An Israel university student is using the popular social networking service, Twitter, to help people Tweet God.

Alon Nir, a resident of Tel Aviv, takes the prayers which are sent via direct link on Nir’s Twitter site, prints them out and drives to Jerusalem to put them into the crevices of the Western Wall. The Western Wall is a Jewish holy site that faithful believe provides a direct line to the Almighty.

Nir promises to deliver the prayers — each no longer than a tweet’s maximum 140 characters — on a regular basis.

Tagged as: Digital Activism, social marketing, social media, social networks, twitter

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Speed monitoring signs are very effective psychological speed bumps, but the Elm Grove Police took that a step further. Not only do the signs warn you of exceeding the posted speed limit, they also collate that speed to the consequences of that choice.

Tagged as: behavior change, cause creative, healthy people, Healthy Places, public health, social marketing

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Do Good
This awesome ipod/iphone app unites millions of users to do one random act of kindness a day.

The application is appropriately called “DoGood”. Each day the application displays the same “DoGood” to every user on a particular day. Once you’ve completed the DoGood, simply press done.

Social Media Integration
Facebook and Twitter integration allows you to easily tell your friends about each day’s DoGood. You can leave a story on each DoGood, or read the stories of others.

Tracking Social Change
DoGood collects statistics from the group anonymously, and presents them on a graphical dashboard allowing you to easily track each day’s activity. Moreover, you can view past DoGoods and their respective stories.

Join the movement:
http://mobil33t.com/dogood

Tagged as: behavior change, cause, cause creative, Digital Activism, Facebook, healthy people, Healthy Places, public health, social marketing, social media, social networks, twitter

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When I first saw the article about the World’s Happiest Places, I was certain that I was going to be able to map a result back to the World’s Healthiest Places. Not so easy – but there was some crossover. The criteria that Forbes uses to define happiness and health are somewhat subjective, but none the less, it is a GREAT topic for consideration when looking at potential motivators and influences on health. What could this mean for social marketers?

When looking at the “happiest” nations, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand and Belgium were listed in the top ten. Forbes focused on “life satisfaction” factors that contributed to happiness such as economic health, work-life balance and unemployment rates but also included questions about pride, respect and learning.

Now, how does that compare to the “healthiest” nations? Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Denmark, Canada, Austria, and the Netherlands ranked at the top. Measures included national health care systems, air pollution, infant mortality rates, safe drinking water/sanitation, density of physicians, life expectancies and prevalence of tuberculosis. (Note that this is not self reported data like the other study and as a public health professional, this criterion for health seems a bit archaic.)

But, if we cross compare, it looks like its time to travel to Denmark, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands to get some answers. More to come as I dive a little more into the social marketing efforts that come from some of these healthy places.

Tagged as: healthy people, Healthy Places, influences, motivators, social marketing

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