Mr. Rogers Gives a Life Lesson

"But when it got into the thousands of tweets, all I could do was sit back and watch."

I wouldn't agree with that.  In fact, if I were getting all that Twitter feed that had nothing to do with me, I would probably change my Twitter handle.  Sure, it was mine first and all that, but apart from attempting to get Rogers to change their name (and even then) the problem would persist - if the goal is solution, a name-switch would be be the easiest one.

Of course, there's a voyeuristic quality to being at the receiving end of someone else's hate mail; it makes you feel a sense of inside-savvy, of superiority to have access to all that complaint.  After all, that's why any of us read comments on news sites, isn't it?  But even then if I fell for this trap, I would create a second account for personal use and work to discipline myself so as not to get lost in the wrath of Rogers' customers.  That's not healthy.

The bottom line is that there are always options; there are always proactive (or even reactive) things we can do to alter our lot in life.

If we make the choice to sit back and watch, that's our choice to make - it's worth being conscious of this.

Fact Vs. Feeling

It was another irony-free helping of the Rob and Doug extravaganza.  They said lots of things about LRT, most of them untrue.

How do you feel about Rob Ford?  You might love him - he's an every-day sort of Joe, he's a tax-fighter, he talks down to all those elitist-types you don't like.  You do like what he has to say - on subways, on revenue tools, etc.

Or you might hate his guts - he's ignorant, he's a bully, he's an embarrassment, so on and so forth.

For a lot of people, there's just ambivalence.  He's a politician, playing the game they all play.  So long as he spends more time in the headlines than actually doing anything, the better - if he was quiet and focused on action, that would be problematic.

But what do you think about Rob Ford?  That's a much harder question, because Ford doesn't try to make you think.  He's a populist, a reactionary, a shoot-from-the-lip kind of guy.  His stirred up federal and provincial politics, caused police investigations and even generated international headlines.  A bull in a China shop or a car-crash in slow motion, it's hard not to pay attention.

Take a breath, step back, be mindful.  When you think about it, Rob Ford is a teacher offering a lesson we all could stand to learn from.

Great Expectations: The Truth About Big Data

As Crawford and Jason Schultz, a professor at New York University Law School, wrote in their paper: "When these data sets are cross-referenced with traditional health information, as big data is designed to do, it is possible to generate a detailed picture about a person's health, including information a person may never have disclosed to a health provider."

What does Big Data have to do with health, and with the truths we cling to?  

If we were to be totally honest - to our medical professionals, to ourselves, to our politicians and our pollsters - well, we're not, are we?  There is the life that we feel expected to lead - perfect parent, perfect employee, getting enough hours in at the gym, drinking in moderation and offering meaningful contributions to civic society.  Projects have to be done perfectly, and on time; kids need help with their homework, plus healthy meals; individuals need breathing space.

Those expectations and what's actually possible don't mesh.  Something has to give, but as there are social consequences to not being a superhero, we lie about it - as much to ourselves as anyone else.  Instead of facing and addressing the structural issues that lie around us, we have a fourth cup of coffee, or take an Advil, or maybe we see the doc and get something stronger.  Whatever it takes to fit in and keep going.  

Then, there's how we look at the world around us - kids that show attitude to their parents are problem children; the example the parents themselves set isn't relevant any more than the behaviour of a Mayor is in stetting the tone for their City.  Crack addicts have something wrong with them, as people.  Criminals are animals.  The "I" at the centre of the universe, however, is fine just as is - only busy. 

A lie is a misrepresentation of the truth and can take many forms.  Saying "sure, boss, that report will be done just as you wanted" when you know it isn't feasible is a lie; you probably know the boss isn't going to read the whole thing anyway, you have a scapegoat in mind or if you're a workaholic, you know that you'll go above and beyond the accepted parameters of work to do it.

Telling the kids "just finish your homework/clean up/stay out of my way and I'll (insert bribe here)" when you have no intention of following through sets false expectations, the first of many your child will meet in life.  Your rationale, self-serving as it is, probably has a hint of self-preservation to it, too - maybe you need that extra time to finish that report your boss is demanding be done, tomorrow, and be perfect.

