Transcriber: Jaime Ochoa Reviewer: Capa Girl
So, like most of you here,
I've been pretty excited about this technology and this data
and everything that we can do these days
to really make significant changes in people's lives.
So about a year ago,
my girlfriend and I decided that we could
reverse engineer this very mysterious thing
called parenting.
And, see what we could do.
So, today I'd like to share
just some of the things that we've learned over the last year
about this mystery of parenting
and kind of the home environment.
What's important to remember is,
parenting is probably one of the most difficult tasks
that most people will ever have to face and have in common.
And it's hard.
It's about balancing the now with the future
while teaching the right habits
and hoping that your kids grow up to be great.
So, what's amazing is, as I began speaking with more and more parents
I realized most of them are making it up as they go.
So, anyone out there just feel normal.
Yes, there's lots of resources
but turns out, most parents will say,
"It'd be easy if I had a PhD or if I had time."
The number one source of help for parents
is this wonderful thing called Google.
They go there, and it delivers them their answer.
So what I questioned was
how can technology and data and all these great things
be re-purposed to actually make a significant change
in a significant amount of people's lives.
It turns out most people have parents.
It seems like a great market to go after.
So, that's what we did.
As I began to look at the day of a family's life
I realized there's this structure that exists
and there's these things that I like to call pivot points.
They're points in the day
where the routine takes a significant change.
Where the speed is different, something's different
in terms of kids don't usually react well to these pivot points.
For example, meal time.
Or, brushing teeth.
Or bedtime.
Ask any parent how much they look forward
to these moments in the day
and if they don't sort of cringe
they're not being completely honest with you.
And, it was just a really interesting finding for us
so we started to dig in deeper to this.
We started holding these day-long interview sessions
with multiple parents.
And this is one of the boards I created
after talking to one family.
The red indicates any pain point that he feels in his day.
What was the coolest part, though, is
I forgot to take this down in between interviews
and when I came back into the room there was a dad standing there
smiling ear to ear on the phone.
I asked him, "What's up?"
and he's like: "We're, normal!"
(Laughter)
It turns out that most people assume
that these tasks, that these pivot points
should be simple, and that they're not.
They're incredibly chaotic
and what's new is most people don't really care why,
they just want to know it's normal.
But what's new is when you figure out the why the why is,
in most cases it's one of the only points in the day
where kids have any say.
Where they can actually say no.
Most of their day is about being ushered around ushered along,
and saying yes all the time.
So these are points where they can really show their empowerment.
So, what we found out is parents need this.
[Is this normal?]
But I thought we could do something a little bit more engaging,
but how do we do it? How do we define normal?
How do we make it so that a family's life is easier?
So, first of all I asked: Why normal? Do we really just want to be normal?
What does that mean?
It's important to understand it is not
about being like everyone else,
or even being average.
But it is important to know that you are not alone,
that you are doing this
and you are not screwing up;
and that's the point people are really striving for.
Take growth charts.
They're one of the earliest measures of normal
the doctors have been using for years,
and it gave parents confidence that their kids should be growing.
So, we want to see how can we take that
and how can we take technology
and continue to define normal for families.
And, that's what we did.
We have kids using our platform,
logging in every day, checking off tasks,
buying rewards, just having fun.
And what's cool is it's pumping data into our system.
So one, we can finally answer the age old question
that, yes, girls are better behaved than boys.
And also, any parents with a nine-year-old at home,
if they're not behaving great, expect that.
It turns out, across our user base
nine-year-olds have this tremendous draw in behaviour.
They don't want to do anything.
Maybe it's the rebellious age, maybe it's not;
but what's cool is, we're starting to surface these points
and we can deliver this back in a relevant timely manner for parents,
so they start to feel a little more normal.
So we started to look top tasks.
Turns out kids don't really hate brushing teeth that much,
laundry is OK, and homework's fine.
But other other end of the spectrum,
cleaning the bedroom, putting away toys, and washing dishes,
are hated amongst most kids.
