Weight-loss, gamification and common sense: a delicate balance

Reading this article on the Guardian website over lunch, and related tweets, I felt moved to respond myself.

The author of this article is right to scoff at the marketing around Weightwatchers’ traditional seasonal membership drive. After all, the messages are designed to appeal to the kind of people who make generalised new year’s resolutions – “MUST LOSE WEIGHT!” – but aren’t bright/motivated/organised enough to figure out how to do it.

Gamification, a neologism that has risen to prominence in the past two years, describes the act of taking an activity that is not a game and turning it into a game to increase audience engagement.

Proponents argue that gamification can be used to positively influence human behaviour by incentivising constructive activities that humans otherwise can’t really be bothered with.

It’s a bit like offering a child a biscuit if she cleans her bedroom, or awarding a New Year’s honour to a Conservative if he gives some money to the government.

Gamification is a concept at the heart of the Weight Watchers’ new campaign, driven this week by the launch of the website PlayWeightwatchers.co.uk – although here, the idea is to find a participant and remove their money and biscuits.

“Weight Watchers is a game we play to lose weight,” states the first line of the site’s copy in a crisp attempt to move the gruelling work of dieting away from the imagery of self-flagellating, fasting monks to the rotund bounce of Super Mario.

Dig deeper on the site to uncover the rules of the Weight Watchers game and details are disappointingly thin on the ground. “Playing” appears to be little more than an obfuscated version of calorie counting.

So the rather frivolous marketing message is annoying, yes.

But at the risk of defending weightwatchers, there is something effective about the points/goals/scoring system they operate which appeals to those motivated by targets and personal challenge, if not fully “gamers”.

Personal disclaimer/experience which allows me to comment on this in more than just a mediasnarky way: I lost 4.5 stone in 12 months a few years ago. I did this via a variety of methods (eating better & moving more being the main and most effective contributory factors – ’twas ever thus!) but I did sign up to Weightwatchers online and used the system to log (food diary), count (via their points system, which isn’t the current ProPoints, but whatever came before) and chart (via weight tracking graph) my progress. It was useful for that.

I didn’t attend a single meeting (can’t think of anything worse) and I ignored all the shuddersomely ignorant messageboards (sample question: “Which has more points? A BigMac or a Quarterpounder with Cheese?”)

The discipline of keeping track of food in and energy out and weight up/down was absolutely key for me, and has been cited by all sorts of people and organisations as a common factor in helping weight loss and healthy lifestyle be a life-change not just a crash-diet. Even the most intelligent among us can benefit from seeing a direct relationship between fuel consumed, fuel burnt and load carried. Because it is that simple.

Part of this was setting small, achievable goals – weightwatchers recommend 7lb increments, and at the time awarded you badges for hitting these targets. I took a different approach, because I’m not motivated by badges (apart from that Blue Peter one I got for painting a stegasaurus in 1983), and instead made a giant spreadsheet containing lots of weight equivalents which I could visualise better than numbers*. Because I’m a geek.

For example, 1st 7lb is the average weight of a female badger. Why on earth would you carry a badger around all the time? What a ridiculous thing to do. You’d feel far better if you put that bloody badger down and let it go snuffling off into the hedgerows or whatever (etc).

Other people may be more motivated by hitting round numbers, or dropping a BMI unit or whatever. YMMV.

Nevertheless, tracking was key for me. And WW – however full of mouth-breathers eating ready meals and fast food it may appear – was helpful in doing that. Other apps and schemes and software is available – including paper and pen, though you would have to do some jiggery-pokery to convert calories etc into something consistent to take into account that calories from saturated fat or carbs are different from those derived from protein.

Weightwatchers online database does that, for a lot of common foods (banana, 1 slice of wholemeal bread, glass of orange juice) as well as branded things (1 slice dominos pepperoni pizza, 1 muller light strawberry flavour, waitrose macaroni cheese ready meal). But on the whole I found it easier to set up and save a bunch of meals on there myself by inputting the recipes from fresh ingredients, because I cook from fresh most of the time and don’t eat ready meals e.g. “Meg’s Veg Soup = 1 onion, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tin tomatoes, 2 carrots, 1 bunch spinach, 1 pt stock, 1 slice bread, 10g lurpak light = 2 servings @ 2pts/serving” (in that example, the points came from the bread, butter and olive oil, the other things being “free”)

Since I knew that I was supposed to be aiming for a certain number of points a day, doing this sort of tracking allowed me to “budget” points throughout the day – so many for lunch, so many for a snack, and so on. If I’d already used up more points than expected on breakfast and lunch, then mid afternoon I could have an apple (free) instead of a biscuit (2pts). Sounds obvious, but if you lack discipline and willpower, then structures help, even ones that should be obvious.

