With very little fortitude to wait for…anything, I often lose my patience with anyone who doesn’t match my lightning speed. Just ask my coworkers…or my fiancé…or, well, you get it. And being 32 means that I don’t have enough life experience behind me to personally relate to the wisdom and challenges that come with achieving 60 or 70 or 80 years of life.
With that combination of characteristics, you can see why I wasn’t as excited about working at the National Senior Games on behalf of Freewheelin as I was to go to the Democratic and Republican national conventions. I assumed that my time there would lack that frenzied pace that juices me up. I was right. And wrong to think that would make this experience less meaningful.
Our presence at the Senior Games was multi-faceted. In addition to our large tent geared toward Humana’s programs for seniors and caregivers, we brought Freewheelin in the form of two bike stations and 120 bikes available for free rides. Between 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m., anyone over the age of 18 could check out a bike for free. Helmets and locks were provided.
Most of the users of our Freewheelin program fell into our 61+ category, which is the bottom of our age drop-down list. That really doesn’t tell the story, though, as our users could have been divided into 61-70, 71-80, 81-90 and 90+. Really. We had 90-year-olds cruising around on our bikes as if they were teenagers. Amazingly, wheels often give older people a way to escape what slows them down on two feet. Just listen to Nancy talk about her rheumatoid arthritis.
Most of the stories I heard were those of athletes … competitive, healthy, energetic, fun athletes. I had the pleasure of meeting Robbie and Barbara (photo above) from Cincinnati. Robbie is on the left and that’s me in the middle. She’s 65, but she and Barbara play in the 55-year age category of women’s doubles tennis (because she kicks booty, to put it a little more delicately than she does). They won the silver. We had the pleasure of lending them bikes and cheering them on every day they were in Palo Alto. Robbie hadn’t been on a bike in 20 years.
We met a lady from Boston in her 80s, who came with her son to re-learn how to ride. No one at home would rent her a bike, and she was so glad to have our service so that she could practice riding. Her driving privileges had just been revoked and she wanted a way to get to the health club. It took her son giving her a push and a little bit of time for her to steady herself, but the experience offered her confidence and the freedom that she was searching for.
And, we met the lady from Kentucky who is in the Softball Hall of Fame. Think a real-life “League of their Own” player. She’s 84 and she competed in the Games, which included sliding into third base. To put this into perspective, this lady was a teenager during World War II and she was eating dirt to keep the rally alive. She enjoyed her ride.
These nuggets of inspiration and real life are what I would’ve missed had I rushed through the process. Life consistently teaches me lessons that I’m often too stubborn to see, but this one was thankfully evident.
And because I had the pleasure of knowing these spectacular people, their husbands and daughters and grandchildren, I’m juiced about bringing Freewheelin this fall to the senior communities at three of Humana’s Guidance Centers. To continue the momentum from Freewheelin at the Senior Games in Palo Alto, we’re dropping 25 bikes at Guidance Centers in Mesa, Arizona; Henderson, Nevada and Tamarac, Florida.
Anyone in the area over the age of 18 can use the bikes, but I really hope that while I’m there, I get to help orient someone with a few wrinkles and a great story.
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
We are about to wrap up a pilot project for the next generation of our bike sharing system (check it out at bcycle.com) and I thought that it might be a good time to talk a little bit about how and why we use pilot programs in the Innovation Center. One of the core tenets of our innovation process is that we prototype and pilot early and often. We’ve found that overdeveloping a pilot before real people get to check it out can actually kill the innovation process, and cause us to miss the most critical insights—so sometimes even an 80% solution is too much! Our very first public bike sharing program took the national stage last summer as the largest bike sharing event in U.S. history. What we learned there paved the way for the emergence of bcycle, and a new set of pilots to get bcycle off and running. Through the course of these big, real-life experiments we’ve learned a lot of salient lessons for managing pilot projects. We know there are a lot of folks out there innovating around health and hey, we like to share… so this is how we roll. Give it a read and let us know what you think.
Define success – what is the goal? Ask your sponsor and your team, “Why are we undertaking this project?” I used to work for a guy who’d often say, “What does success look like?” Defining success is about clearly articulating desired outcomes. In the innovation process it’s not just about being on time and under budget, but also about pushing the envelope a little further, closer to the next big thing. If your environment is as fluid as ours, expect the unexpected. You will often have to remind people what to focus on. Change is inevitable, keep your stakeholders abreast of it and manage their expectations. When we first started all this, success was defined as a functional bike sharing system for our employees to use to get from building to building, to get a little healthier and have a little fun along the way. The success of Freewheelin led us to push the envelope a little further . . . and paved the way for bcycle.
Measure it – if it gets measured it’ll get managed. Once you can articulate what success is figure out how you’re going to prove when you’ve reached it. Then, like Jim Collins says, confront the brutal facts. If your metrics point to a less than desirable outcome, make a change, and be decisive about it. Not all projects are created equal. Your measuring processes may be manual at first, this is ok. If and when the project allows for it, automate! Often with a pilot project you’re not going to know what to measure up front, so this process is iterative. Revisit this often until you get the right information at the right time.
Identify the right stakeholders – especially those with skin in the game. This should be obvious but quite frankly doesn’t always happen. With your internal stakeholders communicate progress often and celebrate the little successes. Build momentum. Get psychology on your side. Give your external stakeholders (customers or users) a voice too. They very well may come up with a better way to use your product or a better product altogether. Be open to this. We had stakeholders ranging from our customers, vendors, business partners, to our executives. Each had to be addressed differently. Doing this right in your projects will pay dividends.
