10. Dear Friends, Please take a moment to read this e-mail. My friend, Sameer Bhatia, has been diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), which is a cancer of the blood. He is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant. Sameer is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, is 31 years old, and got married last year. His diagnosis was confirmed just weeks ago and caught us all by surprise given that he has always been in peak condition. Sameer, a Stanford alum, is known to many for his efforts in launching the American India Foundation, Project DOSTI, TiE (Chicago), a microfinance fund, and other causes focused on helping others. Now he urgently needs our help in giving him a new lease on life. He is undergoing chemotherapy at present but needs a bone marrow transplant to sustain beyond the next few months. Fortunately, you can help. Let’s use the power of the Net to save a life…something that couldn’t be done years ago, but is now possible. Three Things You Can Do (click here for more details online) 1. Please get registered. Getting registered is quick and requires a simple cheek swab (2 minutes of your time) and filling out some forms (5 minutes of your time). Registering and even donating if you’re ever selected is VERY simple. Another friend of ours, Vinay, was also diagnosed with AML and requires a transplant. We have joined forces with Team Vinay (www.helpvinay.org) in order to get South Asians registered in the bone marrow registry. Both Sameer and Vinay need a match from another South Asian, however, very few South Asians are actually in the registry and this makes it difficult for doctors to find them a match. This is why we need your help. We are supporting Team Vinay in organizing drives nationwide, and I need you to get registered by visiting a local drive. Drives are currently taking place all around the country, including throughout California, Washington, Michigan, Illinois, New York and many other states. Please see the full list of locations here: http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=event.
11. 2. Spread the word. Please share this e-mail message with at least 10 people (particularly South Asians), and ask them to do the same. Please point your friends to the local drives and ask them to get registered. If you can, sponsor a drive at your company or in your community. Drives need to take place in the next 2-3 weeks to be of help to Sameer and Vinay. Please use the power of your address book and the Web to spread this message – today more than ever before, we can achieve broad scale and be part of a large online movement to save lives. 3. Learn more To learn more, please visit http://www.nickmyers.com/helpsameer. The site includes more details on how to organize your own drive, valuable information about AML, plus FAQs on registering. Please visit http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=node/108 for more information on the cities where more help is needed. Another past success story from our community is that of PiaAwal’s; please read about her successful fight against AML at www.matchpia.org. Thank you for getting registered to help Sameer and Vinay win their fight against leukemia – and for helping others who may face blood cancers in the future. Truly, Robert
12.
13. 11 weeks 470 drives, 24,611 cheeks… june july august www.Cooper.com
17. Live each day as if it were your first Dear Friends and Loved Ones, I can’t stress to you how much I marvel at my blessed fortune every day, a fortune that all of you had a hand in creating. If you look back at my earliest posts on this website, you’ll recall a newly-diagnosed leukemia patient needing a transplant from a grossly underrepresented and traditionally apathetic community. Along with Vinay, I challenged you all to step up and spread the work; to register and respond when called upon to save a life. I knew that this process was very unlikely to benefit me directly, but I had faith—and was convinced by Robert and others—that I had an opportunity to bring visibility to this issue to benefit future patients. This worked as hoped, and two other patients found matches through our drives. And the unimaginable happened: I also found a match through your efforts! So who is to credit for this? Each and every one of you. It could have been your email that caused the donor to register. All of you stopped to think for a minute, “What if this was me or someone in my family?” and then did something as simple as sending an email to everyone you knew. This was Awareness Building, and was a crucial phase of your efforts. Others of you—many of whom I don’teven know but hope to seek out to thank in person one day—vested yourselves even deeper by organizing drives. You did this at your companies, your colleges, in your local communities, and at your temples of worship. And one of you actually won the luck of the draw and got to be my donor.
29. Dear Stanford Haas students– If you were given the opportunity to save a life, would you? A group of students is needed to lead a truly remarkable effort to save hundreds - possibly thousands - of lives. You probably know that Leukemia is a form of cancer of the blood or bone marrow. You might know that bone marrow transplants are a form of treatment. But did you know that certain populations are dramatically under-represented in existing bone marrow registries? The story that gave rise to this effort is that of Sameer Bhatia, a Stanford undergrad-turned-entrepreneur. Because of this story, the Haas Center is working with Professor Jennifer Aaker and others to find a team of students to develop a bone marrow registry and get at least 100,000 people signed up. This is an opportunity to do something spectacular. We are looking for a multidisciplinary team of students who can work collaboratively, self-organize, and who are interested in designing a social media/networking campaign to achieve this goal. Think you are up to it? To learn more, contact Tom Schnaubelt @ 650-723-0992. Or come join us dinner at Branner Hall on Thursday, October 7th at 5:30. D
36. 11 weeks INSPIRATION CONCEPTING EVALUATION REALIZATION 345 inspirations 287 concepts 25 final concepts 10 winners announced! Feb 17 May 13 How might we increase the number of registered bone marrow donors to help save more lives?