Rushing in to work, telling your kids you can't be late - then spending a half-hour at the water cooler or checking Facebook, when you get there is a faleshood, too.  Maybe, because home has become a place to release tension from work, you look forward to getting out; maybe your professional relationships have become your family ones and you feel more relaxed in their company than with your family.

If you're that employer, and the report-writing directions you gave your employee were nebulous because you don't really know what you want and the timelines arbitrary, because time pressure's really the only motivational tool in your box, you've been dishonest to both yourself and your employee.  You know that business hasn't been as robust as it was, that the market's changing but uncertain of what comes next and afraid to look anything less than confident, you're downloading responsibility for setting expectations to your employee.

What you end up with is lack-lustre results, stressed-out employees who will photocopy their kids' homework on the company machine and then go home and snap at those kids saying "don't say I never do anything for you."  Nobody wins.

Telling the world that you had no idea bad deeds were being committed by your team, on your watch, fits the same bill.

We all live in fractured, confabulated realities; we're all living unsustainable lies.  Why?  Because we want to believe that we are independent and consequence-free.  We tell ourselves we live in separate worlds of work, home, friends, groups, etc.; nobody is making any effort to connect the dots between them, or between us and them.  At the middle of all this push and pull, however, are individuals caught up in a system that isn't designed to recognize them as systems unto themselves.

This is where Big Data comes in.

We should rightly be frightened of the information Big Data will reveal about our selves.  It was ages ago that Target, a retail chain, was able to use the data they'd accumulated to determine a teen-aged girl was pregnant before her father knew.  Political microtargeting is completely changing the way politicians develop their policy wares and market them to nice audiences, to the detriment of social democracy.

Forget the NSA or the CSEC - Political Parties and corporate giants are mapping out your every purchase, your every keystroke to find out what makes you tick, where your interests lie and how to manipulate them.  The reverse is also coming true - with Wikileaks, Anonymous and the odd Edwards Snowden, the Big Data Mandardins are finding their own choices increasingly laid bare.

The Information Age, in fits and spurts, is painting a photo mosaic of how the different parts of our lives connect and impact each other - work stress, home burn-out and the resulting hospital visit can be mapped out in infographics, clearly demonstrating the relationships between them.  Of course, the people on the outside will look for the pieces that they see as relevant to them; the salesfolk want to know what and how to sell you; politicians, same.  Employers primarily want to know how you're spending your time and if you present any risks to them from your online activities.

There's another trend emerging in tandem with micro-targeting, though; that's service systems theory.  Service providers are beginning to glean the truth; that the feudal approach they have been taking to service delivery is unsustainable.  They can't afford to ignore the forest any more.  As such, governments and agencies are looking laterally, accumulating more information and seeing how the pieces fit together.

Nowhere is this more clear than in healthcare.  Call it the social butterfly effect; all the ripples in individual lives brush up against each other with by now, expected consequences.  The spaces we live in impact the direction of those ripples, too.

As we learn more and more about individual behaviours and how those behaviours interact both positively and negatively, we can more accurately forecast outcomes (and understand the results we have now).  The stressed-out employee who spends too little time with their family, no time exercising but a disproportionate amount of time at the doctors is seen not as an individual failure but a social consequence.

There are those out there who want to use your data for their financial benefit, but there are also those who want to use everyone's data to create a more sustainable system.  No one person can be at the centre of each individual, though - a body needs a brain, but every cell needs a nucleus.

If every individual had awareness, training and tools to map their own lives, they could take ownership of their own data and how their own pieces fit into the bigger puzzle of society.  If Service Providers stopped functioning like silos and began to recognize themselves as players on a team, they could better coordinate their efforts, creating both efficiencies and superior results.  

We're stronger together, but only when we make the conscious efforts to internalize that no person is an island.

And that's the truth of it.

I'm here to say enough is enough with this Mayor who thinks he can get away with anything by twisting the truth, saying just some of the truth or not telling it straight at all.