And yes, “earning” points through physical activity is part of it, too. Cardio, swimming, running (I did couch to 5k) and even walking an extra tube stop or two earn you points to deposit in the bank, which you can offset against the fuel you consume. Walking an hour a day meant I could continue to share a bottle of wine with my husband as a friday night winding-down ritual. When you set activity against reward like that, it’s easy to put your trainers on.

But while it’s easy to say “walk around the block and you can have another biscuit” the key is probably to think of it the other way round: “Had a biscuit too many? Get off your arse and go for a walk”

* Here’s the spreadsheet. These values were collected from a variety of sources. As you can see, there are some values I haven’t been able to find direct equivalents for. Suggestions welcome!

Weights and equivalents

Hello, world

Things have been a bit quiet around here over the last few months, for which I must apologise. It wasn’t my intention to “go dark” for a spell, but neither have I had the time – or, frankly, energy – to update with anything approaching the velocity of things in my head. There’s so much to talk about and think about at the moment, from community design to open news, from riots and social networks to patterns of protest. There are so many conversations to be had and links to be shared about all this, but unfortunately, as is often the case, life got in the way.

And what’s the life that’s got in the way for updating here? Well, a hectic work life, as ever. But also a new life. A baby.

Excitingly, Paul and I are expecting a baby (our first), due in early March 2012. Feeling completely appalling for several months plus the constant soul-draining exhaustion that has accompanied it has made doing anything interesting somewhat challenging, and though I’m now feeling a bit better, I’m still being careful not to overpromise or overcommit (after several years of doing both, which came to a juddering halt in the middle of the summer with this marvellous news).

I don’t talk about personal things much here at all, but this is worth mentioning and celebrating, especially if you’ve been with me on this blog journey for much of the nearly dozen years I’ve been at it. We’re naturally over the moon about the incoming addition to our little family, as well as somewhat overwhelmed with the prospect of all the changes and challenges that will bring. But what an adventure.

So that may explain – or excuse? – my recent absence from bloglandia, and (if you have been trying to engage with me in a professional context) why I have been maddeningly difficult to pin down to speaking commitments and the like at the end of 2011 and through into 2012. I’m doing one more overseas trip this year (Brazil, in a few weeks, for MediaON) and then I’m hanging up my passport and carry-on bag for a while, not least because the airlines won’t let you fly after a certain point in the pregnancy.

Anyway, I won’t promise to update more, because I don’t want to raise expectations. But I will promise to try and find time to share some of the stuff I’ve been thinking, doing and working on over the last few months, and the months to come.

As to what happens next year, clearly that’s still being worked out. I’ll be on maternity leave for a bit, obviously, and following that, back to the exciting world of media, social & community development/engagement. But I’m not gone yet. And even when I am, I’ll be back soon enough.

In the meantime – hello! I’m still here.

Initial reflections on Newsfoo

On arrival at Newsfoo a couple of weeks ago in Phoenix, Arizona, each participant was given a notebook. The notebook may have just been a rather fine example of conference schwag, but looking back at it after the weekend, I realise that mine speaks volumes – not what I jotted down during sessions, but what I didn’t. Or rather, the pattern of my note-taking during the event.

I noted down on a fresh page the name of the session I was attending, and the time, so I would later be able to piece together the sequence of sessions I attended at least, through a fug of jetlag. Underneath each session’s title, there follows about a page of notes – the questions under discussion, framing the topic, perhaps, or salient quotes and ideas. And then, by the time we get to the second page, the notes descend into lists – of names (people in the room and beyond), book titles, publications, other references cited, half ideas, questions – all headed by an underlined FOLLOW UP LATER.

This tells me two things about my experience of Newsfoo: One, that I was frequently too busy listening, thinking and participating to record the event. There was so much going on! And two, that each session acted as a catalyst for further thinking, reading, conversation afterwards. In other words, you needed your attention in the room; and the session was only the beginning.

