The document summarizes three iterations of a trial that aimed to show appreciation through daily thank you texts. In the first iteration, participants were asked to send 3 compliments per day but some felt awkward. The second iteration changed compliments to thank you texts but had low participation. The third iteration sent daily reminder texts and increased participation to 70% but maintaining participation over the long term was difficult. The trial showed that specifying the thank you recipient makes texts more genuine and sending reminders increases initial participation but constant reinforcement is needed to train the habit long term.

1. Text2Calm:KUDOText Simple trial of showing appreciation through texts Bryan Cheng Stanford University

2. Trial Outline Send 1 thank you text every night Reflect upon the entire day each night and show your appreciation to just one person that has done something nice to you Duration – 1 whole week Aim to think positively and not on stressful topics prior to sleeping

3. Trial Participants 13 people signed up originally 10 participated to varying levels Sent to 3 email lists 14 viewed general info doc 23 viewed sign up doc Reminders and details sent right away

4. 1st Iteration Asked only close friends to participate Suggested sending any compliments Specified time at the beginning of the day and wait for responses throughout the day Sent 3 compliments every day http://bit.ly/kudotext

5. 1st Iteration Results Had good responses and feedback from small number of participants Participants enjoyed it, but sometimes felt awkward; recipients of the texts liked the texts, occasionally questioned the reasoning behind it Insights – need to specify, compliments to general and sometimes do not seem truly genuine, limit to once a day

6. 2nd Iteration Changed compliments to thank you texts Specified the time at night with the post-it notes Linked to new info page dubbed v2 Sent out to more Stanford email lists http://bit.ly/kudotextv2

7. 2nd Iteration Results Poor results – high click through rate for info page, very low click through rate for sign up page, 1 signed up Insights – info intermediate page too much of a hassle, need hot trigger with embedded sign up form, post-its inconvenient for only participant, suggested to me to send daily text reminders

8. 3rd Iteration Sent text reminders every night around midnight instead of using the post-its Linked directly to sign-up form and had info about the trial study in the email http://bit.ly/kudotextv2signup

9. 3rd Iteration Results Received positive feedback across the board Increased participation to about 70% by sending the daily reminder texts Stopped sending the reminder texts and a few kept participating in the trial Iterate – automate the reminder process, reach out to the people not responding through other means

10. Conclusion and Surprises Sending daily reminders works well to increase participation in the beginning Specifying the kudos to a person who helped you throughout the day makes the text more genuine and less awkward Difficult to keep the participation rate high over the duration of the trial Training these habits requires constant participation in the beginning Everyone loves to be loved

11. Future? Although the trial seems great in theory, in reality, it did not work out as expected The participants did enjoy the trial and sending the texts was rather simple, but continuing the process proved challenging Possibly integrate the kudos into meetings, classes, or even practices?

12. Contact ME Bryan Cheng bbch@stanford.edu Stanford University ‘13 Electrical Engineering Twitter: bryanbcheng#CalmingTech