43. DMV and Marrow Vincent Cheng What if you were asked to swab a cheek while waiting at the DMV to register your vehicle?
44. Matchpoint Carola Ponce A mobile application to help groups organize bone marrow registry drives.
45. DIY Kits SinaMossayeb University-based crowd sourcing competition challenge platform to encourage ways of promoting registry increase—website with DIY resources.
46. Swab Parties Veronika Let’s apply the tupperware party principle to a good cause like having a “swap party" where people come together to inform themselves and get registered.
62. The End. Start your own social media love story here: http://on.fb.me/lqEwv9 View all the OpenIDEO concepts here: http://bit.ly/bmc-realisation
Notes de l'éditeur
Hi I’m Jennifer, I am professor at Stanford GSB Hi I’m Nathan, I work at the Design Company IDEO and lead our Open Innovation platform OpenIDEO.
A cottonswab.Q-Tips produces over 25 billion of these every yearThey are mundane, ordinary things.And, despite frequent medical advice, most of us simply stick them in our ears. But to someone else, this cotton swab means LIFE
This is Sameer, who was a student here at Stanford.He founded Project Dosti, a student-run group focused on fostering connections with India and helping others. It is part of the Haas Center here.After graduating, he became a serial entrepreneur. And he fell in a love with a girl namedReena and married her. Sameer and Reenawere traveling in India when, one day, he felt feverish and sweaty. Eventually, they went to the hospital and he was diagnosed with leukemia. That was May 2006, exactly four years and two days ago. And he called his best friend, RobertChatwani, to tell him the news.***Dosti: http://www.stanford.edu/group/dosti/index2.htmlPhotos: http://chatwani.smugmug.com/Friends/Sameer-Bhatia/15869988_akBuJ#1190016520_iFJXF)
10,000 people are diagnosed with a blood or bone marrow cancer each year30% of patients find a familymatch.70% of those people need to look to strangers in the registry. If you are Caucasian, the chance of finding a match by strangers is 80%
If you are South Asian, however, the chances are…..
1 in 20,000.And it is not just South Asians, other ethnic groups also are dramatically under-represented. This is grim news for anyone needing a match. *** note, a possibility might be to a qtip under the audiences chair (199 white, 1 pink): Just to demonstrate what that feels like, reach under your chair and please put your hand up if you got a pink one. OK – so that is how it feels. One in 200.
So how do you find a match?
Take a cotton swab, swab the inside of your cheek, and register the swab with a bone marrow registry.Now repeat that 20,000 times.But Sameer only had weeks to find a match
What could Robert and Sameer’s family and friends do?
Robert spent three hours crafting a single email to enlist help.But what was so remarkable about this email is the story he told about Sameer. And the clear call to action at the end of it.
The results in 11 weeks:470 bone marrow drives, across the US24,611 cheeks swabbed
And a perfect match (10/10) was found for Sameer.
Sameer shared how blessed he felt
He blogged from the hospital, staying connected to those 24,611 strangers.And he asked his friendsto get another 25,000 into the registry because so many others were in need.
He even recorded a video of his actual bone marrow transplant, and put it on YouTube.
They did four critically important things: focused on a single goal, grabbed attention by reversing the rules, engaged through telling a story authentically, and enable action on the part of others. And when these four activities are coordinated, in sync – multiplier effects tend to happen. Ideas become infectious, and campaigns lift on their own.
An update on Sameer. Despite a perfect match, tragically, Sameer passed away.
This is Sameer and Reena, two days before he passed on.
But here is what is amazing. Of the 24,611 newly registered, 266 were matched to those in need. In just one year alone.As many of you might know, it is not just how perfect the match is – but how quickly you can get that match. In fact, if you get a perfect match immediately, the odds of survival go from 40% to 80%.
That is 266 people who not only had the benefit of a match but the benefit of having it right away.
That was just based on 25K registered. What would happen if we took Sameer’s wish to bank another 25K in the register, and in fact double that…
…tobank 100K people. what That could create an opportunity of finding matches for 1000 people - giving them the gift of hope and time.
And the answer was yes.
One of the things we are passionate about at Stanford is adopting a design thinking process to solving problems. This is important because the outcome of this process tends to be more innovative, unexpected, and effective.
Onething we know from network analysis is that - to create truly significant social change - you have to tap discrete networks with discrete skillsets. When you do that, tipping effects are more likely to happen. So the students decided to work with OpenIDEO, an open innovation community created by IDEO. And that is how they met Nathan.
OpenIDEO is an online platform that engages a growing network of creatives and passionate problem solvers from all walks of life to solve challenges of a social and environmental nature. We run challenges that aim to create human centered solutions to problems that we all face, everything from healthy eating to maternal health.
