January Meet-up: Behavior Change and App Ecosystems – London, Jan. 19

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January Meet-up: Behavior Change and App Ecosystems – London, Jan. 19

Mid-January, HTF London had their first unmissable event of 2017 – a meet-up to discuss behavior change and app ecosystems, featuring Sarah Ellen O’Farrell, senior behavioral strategist at Hill & Knowlton; and Madeleine Starr, innovation director at Carers UK – under the hospitality of sponsor Baker Botts.

O’Farrell, a trained behavioral and wellbeing scientist and recent addition to Hill & Knowlton, spoke about how to achieve lasting, beneficial behavioral change with the aid of technology. Her background which includes, studying and implementing motivational therapy and needs analysis, behavioral economics and choice architecture, emotional influences on cognition and behavior, and strategy for experience design at such places like Bupa and the London School of Economics and Political Science, made her an incredibly renowned voice to hear at the meet-up.

Her presentation pulled from the practices of Hill & Knowlton and divulged to attendees the best ways to design digital experiences for health behavior change. The three strategic lessons:

  1. Design for humans – your value propositions must meet core human needs.
  2. Content strategy changes behavior – social norms and primes are moment of truth cues.
  3. Apply the science of effective goal-setting in Call-to-Action: small steps, daily repetition and commitment devices.

In a statement through Hill & Knowlton, O’Farrell said this of the work she described: “Many employee well-being programs today provide a poor return on investment. They aren’t shifting the dials on the employees’ – and employers’ – most serious health challenges such as stress, mental illness, musculoskeletal disorders and obesity. By bringing insights from the field of behavioral science into program design, we can create interventions that tap into the real drivers of people’s choices, habits and decisions, leading to transformative outcomes.”

Following O’Farrell’s well-received presentation, Starr described her app Jointly, which enables friends and family to work together in helping seniors remain in their own homes. She explained the utility of the app, how it was commissioned, how successful the result has been so far and how it’s led to the creation of a whole ecosystem of apps that extend the initial application’s capabilities.

Starr, who’s been with Carers UK for almost 14 years, works to make her company’s goals sustainable into the future. In commissioning Jointly, Starr developed a program that should make the lives of carers and their patients both more similar and easily connected.

HTF London’s next event – their second product/service pitch event – is Mar. 23, also at Baker Botts. At least four funders will sit on a panel judging pitches, with prizes for the most fundable company (voted such by the panel) and for the best presentation (voted such by all attendees).

The funding panel will also give tips at the end of the event, on how best to pitch to potential backers. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet and network with other industry professionals and with investors. Be sure to RSVP.

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