feminine and human and connected and just fabulous being together. Below: former TEDPrize winner Jehane Noujaim, who is working on The Square, a film about the Egyptian Revolution, Amanda Palmer, Lakshmi Pratury, Renee Blodgett and Amy Robinson.

International flavors came out once again as Reggie Watts killed it on stage at the end of Ted Active with new sounds I hadn't heard before from him. I remain a fan!

Suddenly I found myself lifted up into the crowd and then over it, my body being passed from hands to hands....a remarkable experience especially when you realize that each set of hands are likely from a different continent.

How cool I thought as I looked beyond the crowds below me as people bumped together, swaying to the hypnotic music that extended beyond us into the lofty palms that give Palm Springs its name.

Behind me were the non-swayers sipping drinks and networking in their respective courtyard corners. In the foreground, I spotted Jill Sobule not far from the stage, and then there was Reggie performing in all his eclectic glory, surrounded by a fusion of pinks and hazy midnight hues and I wondered for a moment if it was all just a dream.

Also see some of my individual blog posts from TED 2013 this year, including:

• Four Ted Speakers Who Appeal To Our Sensory Selves
• TED2013 Prize Winner Sugata Mitra's Wish for Education: "School in the Cloud"
• Ugandan Ruganzu Bruno Tusingwire Empowers & Engages Children Through PLAY
• Jordy Fu, Creator & Artist: Create Love Through Design
• Brazilian Photographer Sebastiao Salgado Shares His Story at TED2013 
• Rad Hip Gardener Ron Finley Wants to Greenify Inner City Neighborhoods 
• Saskia Sassen on the Value of Imperfect & Incomplete Cities at TED2013 
• Inspiration at TED2013: From Music & Healing to Endangered Species & Mobile Electric Vehicles
• Dan Pallotta: Think About a Charity's Deams, Not Their Overhead 

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Photo Credits: All visibly on-stage photos of speakers from the Ted Blog, the shot of Renee and Emmanuelle taken by Teresa Novellino, Yu Jordy Fu with her artwork shot from her site, all other shots by Renee Blodgett. 

TedActive Write-Up in Upstart Business Journal

What can an entrepreneur get out of TED or TEDActive, where today the lineup includes everyone from a yo-yo champion to a punk, burlesque singer to SpaceX and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk?

I was interviewed by Upstart Business Journal's Teresa Novellino over lunch one day about my experience at TEDActive last week, my first 'Active' event after attending many TED's over the years and a growing number of TEDx events around the globe. Here's a link to her story. Below, I am hanging with TEDx Bordeaux organizer Emmanuelle Roques. Yes, Bordeaux France, the place where fabulous wine comes from and let's just say I'm a fan.

BTW, I spoke to a number of French entrepreneurs, academics and geeks at the event, as well as people from nearly every continent. It's one of the things I really loved about the TEDActive experience: it was incredibly international with over 72 countries represented this year.

Photo credit: Teresa Novellino.

 

The Connected Things Discussion at London's WebSummit

Techcrunch's Mike Butcher interviews Alex Hawkinson of Smart Things and Fabrice Boutain of HAPILABS in an interactive chat on the Web Summit stage in London last week.

Below is a video of their conversation, which includes demos.

 

PC Magazine & Beyond: It's Award Time for HAPIfork

With the craziness of CES and launch of HAPIfork behind us, it's great to be reminded of the love consumers, industry illuminaries and press alike gave to HAPILABS during that long but exhilerating week in early January.

We were excited to learn that PC Magazine awarded HAPIfork a Best of CES Award from the show.

Writes Dan Costa in his post: "Given the nationwide obesity epidemic, it is a wonder no one thought of this before. We need smarter forks. The HAPIfork is a little bigger than you standard fork, but it does a lot more. Charge it up and it will monitor not just how many bites you take, but also the pace at which you eat. If you try to take more than one bite every 10 seconds, the fork will gently vibrate to tell you to slow down. Once you are done, you can upload all this data to an online service that will let you track it, and presumably, share this data with friends." 

We're thrilled about this great honor on the heals of an award from CNET as well, not to mention the Design and Engineering Showcase Honors Award. Below the HAPILABS team shows off the Design & Engineering award on-site in Las Vegas in our very HAPIbooth.

My Top 12 Picks for CES 2013: From Speakers & Robots to Accessories & Backpacks

 

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month was once again a flurry of new products and as always, I felt as if I was constantly surrounded by pitches of TV flat screens, new speaker designs, casing, docking stations, chargers, dancing robots, iPhone accessories, surround sound substitutes, and more. What stood out was the increasing number of vendors participating in the Digital Health pavilion this year.