This was our goal this time: 100,000 cheek swabs, but through using a design thinking approach.
What does that mean I hear you ask? We start with the challenge question, and walked through key stages of the innovation process. Inspiration - Learning about the problem and figuring out where to innovateConcepting – open collaboration to maximize and generate successful ideasEvaluation – equipping the community with the right criteria to help us decide which concepts to move forwards withRealization - finally making those concepts a reality.
We just finished the challenge and got an amazing response from our 15,000 strong global community.
I’d like to give you a taste of what the community contributed. The challenge started by trying to understand the problem in depth. We invited the community to contribute examples of innovation in the donation space from other countries, and also to share stories and know-how on the subject of bone marrow donation. Here’s one from Vineet, one of the leaders of the 100K Cheeks Stanford team. He helped the community learn that 80% of the time Bone Marrow Donation is an out-patient procedure. Hundreds of others were submitted like this before the real creative process of Concepting happened a few weeks later. Thanks to this we got a really rich understanding of the problem at hand.
We learned that there are barriers to bone marrow donation.Fear of needlesMisunderstanding…
We learned that donating bone marrow is not like just donatingblood, there’s a more drawn out journey, and it starts by becoming aware and understanding the need for this important contribution.
We also found there’s 5 ways to innovate… these acted as a springboard for the community to generate hundreds of great ideas. Let me tell you about some of the final concepts that made it through….
Each of these themes inspired hundreds of concepts…Gina shared with the community the fact that the eligible age for donating bone marrow is 18-60, this inspired ….Kate to ask the question of whether the DMV could be involved somehow?Vincent built off this inspiration with the concept of making bone marrow part of the registration process for your driving license.
And here’s his concept, get your cheek swabbed and do a worthwhile deed while you’re inline.
Could we create a mobile application to help groups organize bone marrow registry drives?
Could we provide the right tools for people to start their own grass roots network effect and help others donate?
Could we create Swap or Swab parties, where friends meet at home, get informed about Bone Marrow and swab their cheeks.
Could we globally centralize location data for donor centers, national registries, donor drives and other information on a central site?
It’s only been a couple of weeks since the challenge finished, but already most of the final concepts have been taken up by different teams to move forwards either as they are or in combination with other. Back to Jennifer to share the lessons we’ve learned along this journey. Jennifer….*** You can read and hear all about each of these concepts and meet Sara and Lily, Vineet and Kevin, Nicole and Sidd after this talk. I know I echo Jennifer in saying how much we would value your advice and ideas for how we might take these concepts further and make a real dent in Cancer.
Research shows that creativity increases when working on the challenges of others.When you design for others, they feel lighter. You feel lighter.We’ve designed for others for a long time; but we haven’t been able to do so in such a global way. Now we can, thanks to the internet and social media. ***Notes - this is about being intuitive, human centered, collaborative, open, connected.
Rather than trying to make everything perfect; put something “just enough” out there – and then let the community play in it. By putting ‘just enough’ out there, you invite others to participate. ***Note: You can put something out there – to the community – and rathe than putting out ffinal solutions and hoping they work, rely on the communities energy and passions for them. And that generates a movement. Looking at baby steps; getting the ball rolling. Putting just enough out there in the world – so the world can make something flourish. You build a platform ‘just enough’ and it blossoms. And you put ‘just enough’ into the challenge, and it takes off. How? Prototype, often. See what blossoms and then iterate.
Can we harness optimism when we tackle world problems?Optimism generates ideas.Ideas become contagious in that context.***Note: And as you move from fear to optimism, others become part of this process. (“After contributing to the challenge, we put ourselves into the registry”)
To create significant social change, you need to tap multiple discrete networks with diverse skillsets; in those cases, tipping effects are more likely to happen.
Finally, lets look at what happens when you activate discrete networks with discrete skillsets. A single email from Robert – a story well told, that led to me writing the Dragonfly Effect, a book with my husband, that inspired 100K Cheeks, a student group, which led to the challenge on OpenIDEO.
And each of those people touched by the OpenIDEO process were empowered to activate their own network.
Imagine what you could do, right here, right now.Share a simple message with your networks.
And if they share it with three friends, and the pattern continues.
Imagine the people you could touch.
We hope you no longer see this as an ordinary cotton swab.Wehope you see it as something sacredCould we take one small act, intended to help another and designed to scale?All of the ideas from OpenIDEO are on display outside, and we’ll be holding a drive after STAN, and the 100K Cheeks team will be on hand you a Q-tip.
Andpossibly become a perfect match for someone.And create another love story.
Designing for Social Change.Designing for Networks.How do we Engage Networks for Social Good?
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint
OpenIDEO winners:Swab, Spit & ShareDMV and Marrow DIY Kit Cricket Stars South Asian donors Start with the kids!This Isn't Your Mama's…Swab parties Spiritual Leaders Matchpoint