This perhaps provides some context for the misunderstood suggestion from O’Reilly organisers, who dissuaded people from liveblogging and tweeting during sessions. Some – who weren’t there, incidentally – saw this suggestion on the event wiki and reacted angrily, referring to a “twitter ban” and alleging that this was part of a conspiracy to keep the content of the event secret, cabal-like.

On the contrary. My impression was that people were free to socialise and cover their perspective of the event (at least anything that wasn’t covered by O’Reilly’s famous FrieNDA, which is like a person- or statement-specific Chatham House rule), just not in real time. And since the weekend in Phoenix, there have emerged a number of stimulating, informative and thoughtful blog posts – and I expect more will emerge in time.*

So it’s not that nothing was said. It’s that, like coffee, Newsfoo reactions took time to percolate – though, as a non-coffee-drinking Brit, I’m bound to say that a good cup of tea needs time to steep (we call this “masting”) before it’s ready to drink. Whisk the teabag out too soon and your cuppa is insipid, weak – hardly worth bothering with at all.

In my experience, inserting a pause in usual social reporting activities/obligations provided time and mental space to listen to, reflect on and add to what was being said.
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Ten amazing people I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for having a blog

Part of my tenth blogiversary series.

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive, and only really includes people who I’ve met or connected with through blogging rather than work or webbiness in general, though of course there are plenty of the latter who also blog. If you’re not on this particular list, please don’t be sad. It’s not that you’re not important too! And please note that everyone linked to here is still blogging…in some fashion.

1. Paul is (now) my wonderful, talented, funny, endlessly patient husband. But before he was my husband or even my boyfriend, he was blogging at digitaltrickery and made me laugh and intrigued in his blog, over IM and at early blogmeets. He thinks a lot of blogging is nonsense. He’s not wrong. But I can’t dismiss the entire medium which introduced me to him, can I?
2. Dan was present at the very first UK Blogmeet in June 2000 in Kings Cross (we must have a reunion later this summer, especially since I now work down the road from the place where it was held) and at the time, a student blogging under the name Daily Doozer. But Dan has gone on to amaze and impress me along with the rest of the world with his creative passion and insight about games and alternative ways of exploring worlds with the company he founded sixtostart.
3. Katy was also at the first Blogmeet (back then, Kitschbitch) and in the last decade has gone from schoolgirl to student to insightful and accomplished ad agency doyenne, without breaking a sweat. How does she do it? Energizer batteries?
4. Tom, another first Blogmeet attendee, but back then blogging at Barbelith. He probably needs no introduction to the majority of web-aware people. But in the decade I’ve known him, I’m glad to know there’s more to him than the web wunderkind legend many see. He’s playful, kind, creative and clever. Unfortunately, he lives thousands of bloody miles away now, the rotter.
5. Giles is a dark horse. He came to the first blogmeet too, then (as now) blogging under his own name, and as a long-time freelance writer creator he’s spent the last ten years being quietly, consistently brilliant both on his own site and hundreds of others, plus print and beyond. He’s funny and succinct and hugely astute. Giles is now, as much as then, an inspiration.
6. Pete is a polymath. I came across him blogging at first at Bugpowder, then mainly about zines, but his unfolding adventures through his mental state, unemployment, a fascinating glimpse into a stint as a contract worker brought him to Birmingham and his current life which includes living (not just talking about) social media, co-working, creative experiments with the city and amazing photography using the most convoluted contraption you’re likely to see. Pete seems to have a knack for anything he turns his hand to. He’s a creative whirlwind.
7. Darren‘s been doing this since before you were even online, probably. If there’s a good/interesting/funny/geeky site on the internet, he’s linked to it. Hugely (and rightfully) respected by old school bloggers, Darren’s been plodding away steadily at his site for about the same amount of time I have. His quiet dedication is obvious. Less obvious to the casual blog browser (but I’m glad to know it now as a friend) is his gentle good humour and kindness.
8. Bobbie is one of the most talented writers I know. He’s bloody funny, brilliantly talented and vastly knowledgable in all sorts of expected (robots, technology) and unexpected (ukelele renditions of Radiohead) areas. Although he (until next month) works at The Guardian, I don’t know him through that context, though of course was aware of his name. No, our blog connection is a bit of a cheat, really. Not long after I started blogging, I helped my lovely sister hop on the bandwagon, and she became brilliant at it and through her general fabulousness eventually met BoJo, and now he’s my brother-out-law. So I like to think if I hadn’t had a blog in the first place, I might not have been lucky enough to know him as a friend and near-relation, not just a colleague.
9. Mike is probably the most prolific blogger I know, with an almost neverending capacity for themeblogging, fresh thinking, collaborative projects, and funny, poignant, well-written think pieces. I’d long been impressed and tickled by Mike’s online persona, and was chuffed to discover years ago that it’s no facade. That’s who he is. Erudite, witty, charming, well-turned out both verbally and sartorially. It’s been amazing to see Mike’s hobby (going to gigs and knowing loads about music) turn into a burgeoning side-career, as well as watching him grow in curiosity and confidence about hyperlocal blogging for the village he (sometimes) lives in.
10. Caroline is a true inspiration. She was, in fact, the reason that the first uk blogs mailing list formed in order to start discussing how to meet up when Prol came over in summer 2000. She didn’t make it that time, but we met up anyway (see above) and toasted her in absence. Caroline (who I’m afraid I still think of as Prol) is an inveterate, thoughtful, gifted web creator. Her personal blog is just the tip of a vast web iceberg which includes immensely successful community-driven fansites (though the word doesn’t do them justice) for U2 and Joss Whedon and accomplished artist site for her friend Gavin Friday. But she’s also managed to create incredible concert photography and thoughtful collaborative projects like the one which first introduced me to her – croon.org (now sadly gone, but not forgotten).