Clearly, the marriage of technology and health is increasing at alarming speeds, with products and solutions aimed at helping consumers take charge of their health by collecting and analyzing their own personal data, something that wasn't available to us even ten years ago.

It was no surprise that Fitbit won a Best of CES award, a product which tracks your fitness and has been on the market for awhile now. It's inevitable that the health and wellness category is primed to explode in the coming year. 

As for other categories? Sure, I'm a geek, but I'm a female geek who loves great design and rich colors. I'm always a sucker for products in luscious colors - the problem with so many of these products is that they're created and designed by men, so often our choices are limited to neon green, bright girly blues and pinks, or red, black and white.

If women designers were behind more products, I'd imagine we might actually see a high end stereo system in an eggplant purple, burgundy or an olive green, something that wouldn't clash with our sofas, curtains and painted walls. I spoke to four speaker companies about this conflict and guess what? Weaving a color design into a living room hadn't even occurred to them.

As a traveler and writer, most of my top picks were focused on products that would be useful for the mobile warrior, often lightweight, reasonably priced and compact.

Degauss Labs Earphones

The SPKRS Series is a line of earphones by Degauss Labs that is focused on top notch sound quality. They tout that the bass is amazing (I haven't received them yet but did see them purr on the show floor). In its price range, SPKRS are durable and comfortable. 

The all aluminum housing absorbs vibrations and preserves the sound quality. The housing is coated with a special technique making the housing as matte and clean looking as the rest of the earphone, rarely found on metal housed earphones. They feature an enhanced acoustic design that helps music sound smoother. 

SPKRS comes in a variety of carefully selected AND fun colors. SPKRS is UNIVERSAL and works with Apple iPhone, and the latest version of Android phones from Samsung, HTC and Sony. Windows phone by Nokia is also supported.

Ranipak Backpacks & iPad Cases

I loved the slick design of Ranipak's new Y.U.M.C. Series. Great for travelers on the go, there are tons of pockets and great colors (particularly liked the eggplant).

Their other range of products includes messenger bags, backpacks, business cases, computer and tablet cases & sleeves, duffels, totes and luggage.

All products are done in a great European design with a global appeal.

HyperJuice External Batteries

One of the funkiest designed products I accidentally came across were the HyperJuice external batteries for Apple MacBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod and USB products. Behind the products is Sanho Designs, which design, manufacture and market IT accessories with a focus on Apple accessories, portable power and storage. 

Their product brands include: HyperJuice - External batteries for Apple MacBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod, USB products, HyperDrive - Portable digital data storage products for Apple devices, digital cameras, memory cards, HyperShield - Cases, stylus pens and other accessories for Apple devices, and HyperThin - World's thinnest most flexible HDMI cables.

For travelers, their products are a Godsend, particularly for those who carry more than one digital product with them like me. Let's just say I can't wait to test out the HyperJuice Mini, Micro and PLUG and I have a feeling, I'll be a prolific user. The company also is smart about design...and they offer a number of rich and fun colors.

Switch Easy

SwitchEasy offers some stylin' products for the iPad and iPhone as well as great compact keyboards, ideal for the digital traveler. They offer iPad cases and iPod Touch cases in a number of designs and rich colors.

Their mission is to provide more reasons for PC users to "Switch" to a better digital lifestyle through our innovative little add-ons. 

See below for the Safekey Keyboards Protection, which I plan to try out soon on the road. To the left of the keyboards is one of many beautifully styled iPad cases they offer.

Edifier

Edifer offers a few speaker options that are perfect for those on-the-go.

Sound To Go PLUS is all about portability - they do an all-in-one micro speaker with re-chargeable Lithium battery. Encased in a brushed aluminum chassis, it features 2 channel stereo with 2 full range 1.25" drivers on each channel (magnetically shielded). It also features a built-in 'Class D' amplifier and a 3" x 1.25" oval passive radiator, which means someting to those in the audio world. 

GeoPalz

GeoPalz, creators of the first decorative pedometer for kids, introduced the ibitz PowerKey for children and ibitz Unity for parents to its suite of products. With ibitz, a family’s electronics are powered by physical activity. Each ibitz connects wirelessly to select Bluetooth 4.0 phones, tablets and laptops to track physical activity. For kids, the ibitz PowerKey converts physical activity into “keys” that unlock rewards, while the ibitz Unity for parents tracks the overall progress of family health goals.

