h2>Dating : On a Mission to Maximize Encouragement for All
Using IoT to Enhance the Way We Encourage Others
The power of encouragement and of community is immense, especially as they relate to uplifting the spirits of those going through difficult times. Imagine a time when a close friend or loved one was hurting, and they were in your thoughts constantly. Like most others, you reached out via text once in a while, mixing in the occasional phone call or video call. What if in combination, there was a way for that person to know how often they crossed your mind? These otherwise uncommunicated thoughts could be turned into encouragement that was able to brighten someone’s day.
Three years ago, Lindsay Donaldson had an idea for a solution to this problem, which she observed firsthand during her mother’s battle with breast cancer. While many of Lindsay’s thoughts about her mother would prompt some form of outreach, the vast majority would go uncommunicated. CaringBand was borne out of this desire to convert uncommunicated thoughts into encouragement for the purpose of bringing more joy into the word.
Setting off on this journey, we sought to understand why people don’t reach out to friends and loved ones as often as they’d like. In a random survey with 2,583 respondents, we learned that approximately 50% of percent of the sample had held back communication to a friend or loved one at some point because they 1) did not know what to say or 2) did not want to bother the person with the burden of a response.
The solution for these common deterrents was simple. Create a product that would allow encouragement senders to send one-way preset messages that will brighten the recipient’s day without adding the burden of reciprocation. With the added goal of providing encouragement in real-time, we produced a wearable that will notify the recipient each time they were being thought of.
The end result is CaringBand, a communication platform created to enable anyone going through a difficult time to have access to more frequent moments of encouragement and support. The CaringBand bracelet is a connected wearable that pulses and lights up each time a new encouraging message is received on the CaringBand mobile app. The wearer then reads their messages on the CaringBand app when convenient and with no need to respond.
It is important to know that CaringBand is not meant to be a replacement for more personal face-to-face visits, phone calls, and texts. Instead, CaringBand is a supplemental encouragement tool that can be used to increase the overall frequency of encouragement that someone receives.
With COVID-19, and related social distancing, CaringBand has never been more relevant or needed. As I type, our very first beta tester is recovering for brain surgery at MD Anderson, and up until two days ago, she was there all alone.
Since being admitted to the hospital a week ago, her CaringBand bracelet has been “going off like crazy…and means the absolute world to me”, according to Casey. For context, Casey’s CaringBand network has sent nearly 500 notifications letting her know she’s not alone. Casey’s original CaringBand testimonial can be seen HERE.
CaringBand is launching on Kickstarter this week in an effort to get to market faster and help more people like Casey. Final production design and prototyping is funded and near complete. A successful campaign will help further validate the concept and help fund minimum order quantities for manufacturing. Please consider supporting CaringBand any way you can.
For more information about CaringBand, please visit their company website.