I’m lucky to have these people in my life, even if we’re not in each others’ everyday lives. And I’ve got blogging to thank for it.

Who have you met through blogging?

The power of ten

I missed the actual tenth birthday of this blog/me blogging but I can’t let a milestone like that go unmarked, can I?

Originally started as a place to store and share links, this blog gradually became a place to playfully interact with the world, and over time that turned from introspection to exploration of the world, media, experiences and ideas. I don’t think I’m alone in that kind of journey with blogs.

I am immensely (unreasonably, perhaps even pathetically) proud of having been blogging for so long. I can say confidently that I was in at the beginning, when all this were fields. I was here before many of you young whippersnappers who have gone on to eclipse me, and blogging, and the web entirely in their success and influence. I don’t put my early involvement down to canny prescience about the way the web was turning so much as an inevitability given my proclivity for tinkering with web things, my early academic and personal interest in communicating online and my inability to shut up. Blogging and me; it was only a matter of time and technology before we found each other.

I was there. I remember the start, and the hype, popularisation, commercialisation and ubiquitisation which followed. I couldn’t possibly have known it at the time, but my blogging was to introduce me to dozens of interesting people, influence others to start doing it too, cause interesting opportunities (and worrying situations) to develop. Blogging has become part of what I am, what I do. I blog now for the same reasons I did in early 2000: because I can’t not tinker with and publish to the web.

Ten years ago, I was embarrassed to mention having a blog in polite company, because it was so difficult to understand – not just what but why. These days, even both my parents have blogs. It’s not a weird niche oddball geek thing anymore. It’s so normal it’s almost passé. Good.

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Four Stories

On Friday I attended The Story, a London conference about stories and storytelling.

The stated proposition for the event laid it out as

a celebration of everything that is wonderful, inspiring and awesome about stories, in whatever medium possible. We’re hoping to have stories that are written, spoken, played, described, enacted, whispered, projected, orchestrated, performed, printed – whatever form stories come in, we hope to have them here.

The Story is not about theories of stories, or making money from stories, but about the sheer visceral pleasure of telling a story. Whether it is in a game, a movie, a book, or a pub, we’ve all heard or told or been part of stories that have made us gasp, cry or just laugh.

There have never been so many stories, never so many ways to tell them. The Story will be a celebration of just a small sample of them.

It was an interesting day which has already been well documented elsewhere, but after the event I found myself reflecting on the content and which bits I’d enjoyed and craved more of, and which less so.
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Hello, Tigers

Happy Chinese new year – Kung Hei Fat Choi.

Here are some of my photos of previous CNY celebrations in London. I’ll be heading along this weekend again, with various cameras.

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Memo to the people at Yahoo! account services

When forcing someone to set security questions/answers in order to log in to a Y!Group, don’t ask them a name-based question (last name of first boss/first name of oldest cousin etc), allow them to provide an answer (sue, kim, ian, bob, tom, sam, jim, ann, etc) and then throw a strop that the answer needs to be at least 4 letters long.