The ibitz PowerKey for kids not only unlocks access to games and apps, but also allows each user to maintain the health of their own GeoBotz virtual pet character within their app.   

Foldable Rubber Keyboards by Chin Fai

Chin Fai has a host of incredibly useful rubber roll up keyboards which are bluetooth enabled, a seriously must-have companion for any traveler.

They also have a host of brightly colorful rubber products which encase iPhones, iPads and other devices to help protect them against wear and tear - you can even drop your product encased by one of these and it protects the outer layer and edges of the device.

HAPIfork

HAPIfork, the world's first connected fork that slows down how fast you eat received a substantial amount of attention, so much so that the booth was always full of broadcast cameras, producers, doctors, health afficiandos and people who have lost weight or were looking to...among other eager enthusiasts.

While (full disclosure), I am involved in the company, it is on my picks list because it is a product I was excited about even before their launch and a reason I decided to jump on board. There is no other product like it on the market and for someone like me, who travels incessantly and never seems to have time for a 'slow' meal, it makes for a perfect "throw-it-in-your-bag" utensil which not only will help me slow down how fast I eat on the road, but track it on my desktop and mobile phone as well.

HAPIfork received so much buzz, we had to turn away opportunities knocking on our doorstep because we were limited with only 3 prototypes on the show floor.

I think the "smart" HAPIfork struck a chord with people because it's such a device that can modify your behavior, prompting you to slow things down, thereby eating less, which is better for your overall health and well-being in the short and long term.

Action Camcorders by Astak

For under $300, you can get one of Astak's action camcorders, which comes with a 170 ultra-wide angle lens that supports 1080p HD video recording. You can shoot 8 megapixel photos hands-free and there's a built-in LCD screen, which includes real time display and video playback. The nice thing for adventure travelers, is that there's waterproof housing which goes down to 197 feet or 60 meters. I could have used this handy device when I was swimming with baluga whales this summer in northern Canada. 

It also comes with a rechargeable lithium battery and has four recording modes: 1080p 30fps, 720P 60fps, 720P 30fps or WVGA 60fps. It connects via a USB 2.0 and has a built-in microphone. Additional sports accessories are also available. I haven't tested it yet but hope to do a more extensive review if and when I get product in hand.

House of Marley Headphones

I was running to get to an appointment and House of Marley's booth stopped me dead in my tracks. Creative, compelling, and loaded with well-designed noise-canceling headphones in fabulous colors with a deep, rich sound. Their headsets are the culmination of natural materials and technology coming together to make beautiful music.

Stainless steel, leather and high-quality recycled aluminum blend to create a striking, sophisticated look. And the performance meets that look. With battery powered noise-canceling headphones, it reproduces an intimate, authentic sound that lets you truly feel the music.

 

I can't wait to test these out!

Mizco's iPad, iPod, iPhone Accessories

From Mizco, I came across the iEssentials products. For around $30, they have a 2-in-1 Car and Wall Charger that lets you charge two devices simultaneously, whether you're on the road, in your office or at your home.

I also loved their Diamond Cases for iPhone 5. Their cases are form fitting, so they fit snugly around your phone and includes embedded rhinestones for additional style. Unlike so many products of this ilk, they come in richer non-pastel colors. What I loved most was how durable they felt in my hands.

Moneual Robot Cleaner

Another product I'd love to test out and use is the Robot Cleaner by Moneual, which I saw a demo of on the show floor. A high performance BLDC Motor outputs stronger suction, and is powered by the latest long lasting Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery.

Great for both hard floor and carpeted floor surfaces, the vacuum's mop attachment can be attached for hard floors, allowing for vacuuming and mopping to function at the same time. Twin side brushes allow for a wider, effective cleaning width to brush debris towards the main brush for collecting. 

The vacuum can cover up to 1,200 square feet on one charge, depending on clutter, as maneuvering around clutter may impact cleaning time. Additional specialized cleaning modes include corner, shadow, and scheduled cleaning. It even has the ability to return to the charging dock after a cleaning session! 

 

Integrating HAPIness Into Your Life: Reflecting on the HAPIfork Launch

Another CES has come and gone and the HAPIfork is now officially launched. While I’ve attended hundreds of trade shows, probably 20 CES’s and launched dozens and dozens of products over the years, this launch was different.

In the course of one week, HAPIfork, the first connected fork that helps you slow down how fast you eat, garnered media attention from outlets on every continent except for Antarctica and I expect that will come soon given the hype.

People tweeted about HAPIfork from about 80 countries and wrote about it from 73 more. In less than two weeks, nearly 10,000 tweets mentioned #HAPIfork from around the world.