Hey, thought you'd find this interesting:

Police services across the country are increasingly focusing on the need for better mental health training/internal supports (though they don't refer to anxiety and depression among officers directly).  The training they get tends to be academic, not hands on.

Through provincial consultations (Poverty reduction, youth engagement, etc.) happening now, mental health is emerging as a much more pervasive issue than has been fully recognized - it's the new left-handedness.  It also happens to be one of the few areas that all Parties, at all levels, have demonstrated a willingness to work together to address.

The Toronto Strong Neighbourhoods consultations are bringing up the connection between physical space (living in a slum, for instance) and mental health concerns.  Work being done in the States suggests that environmental plays a much bigger role in addictions than has been previously recognized.  

Mental illness in the workplace is having a massive impact on productivity and presenteeism (the act of being at work but functioning at less than 100%).  Apparently, something like 60% of OPS employees are receiving assistance for mental health concerns (details not sure of, but with a number that high, it suggests a structural concern).  This looks to be a symptom of management techniques and work/work space design not suited to the sorts of expectations being placed on people today.

With The Aspiring Workforce report, the other side of the equation is emerging - people with "mental illness" are having a hard time being hired.  Part of that is due to the fact they need special accommodations and understanding on the part of employers, much as do expecting mothers or persons with physical disabilities.  Due to this stigma, far too many able-bodied people are languishing on the margins of society, having run-ins with the law and ending up on the street and in the hospital (see previous points).

We've diagnosed the wrong root cause for our economic, democratic and quality-of-life woes.  We're focusing on treating lead poisoning instead of taking the lead out of the pipe, pushing people to adapt to an outdated work/life model instead of adapting our institutions to the times.  

The Mental Elephant In The Room

Police call for more mental health services

Across Canada, police are bearing the brunt of broken mental health care systems and are calling for increased funding for mental health and social services.

In August, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police issued a press release, arguing that "police should not be on the frontline on mental health issues." In mid-September, the Vancouver Police Department noted that 21% of its calls involve individuals with mental illness.

In 2011, Toronto police officers arrested 8500 people under Ontario's Mental Health Act, which allows police to apprehend people with mental illnesses and take them to hospitals if they pose potential harm to themselves or others.

Toronto Police Service spokesperson Mark Pugash was unable to provide further information or arrange an interview, however, saying "all of these issues are under review" in the inquiry into the shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim. Armed with a knife on a Toronto streetcar in July, Yatim died after being shot repeatedly by an officer.

Vancouver Police Department Chief Jim Chu says psychiatric episodes requiring a police response would be less frequent if mental health services played a more preventative role. Chu blames deinstitutionalization in the 1990s, coupled with subpar funding for community mental health services.

"We're encountering people that should be institutionalized," he says. "We deal with them and they're back on the street a day later, and then we deal with them and they're back on the street two days later."

Saskatoon Police Service Chief Clive Weighill notes that although crime has "come down steadily in Canada in the last few years, there's been an increase in this [mental health] field."

Dr. Kwame McKenzie, a medical director at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, says the problem is that "none of [the mental health hospitals] are responsible for mental health in the community," and thus it's left to police to fulfill the role of connecting psychiatric patients to health services.

As Chief Weighill explains, "We see people with substance abuse issues or other issues and are willing to go for help. But then we can't get them into the system for three to four weeks."

Police training, however, has been slow to reflect the growing burden of mental health emergencies on law enforcement. Most police academies introduced mental health training in their curricula only in the last 10–15 years, according to the Mental Health Commission of Canada. On-the-job training, meanwhile, varies widely by jurisdiction, according to the commission's 2010 study.

The commission is calling for a standardized curriculum for police and for mental health services to play a larger role in the community. "We can't, nor should we, expect police to be mental health professionals," says President and CEO Louise Bradley.

According to Pat Capponi, a survivor of mental illness and cochair of the mental health subcommittee of the Toronto Police Services Board, police need to be more aware that being yelled at or getting handcuffed can be major "triggers" for people experiencing trauma.

