Guiding principles for HealthScore Community
If we’re going to encourage people to get together to change their health behaviour through a HealthScore Community, then what guiding ‘social principles’ will help us determine which services and features are most useful?
#1
Higher Purpose •
Recruit early adopters who are motivated by our purpose and not merely incentivized by transaction
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Design a recruitment strategy that gets people to self-select as members of the community by raising to a call-to-action grounded in the community purpose
#2
Connection •
Enable people to connect from our digital product to their existing and established social networks to form groups – don’t force them to join new or proprietary networks
#3
Personal identity •
Enable people to create their own profile so that they align their identities with the app, making it a virtual extension of themselves
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Ideally, key data should be frictionless and able to be populated from the user’s existing sites or health devices so that input is not a barrier but an intuitive experience eg. Facebook/ Linked In/Google
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Then enable the user to add to/adapt this ‘base profile’ to create the self-image that reflects their identity they want to share with this group, in this area of their lives, to effect the behaviours and behaviour change they’re committing to
#4
Leadership •
Enable the appointment of a leader in each group
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Ensure leaders have clear understanding of their role and responsibilities to the group
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Give group leaders the ability to communicate with and manage the group
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Enable group leaders to connect to each other as the drivers of change
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Design-in rewards for leaders which enhance their image and status in the community
#5
Activities Enable people to participate in activities that they choose, create and make their own Ensure activities:
• • •
have clear objectives so that the group knows what they’re committing to and what success looks like
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are able to be achieved in small steps
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are time-framed so as to drive engagement
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contribute to both group and user goals (social and personal)
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have a log for impact/results so that engagement is tracked and users feel socially accountable
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offer soft incentives (rather than hard), rewarding and celebrating success in small steps throughout the activity
#6
Communication Facilitate communication on multiple levels: •
Within the group - between leader and members; and members between members
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By group members to their own networks (eg. posting successes on Facebook)
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Between groups by members
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Between leaders of different groups
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BUT most importantly, between the brand and leaders, group members and different groups
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Ensure openness and compatibility between users’ existing social platforms (eg. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc) and our product (albeit in modular phases of development) so as to enable people to use the functionality that drives social engagement, eg. newsfeeds, messaging, posts, invitations to events etc.
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Communication functionality must be real-time, intuitive and device/account agnostic
#7
Customisation •
The deeper the customisation, the deeper the user’s commitment to the product
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Enable customisation on multiple levels as: • • •
a means of enhancing self/group identity a means of expressing personal social values a means of optimizing functionality in line with personal/ social preferences
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One of the most crucial services for customisation is privacy, which should be able to be done simply using universal language and functionality
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Consider too those services which can be customised to enhance confidence, creativity, spontaneity, sociability, selfimage etc as positive motivations increase time investment
#8
Progress •
Create a simple, graphic and contagious measure of progress
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Make it accessible, meaningful and shareable
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Support it with content that translates the measure into recommended behaviours to complete the activity and achieve the goal
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Ensure it can be annotated and posted onto social media platforms and translated into social currency
#9
Story •
Enable users and groups to capture, upload and share content that tells the story of their formation, their identity, their goals, their values, their activity and their progress
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Ensure this story can be updated in real time
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Wherever possible and relevant include frictionless feed of activity data from synchronized devices / linked social sites
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Enable as many content inputs or outputs as relevant, eg. posts, photos, video, ratings, reviews, graphs or maps; which can be shared either in-product or to other social platforms
#10
Influence •
Design recruitment, activation and scaling strategically by involving different types of groups to influence each other in a phased approach
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Ensure the early adopters are well connected, purposedriven and digitally savvy so that they can spread word of mouth and recruit members
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Starting small, experiment with influencers to determine their most compelling incentive and encourage them to share their progress and stories digitally and in the real world
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Build a backstory of influence so that the product can cut through the competition as a social product ‘made by the people, for the people’
A community isn’t created, it’s nurtured.