May 13, 2008
inpowr interview with Michel Chioini… becoming the hub for wellness.
San Francisco was good to us. We attended tons of stimulating conferences, met lots of interesting people and were interviewed on several occasions. Here’s a transcript of an interview between inpowr President, Michel Chioini, and Claude Malaison, inpowr Globeblogger and President of ÉmergenceWeb.
Claude: So, Michel. Tell us about San Francisco…
Michel: It was fantastic. We had several discussions with potential co-branding partners like NBC Universal and LaPoste.net–France’s national postal service. That one might sound a little strange but LaPoste.net is a giant portal and they’re always looking for valuable content. They’re also very interest in the well-being of their employees.
Claude: Any other interesting leads?
Michel: Oh yeah. We had a great talk with Freddy Mini, the CEO of Netvibes, who’s super interested in inpowr and has even agreed to become a member of our board!
…
Claude: Tell us about your strategy for developing inpowr…
Michel: Sure. Our strategy has four pillars: 1) Develop the potential of our platform and work towards maturity, as represented by lifelogs; 2) Develop mini versions of inpowr (like Slide) and distribute them as widely as possible across platforms like MySpace, Facebook, Netvibes, Viadeo, Orkut, Ning, etc.; 3) Develop a corporate version of our platform specifically for wellness programs within large corporations. That’s part of the whole movement towards Business 2.0 and; 4) Develop a version for a younger audience, say 8 to 15, that meets their specific needs better than our current platform.
Claude: You mentioned Ning. Tell us a little about the model of viral networks.
Michel: Our approach is similar to that of Ning. We don’t force members to invite other people to use the platform. They do it because they realize the benefits of building links to other people in the community. The nature of the platform encourages viral growth. Our Supporters section, is one obvious place that will happen and it should be online very soon.
Claude: Sounds like you have a pretty clear vision but I’m guessing it’s going to take some funding to get there. Can you tell us a bit about your revenue model?
Michel: Sure. We have four: Contextual advertising, Co-Branding, Licensing and Apps-sharing.
Claude: Right. That will help you keep inpowr going, but how will you fund the development of the platform in the short term?
Michel: Our goal is to become the hub of wellness in the next 18 months. that means THE platform for people seeking the tools, content and community they need to improve their well-being. To do that, we’re seeking $5 US.
Claude: Thanks for sharing, Michel. I look forward to the next installment!
Check out this video interview with Loic Lemeur on Seesmic.
The inpowr team.
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April 23, 2008
Back in Frisco
The sun is out and and so are about 7,000 people from around the world, and they’re all here at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. In the words of Expo organizers at O’Reilly, here’s why:
“Web 2.0 technologies are empowering us in ways we could only have imagined even just a few years ago. We’re able to build more, connect more, have more fun, sell more stuff, share more than ever before—and do it all faster. But as the pace of change and innovation accelerates, separating signal from noise, useful from annoying, genuine from fluff becomes increasingly challenging.”
The inpowr team is psyched to be back in San Francisco, a year after we first launched at the Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad. This time around, we’re here to tap the industry’s leading minds, share ideas, meet potential co-branding partners and hopefully drum up some funding for our next round of development, commercialization and marketing.
The bloggers are out in force too and there’s no shortage of updates and info on what’s going on here at the show.
Check out the Web 2.0 Blog, Venture Beat, or Tom Smoke’s Digital Finest for all the latest.
Stay tuned for new developments and enjoy this blast from the past:
The inpowr team
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April 7, 2008
What’s the point of grouping the cards together?
That’s a question I’ve heard a few times. Let’s take a look at the process: when you’ve finished rating your well-being you get a graphic representation of the areas in your life that you might want to consider working on. Then you’re invited to group them together… but the question is why?
The easy answer is that many areas in our lives are interrelated. For example: my level of energy and my eating habits are related. Those two might also be related to how I feel about my body.
Another reason is that sometimes when you work on one aspect of your life, you discover it has an impact on some other areas as well. If I lessen some of the worries in my life, I might find my mind is clearer at work and I do a better job.
The simple act of grouping the cards together in a way that’s meaningful to you is already a positive step in your life. You can further the process by choosing a goal to work on and planning the steps or actions you’ll take to help achieve your goal. Later on, you can see how your actions affected your well-being and draw your own conclusions about those relationships.
Here’s a concrete example of what I’m describing. When you visit the Community section, you’ll see all 36 areas of life ranked by their current level of well-being in the inpowr community.
When you click on a “related goals” link, you’ll see the goals people were working on that had an impact on that particular area of life. To an outsider, the link between the two might seem a little weird… Hmmm. She was working on her relationship with her mom but she feels better about her surroundings. This is where it gets fun. Dig a little.
Click on the “Testimonials” link and you’ll be able to read personal insights and conclusions from inpowr members and you can go back and track their progress from day to day. There’s a wealth of learning in the collective experiences of humanity and we’re finally starting to harness it.
I heartily encourage everyone to share as much of their experiences as they feel comfortable with. The more we share, the more we can all learn from one another.
We’re all individuals but we’re a lot like the various aspects of our lives: intimately interrelated.
Have fun!
Kerry
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February 29, 2008
Need help setting your goals?
Here are a few tips to help you create your game plan and set your goals.
Try to make your game plan…
1) motivating, interesting or fun so that you feel like doing it on a daily basis. Feel free to experiment. One way to help achieve your goals is to link them to an action that gives you genuine pleasure.
2) clear: the actions that you choose should be concrete and tangible; try to avoid things that are too vague, abstract or metaphysical. For example: instead of saying “do more exercise; you could say “do 20 minutes of riding each day.”
3) realistic: it’s a good idea to start with simple actions that can be easily integrated into your daily routine. Try to avoid having too many things on your plate all at once.
The first part of the Community section is online now. It’s a great place to start when you want to see what other people are doing to achieve their goals!
Good luck and Have fun!
Speaking of fun: inpowr has a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/s.php?q=inpowr&init=q
So join the group and be part of the dialogue.
The inpowr team
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February 29, 2008
What can we learn from one another?
There’s an old saying: “The wise learn from the mistakes of others; everyone else has to learn from their own.” I think we should broaden that to include not only our mistakes, but our successes as well. Truth be told, we can all learn from one another. According to Tim O’Reilly, one of the key characteristics of Web 2.0 is its ability to harness collective intelligence.
inpowr was designed to help users learn from one another by harnessing the collective experiences of the community. And I’m super happy to announce that the first part of the Community section is now online to help us all do just that. Here’s how it works.
The first page lists all 36 areas of life ranked by their impact on the well-being of community members. The area at the top of the page––in this case Reasoning–is the area in which users are currently experiencing the highest overall level of well-being. The lower down you go on the list, the lower the average current level of well-being. If you click on the blue “related goals” link, you’ll see all the goals people are working on within that area of life.
In the very near future, you’ll also have access to testimonials from other inpowr members; tips on books, videos, techniques and other cool things that have helped them along the way; and links to a host of professional services related to that specific goal.
Another great function that will be available soon: when you click on a specific goal or action, you’ll be taken to the profile page of that member (provided he or she chose to share). Once you’re on that member’s profile page, you can write them a message of support or encouragement, ask a question, share your own experiences or even ask them to help you with your own goals.
As I write this post, we have 3659 betatesters who are working on a total of 5700 goals. We’ve only just begun and already there’s an incredible bank of human experiences available for each of us to draw upon. What’s great, is that more and more people are choosing to share their experiences. Imagine what we’d learn from one another if we kept everything bottled up for ourselves.
Now imagine what we can learn from one another if we open up and share!
Kerry Fleming
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