Collaborate – keep the core team small. If you have too many people it can get messy and noisy. Once you’ve got ‘em: collaborate. Avoid those awful, poorly planned meetings. You know the type; you might have attended one today! We kept our status meetings to no longer than 30 minutes and held them first thing in the morning. This helped with focus and cohesion. Let the team use their day to get the real work done (imagine that!) and solve problems. Use Twitter for daily happenings (how long does it take to type 140 characters anyway?) and a wiki to capture lessons learned.
Facilitate decision making – if the project manager isn’t making the decisions he or she needs to have a hotline to the guys and gals that are. If you’re one of those guys or gals, be prepared—and get ready to be on call. My suggestion: get a capable PM and allow him or her plenty of latitude but set clear expectations on when and how to escalate issues.
Build float into the timeline – something is going to go wrong. Murphy is omniscient. I won’t buy a car without an airbag, and I won’t build a project schedule without some slack—both might crash. In all honesty, the probability is much higher if I’m driving. :)
Streamline – if your project management processes and procedures, like how to document, are too tedious, cumbersome, or time consuming you need to get new ones. We’re exploring the use of microblogging to capture meeting minutes—which I think is a brilliant use of a new technology to spice up an old chore (Use Twitter Search for #hcoc to follow the stream)
Lastly, stay flexible, roll with the punches, and keep pushing that envelope—you never know what you might stumble upon!
How do you use pilots in your business? We’d love to hear what you think…
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
So far, we’ve kicked off two installations of Freewheelin-donated B-cycle systems. Earlier in the month, we presented a system to the National Parks Service in Washington, DC – and just last week we did the same with the city of Denver. Both visits were marked by very appreciative comments and praise for Humana’s generosity and leadership in the environmental health space.
I was impressed not only with the short speeches from officials and Humana leadership, but also with the turnout at these press events. In both cases, the body of system users really came to find out what the donation meant to them. NPS employees, wearing the traditional "Smoky Bear" hats, were eager to get started using the bikes, despite the less-than-friendly January weather. Denver lucked out with fantastic sunshine, and not only drew city employees to the kickoff, but also dozens of interested local residents, who came to hear what the mayor had to say.
And he said some pretty amazing stuff. After accepting a check for one million dollars from the DNC, he announced the expansion of the pilot system with those donated funds. This will do great things for the city of Denver, and positions it as the first ever US city equipped with a functional city-wide bike sharing program.
Great news for the city, certainly. Great news for B-cycle, too. Next, look for the kickoff of the replacement system for our corporate hometown, in Louisville.
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
If you’re one of the thousands of people who met and fell in love with freewheelin at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this past summer, there’s good news for you. Bikesharing may be coming to your town – soon.
For those of you who don’t know, Humana and Bikes Belong introduced the largest bikesharing program in America’s history . . . but just during the 8 days of the conventions (and the four days of Louisville’s idea festival ). The program was such a success (we were awarded a WeMedia Game Changers award!) that we decided to create bcycle.
Freewheelin’s magic was in capturing the fun and ease of getting around on a bike. And that spirit lives on in bcycle. But where freewheelin was a human-intensive production, bcycle is based on swiss-efficient, custom-designed bikes and storage units so that the bikes are available 24×7x365. And best of all, it’s backed by its own social network to make it easier to find routes, riding partners and available bikes.
Bcycle’s plan is to revolutionize bikesharing – and it’s off to a blazing start in 2009, selling systems into both Miami Beach and Denver. We’re looking forward to great things as this program evolves, and we in the innovation center are proud to be a part of something that so good for both health and the environment.
To learn more, check out www.bcycle.com – there’s a “must watch” video there to introduce you to bcycle.
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
Freewheelin riders have included Members of Congress, mayors, movie stars, TV personalities, journalists, cartoonists, and an all-american football player (OK, so he works for us, but still). But we were especially excited that a freewheeler has been appointed to the Obama administration. The former mayor of Dallas, Ron Kirk, was nominated late last week to the post of US Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position responsible for developing and recommending US trade policy to the President.
Mr. Kirk experienced the magic of bikesharing in a ride with a group of Texan delegates to the democratic convention in Denver. The 54-year-old spent a few minutes talking with me after his ride, and seemed to really enjoy the experience.
In announcing Mr. Kirk’s new post, President-elect Obama said that, “Ron will help make sure that any agreements I sign as President protect the rights of all workers, promote the interests of all Americans, and preserve the planet we all share.” Sounds like a great job for a Freewheeler!
See below for the exclusive “Ron Kirk Freewheelin Interview;” hard-hitting journalism at its best . . .
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
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With very little fortitude to wait for…anything, I often lose my patience with anyone who doesn’t match my lightning speed. Just ask my coworkers…or my fiancé…or, well, you get it. And being 32 means that I don’t have enough life experience behind me to personally relate to the wisdom and challenges that come with achieving 60 or 70 or 80 years of life. 
We are about to wrap up a pilot project for the next generation of our bike sharing system (check it out at 
I was impressed not only with the short speeches from officials and Humana leadership, but also with the turnout at these press events. In both cases, the body of system users really came to find out what the donation meant to them. NPS employees, wearing the traditional "Smoky Bear" hats, were eager to get started using the bikes, despite the less-than-friendly January weather. Denver lucked out with fantastic sunshine, and not only drew city employees to the kickoff, but also dozens of interested local residents, who came to hear what the mayor had to say.
And he said some pretty amazing stuff. After accepting a check for one million dollars from the DNC, he announced the expansion of the pilot system with those donated funds. This will do great things for the city of Denver, and positions it as the first ever US city equipped with a functional city-wide bike sharing program. 
If you’re one of the thousands of people who met and fell in love with 
Freewheelin riders have included 