Thanks for the job, EnduranceNation!
We're always reading posts about how people got a new PR from being here in EN, or how they've stopped getting injured, yada, yada. But I think I'm the first member who can trace his employment directly to EN. Let me explain...
A year and a half ago a friend called me up hoping to get some referrals for a web developer. To his surprise, I said that I wanted the job. Only one problem though...I had very sparse experience in the kinds of technologies that would be required for the project. Their goal was to build a web site with a social network component to support patients who have received an implantable gastric stimulator for weight loss (basically a pacemaker like device that stimulates the stomach when the patient eats).
During my interview I sat down with the CEO and explained to him how my experience with EN uniquely qualified me for the position. I told him that some mornings, when its raining and cold, that knowing I'd have to post an "I wimped out" report to my training group gave me the motivation to drag my butt out of bed and hit the bricks. He instantaneously saw that I "got it." We had a great talk, and explored many new directions that we could take the original idea. I told him about our challenges, meet-ups, etc.
And so I became a web developer. And our CEO, unbenownst to the rest of you, became one of the biggest braggers about the EN way. He tells EVERYONE about me getting out of bed that rainy morning so that I wouldn't have to let you all down, and how we are going to utilize that vibe to further assist our implant patients. I worked on prototypes and technology strategies for about a year all by myself, then this year we hired one other coder, and two other developers joined as testing engineers. And next week, clinical patients in Germany will log into our site for the first time. Guess what...I'm REALLY stoked!!
The site will include the standard groups, friends, messages, but will also have meal and activity tracking, goals, reports. For users who have our implanted device, we've created a telemetry wand that they can attach to their PC, interrogate their device history, and that data will automatically be uploaded to their web account. The device has an accelerometer, so we know when they are active and can estimate their calories burned. Similarly, their meal log will be pre-populated with the times and durations of all their consumption events (but the device doesn't know how many calories were consumed - hard to tell the diff between water and Guiness!) This should greatly improve their caloric intake recording compliance. They might forget that they snacked on a bagel yesterday at 10, but the device knows, and that snack will automatically show up in their web journal.
I haven't been able to talk about any of this because we've been in 'stealth' mode - building up intellectual property and getting ready for launch. On the IP front, I can tell you that EN has been expressly cited in some of our patent applications as "prior art" regarding motivation/feedbace techniques and tools.
Once we open up the site to the public (the German clinical patients will enjoy exclusive access for a couple months) I'll post up the site address. And hopefully by then we'll have our first wave of enhancements implemented (we're still a bit thin on functionality).
Thanks Rich and Patrick. You guys have set out the environment for a great community...one that deserves to be copied
.
Mike
Comments
GREAT story, Mike. The analogy from your work underscores the hidden (to the outside world) value of community within EN.
Good luck with the launch
Congrats and thanks for sharing!
Fabulous! Congratulations!!! Good energy always finds it's way to the right place!
Mike - taking the EN example and putting it to the cause of helping people lose weight and be more healthy is really cool - Rich and Patrick should be proud.
Win Win does happen! Thanks for sharing! Congratulations!!
Awesome, but did this mean you have to pay a vig to Rich and Patrick?
P
Nothing else to say.....COOL!!
Wow - thanks everyone for the kind words and well wishes! So excited...until I went through the collected 'to-do' notes and put them in our task tracker system - we're up to 116 things to add/fix! And that's just the start - yipes!
Hmmm, I wonder how to translate "Wicked smart member" into German
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Mike