From Good Morning America, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, The Today Show, Dr. Oz, World News Tonight to USA Today, the WSJ, Rolling Stone, Jay Leno, the Colbert Report, Huffington Post, Techcrunch, Scientific American and CNET, HAPIfork was brought the world’s attention.

Frankly, given that I think like as much like a journalist as I do a marketing pro, I knew HAPIfork would be hot. After all, it has a lot of unique selling points.

First, it’s a handsome looking gadget with a clean design that comes in five fun colors.

Second, it is unique in what it does: helps you slow down how fast you eat.

Third, it was developed by the French, a country known for enjoying their food and taking long meals.

Fourth, there hasn’t been an innovation to the fork in….I don’t know, perhaps since the invention of the fork itself?

What I didn’t anticipate was how fast HAPIfork’s “hotness” would accelerate, particularly at a show like CES which shows off thousands of new products and innovations from around the world. In other words, it’s a crowded show to make a new product from an unknown company in the U.S. truly shine.

So, what is the sensation really all about? HAPIfork addresses an emotional issue we all have as humans - eating. As a woman, I’ve dealt with issues around weight and eating fast since I was a teenager and there probably isn’t one person who can’t relate to both at least on some level.

While I’ve never been heavy and come from lankier family stock than not, as a teenager and in my twenties, there was a lot of pressure to be thin largely because of the way the media flashed images of models the size of toothpicks. For men, the pressure may not be as acute, however whether it’s for “image” or peer pressure, maintaining our ideal weight isn’t easy for most of us.

And, at the end of the day, it’s not healthy to be overweight and it doesn’t get any easier as we age. In addition to known benefits of having a healthy diet, eating the right food can change your energy levels, your mental attitude and reduce if not eliminate the cravings you once may have had, e.g., starchy and processed foods with excess amounts of sugar.

While I’m not a dietician or a doctor, I celebrate health benefits from a cleanse once a year and notice positive differences in my body when I eat a more alkaline diet. While eating unhealthy food and too much of it is an obvious known issue, what we don’t pay as much attention to as a society is how FAST we eat and the impact it has on our consumption.

When we eat slower, we consume less calories (roughly 11%), we improve our digestion and decrease issues related to gastric reflux. If you’re over the age of 35, ask yourself how many TV ads you remember seeing as a child on antacid products and how many you see today? It ‘feels’ like there’s an antacid commercial on the hour.

HAPIfork is unobtrusive. When you are eating too fast, you’ll receive a gentle vibration, reminding you to slow things down. Some people argue that they don’t need a fork to make them eat slower and can do it on their own. While some people may have that level of discipline, there are thousands of others who need a little help.

We all know people who are so disciplined; they're the people who find themselves at the gym seven days a week. There are others who fare better with a trainer and others who can’t stick with a program at all.

Think of HAPIfork as a personal coach which can prompt you to slow down one aspect of your busy schedule: your meal.

For me personally, the busier my day, the faster I tend to eat and so a $99 investment in a device that can help modify that behavior is a no brainer. Reality check: Apple charges close to that for a plastic adapter cable that merely charges a laptop.

And, let's not forget the countless other plastic gizmos that are priced above $99 in places like Brookstone, airline magazines, TV advertorials and beyond, that don’t help improve your health.

The second issue that HAPIfork touches on is behavior modification, which is important if people want to see improvements in their health or anything for that matter.

Consider This: a coach asks you to work out for 60 minutes a day and yet when you start off, you can’t even make it past 15 minutes without huffing and puffing. In the back of your mind, you think “this is impossible,” and feel like quitting. What if he came back to you and said, “start off with 20 minutes a day for three weeks and then increase it to 30 minutes a day,” and so on. Suddenly you feel that this might be possible after all, you start to see some progress even if its small. Now, how do you feel?

Consider This: you’re a smoker and while your Uncle John quit cold turkey and your family is hounding you to do the same, you don’t seem to have the same willpower as Uncle John. And so, you start to wear the patch and chew the gum so you can reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke a day. Suddenly, your one pack a day is down to four cigarettes a day and then ten a week. Now, how do you feel?

Enter the world of behavior modification and the impact that even slight shifts in behavior can have on your overall health and well-being. Slight behavior modification can lead to moderate and/or dramatic behavior modification over time.

HAPIfork offloads your eating patterns to an online dashboard which you can check on a daily or weekly basis, data you can also access from your phone (Windows 8, iPhone and Android).

The dashboard shows a percentage of how much faster you are eating than you should, so as you slow down, you can see that number improve over time.