Chief Chu stressed, however, that police are "very good at de-escalating situations," and argued that there is a public misconception about police using excessive force against mentally ill people, because only the exceptional cases are reported. "[The Vancouver Police Department is] making 2500 Mental Health Act apprehensions a year, do you hear about them?"

No, not this one (yet).

I'm sure there are many people who've seen picture emerging over the past several years that I have; as a society, we're wriggling out of the of an old skin to fully explore the potential of a new one.

It's an exciting time to be alive.

An App That Saved 10,000 Lives

While most start-ups feverishly track figures like the total number of users, Ron Gutman, the founder and chief executive of the health information start-up,HealthTap, is more interested in a different data point.

This week, the start-up heard from its 10,000th user who said the site saved her life.

“My local doctor brushed me off and told me it was anxiety without doing any tests at all,” wrote one woman who turned to HealthTap after seeing her doctor. After spending two hours on HealthTap, she was told by a doctor who contributes to the site that her condition sounded like a blocked artery. She soon saw a cardiology specialist who later inserted a coronary stent.

Since its founding in 2012, the site has logged nearly a billion questions and answers, from simple queries about headaches or the flu, to more complicated ones, like whether mechlorethamine is a cancer medication. Questions are then routed to a physician who is both an expert in that particular field of medicine, and who is determined by an algorithm to be likely to respond fast, Mr. Gutman said.

None of that would be possible without the participation of nearly 50,000 doctors who contribute their advice free. (Every page on the site has a disclaimer saying that the site “does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.”)

HealthTap, which is both a Web site and a mobile application, was recognized at its introduction for applying the principles of gaming — features like badges, rewards and reputation scores — to health care. Today, however, that has shifted.

If “gamification” was the hot phrase driving new app design 18 months ago, today start-ups are increasingly looking to the principles of behavioral psychology to encourage behaviors and return visits. HealthTap’s evolution shows how moving to behavioral psychology has helped it increase its number of users and the number of doctors who offer knowledge on the site at no cost.

Instead of the goofy digital awards that were featured in an earlier version of HealthTap, the site’s rewards for doctors have been now recast as decorous professional markers of accomplishment. Instead of the “Doogie Howser Award,” physicians are given more serious designations like “advocates,” “mentors” or “founding experts.”

A special dashboard on the site provides a slate of ego-boosting statistics and prompts with physicians’ reputation scores, user comments and most crucially, areas in which other doctors consider them experts.

This way, the site appeals to the value that doctors place on reputation, expertise and authority. It is also marketed to doctors as a way to find new patients.

“There’s something really powerful in the ability to create positive feedback loops,” said Mr. Gutman, who learned through his many conversations with doctors that they craved something simple after days full of appointments — they simply wanted to be thanked.

So now, after a person receives an answer from a HealthTap doctor, they are prompted by the system to thank the doctor, or the site, or both. The woman with the blocked artery, for example, was even prompted to indicate if the service saved her life — a smart touch that not only helps the site track its success, but offers incredibly powerful reason for a doctors to keep coming back and answer more questions.

Commit Sociology? So Say We All!

"The most effective tool for turning non-voters into voters... is a threat to send neighbours evidence of one's apathy... By introducing shame into the calculus of citizenship, the researchers behind these tests increased the psychological cost of not voting.  In so doing, they restored the sense - sadly lost for a century - that voting out to be not a personal transaction but a social one."

The heartening conclusion of this research is that politics doesn't need to be totally transactional; politicians selling and voters buying.  It's still founded on relationships.

Yuppers!  The same, oddly enough, is proving true for business, too.  

What, pray tell, is the catalyst for relationships?  A shared vision.  Where do we set out from in pursuit of that vision?  Common ground - which we're willing to look for when we focus on our being part of something greater than ourselves.  

And this business about psychological costs - psychology is a mental health thing, right?  Do we do psychological cost/benefit analyses - what would we find if we did?

Not a new idea - just a timely one.