With respect, if that was the case, you should have informed the parents a while ago, because you asked me for their name and THAT’S THEIR NAME.

Alternatively, you could always specify the minimum length requirement at the time of providing security Question/Answer couplets, instead of telling users they’ve done something wrong.

How to communicate with the online community: a report from both sides of the wall

As part of Quadriga’s Online Communication 2009 conference, I was invited by the organisers to present some reflections about how to communicate with people online, drawn from both personal and professional experiences, in the form of an after-dinner speech. This was a new experience for me: I’ve never done an after-dinner speech before. Lots of presentations, lectures, debates and panels, but nothing in quite this format before, with no visual aid, nestled in between main course and dessert.

Rather than just post my notes, here’s a fully-written up version of what I said, including links to sources, resources, inspirations and further reading. Forgive the slightly odd formatting, with so many paragraphs – it’s structured this way to reflect the emphasis and pauses and topic sections as I spoke.

If anyone wants it, I was thinking about making an audio version available to download, because this is fairly long (about 25 minutes) – let me know if this would be interesting to you. And if you’re interested in me giving this presentation (or one similar) at an event you’re organising, do get in touch.

When I first told my friends I was coming to Amsterdam to speak to a room full of online communication executives, they asked me why I had to fly to Amsterdam to do that. Why do we all need to get together in one room? Couldn’t I just do it by email, maybe in a newsletter or a series of tweets?

Well, maybe – but if that had been the case, I wouldn’t have got to enjoy such a delicious meal and wouldn’t have met so many of you face to face. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that.

Actually, yesterday I asked my Twitter contacts whether there’s anything they’d recommend to a room full of the best and brightest communication professionals in Europe. I got a lot of interesting answers, many of which I’ll draw on later, but I particularly liked this suggestion from a contact who said:

“Just tell them they should promote the juniors for two months and let them run wild over the internet.”

Well, it’s an idea. Not sure it’s the first thing you could do, but still…

When Quadriga were putting together the conference programme, I was asked to present my perspective on online communication from “both sides of the wall” – as a keen online user both personally and professionally.

I’s just like to note that that implies the wall is somehow this insurmountable, divisive thing which is rarely scaled. In fact, the walls are coming down. I think it’s remarkably easy – and getting easier – to hop from one side to the other, and in fact the boundaries are blurring for many of us every day. I count myself as incredibly lucky that my professional life draws on my personal experiences and passions.

As part of that, I have a confession to make.
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One in 10:10

Yesterday, a new empowering climate change campaign called 10:10 launched with the aim of encouraging as many people, companies and institutions as possible to sign up to a pledge to cut their personal carbon footprints by 10% during 2010.

Here’s a chunk from one of the articles from yesterday’s Guardian G2:

The 10:10 campaign, which is launched today in partnership with the Guardian, is designed both to answer the call for immediate action, and to offer individuals and organisations a meaningful way of taking it. It is the brainchild of Franny Armstrong, the irrepressible film-maker behind The Age of Stupid, a powerful docudrama about our failure to tackle climate change. The idea is compellingly simple: by signing up, individuals and organisations from multinational companies to schools and hospitals commit to doing their best to cut their emissions by 10% by the end of 2010, precisely the sort of deep, quick cut the scientists say is needed.

You can read much more about the initiative, the launch, the philosophy behind it and the difference that such an apparently small commitment would make here on the Guardian environment site (The Guardian is a supporting partner of 10:10, though this probably earns it a higher place on the IoS’s smuggest Britons list – this year we were included for being “Patronising toffs, taking their revenge on the world after being bullied at school.” Does that mean the IoS are pro-bully? Or just bitter? Most confusing. Anyway, I digress.) or at the official campaign site at http://www.1010uk.org.

I signed up yesterday:

10% is a very achievable reduction for the vast majority of people, and can be made through a small number of very simple (and not too hairshirted) actions (which we should all be doing anyway and which take very little effort)..

I’m inspired to think that a committed movement of people making small, personal but significant actions might be able to make a real difference. What was it Margaret Mead said…?

I hope you will consider signing up, too, and encourage your friends to do likewise, even though I know that many people try to live in an environmentally-sensitive way already, for lots of varying individual reasons.

Proselytizing aside, I went along to the launch event yesterday at the Tate Modern on London’s south bank, and had a few thoughts and experiences there that I wanted to jot down while they were still in my head.
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