The great thing about the data is that you can either choose to keep it private or share with your family or even a doctor who may be working with you on an overall dietary program.

When we start to see incremental improvements in our scores, we can feel not just a sense of ‘hope,’ that yes, we can actually do this, but empowerment.

With empowerment comes changes in behavior and with those changes, comes a healthier and I’d argue, a more integrated and holistic self. The more awareness we have about our habits, the more we can feel empowered to change them based on information we have personally captured.

After all, it’s your body and we only have one in this lifetime. Why not treat it right? It’s harder to do when we don’t realize just how badly we abuse it on a daily basis, whether that be less sleep than we should be getting, smoking, consuming processed food or eating too fast.

I am excited to be working with the HAPILABS team because of how we can help empower others to take control of their health and take control of their lives. If you were at CES, you may have heard HAPILAB’s CEO Fabrice Boutain walk around with his finger up in the air and saying “Join our HAPIrevolution” with a smile on his face.

If you weren’t in Las Vegas, you’ll see and hear that sentiment in our literature, on our website and at the core of the HAPILABS team across three continents. If you ever run into anyone on the HAPILABS team, you’ll bound to be affected by the contagious HAPI energy and desire to help people turn their health and well being into a positive force.

The goal here is not just to launch a fork, but a way of “being and thinking” about your health. In this HAPIrevolution, our hope is that together, we can raise the awareness and take charge of when we eat, what we eat and how fast we eat.

Help us help you so we can collectively reduce the rising numbers of growing disease and obesity in the U.S. and around the world.

Photo Credits: Screenshots from HAPILABS, woman with food from Sara Beyer/Flickr, slow eating and digestions panels from SlowControl, group shot taken in booth on my trusty Canon 7D. Voltaire image from Chanty Elise Designs.

Mobile Loco Brings the Best of Advertising, Geo-Location & Branding to the Mobile World

Held last week in San Francisco, the MobileLoco event merged the best of geo-location, advertising, branding and the mobile world.

Run by serial marketer Mark Evans, the event aspires to dive into the brand, advertiser and mobile convergence in the context of the Social, Local and Mobile (SoLoMo) marketplace.

The discussions revolved around what this convergence means for big brands, consumers, SMBs and the mobile and location industry.  

On-stage, we heard from the likes of Andrew Mason of Groupon, Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley, Banjo's Danien Patton and the Mobile Engineering Lead of Airbnb Andrew Vilcsak.  Other voices included Bloomberg TV's Cory Johnson, Google's Don Dodge, Nextdoor's Nirav Tolia, Postmates Bastian Lehmann, Foursquare's Holger Luedorf, Micello's Ankit Agarwal and others. 

Above: Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon

Client inTooch partnered with MobileLoco so users could easily and seamlessly exchange contact and social network information on the fly. A free mobile app for iPhone and Android, attendees could network that much faster and more efficiently using the app rather than have to exchange business cards or manually add Twitter and Facebook 'handles.'

Above: Steve Brehaut, Renee Blodgett, Julien Salanon

Since geo-tagging is built in, the inTooch app tracks where connection requests are made and will link all connection requests to the location, in this case the Mobile-Loco event in San Francisco, CA. When users browse through their connections, they can see all the connections they made at Mobile-Loco. 

There were other cool products there too. A group out of Japan from Daq was on-site showing off their creative iPhone and iPad IRUAL cases.  I find that most cases are pretty bland, come in plain colors or are frankly too tacky. Then there are those specifically targeted to the 13-18 year old market, but what happens if you don't fall into any of those categories? I loved their designs specifically aimed at women - from soft and feminine to daring and electric.

Then, I had a demo of DigitalGlobe, who apparently did a deal with MapBox on the same day. Mapbox, which is a provider of open source solutions for designing and publishing maps via the cloud, chose DigitalGlobe as their commercial and earth imagery provider.

Users can now incorporate DigitalGlobe's high-resolution satellite imagery as their maps' base layer for added quality and rich detail. The result can be quite beautiful, especially compared to the bland offerings today.

Then I went back in time to my speech recognition and natural language processing days. I saw a nifty demo from a group who call themselves SpeakToIt. What they do? Develop talking personal assistants.

The SpeaktoIt Assistant is a virtual buddy for your smartphone that answers questions in natural language, performs tasks and notifies you of important events. The Assistant is meant to save you time and make communication with gadgets and web services easier and less stressful. 

All photos by Renee Blodgett.

Cormac Conroy VP, Engineering, Products, Qualcomm

David Staas, President, JiWire