So again, if you are a parent,
who find yourself struggling at these points, you are normal.
And it's so funny how much of an impact it has
to be told that, yeah, you are normal.
So, I've been speaking about this from the parents' perspective,
the secret is -- I am doing this for the kids, I have been all along.
And all too often, we forget how awesome it is to be a kid.
I mean it's one of the coolest that anyone will ever go through.
Anything's possible, you're the coolest people around.
So, I wanted to really harness this
and make sure that a kid's day was as awesome as it could be.
So, when I started thinking about these pivot points, it was --
alright, so kids are clearly not happy, either.
How can we make it so that they're happy?
Because my assumption was,
if they are happy, parents will be happy.
So this is where I drew the link to gamification.
Probably one of the ugliest words that you've heard today,
but something with a pretty neat meaning.
It means taking gaming loops
and feedback loops and applying them in other places
to make that activity more engaging.
It can also be used in a second form of making data
which has been a big theme here today,
making it accessible and usable
to the average consumer,
not someone who's studied data for years and years.
So, a great story around this that I have is,
when I was ten, my brother was six,
and I feel so bad for him having been my younger brother;
because when I was thirsty,
I would propose the challenge:
"Can you get me a drink of water in less than 25 seconds?"
(Laughter)
And it worked, most of the time I stopped counting,
I never counted.
He always won, he always felt great,
and I got my water.
And, it worked. He felt great.
He was getting this feedback loop.
It then translated as I got a little older
and I started my first business which was lawn cutting.
I had some massive lawns with a very small lawn mower.
So I decided, "I'll time my laps. Let's see how fast I can go."
The beauty was, I was cutting in,
so every lap was default faster.
But, it was a hack that made me feel like I was making progress.
It was a feedback loop;
and this is what games give you
and that's why kids are so addicted to them.
Everyone after the '90s knows how satisfying it is
to be told instantly how great you are.
Those bleeps, those blings, everything like that
means a lot even if it doesn't mean anything
outside of that context, it means something.
So that's what we did to the home routine.
We turned it from being, "Do this",
to, "here's your challenges,
can you accomplish it?"
And it turns out kids love it.
We even have parents who were setting up these tasks
and the kids are pushing the parents to go through
the day and really take it on, and kids feel great.
They want to be empowered.
We forget how important it is for kids to be empowered,
especially when most of their days
being told what to do.
So, the other version, and what comes back to the parents is,
this is the data,
this is a lot of data like we've seen earlier.
It's not useful to most people.
But we're seeing apps being re-purposed around it,
especially in the health care industry.
And this is what we're looking to do in the parenting industry.
Relevant data when you need it.
So you know what you need to do now
and you feel normal and great and confident.
Because once we establish this confidence in parents,
and this fun with kids, the whole routine
takes a whole new form and cool things start to happen.
In social media there is this general rule called the 90-9-1 rule;
meaning that
all the content is created by one percent.
Nine percent contribute, comment, everything like that,
but most of the internet is lurking,
reading it, searching in Google;
never actually contributing to this conversation.
What was really interesting is the parallels of this
to the home, to the family.
I always say there's that one percent,
and everyone knows that one mom or that one dad
who just has the best ideas all the time.
Like, let's turn grocery shopping into a game where
you have to find all the purple vegetables, that's great;
and then, they have their 9% which is their social circle.
They talk about it a little bit; but there's no way for that
to be spread out to the 90%,
and that is sort of the question.
Now that we've established normal,
now that we have this great home routine,
how can we take and expose this great content
to the 90% and what happens when you start doing this?
So, my favorite story is, in the framework,
we surface this great reward
called ice cream for breakfast;
and what's important to understand is
it's so awesome because you're six-years-old,
you're at the breakfast table
and all your siblings are eating toast, it's great.
It's this really empowering moment.
So it quickly rose through
the top rewards through our system.
And it is really neat seeing the assumptions
being broken over and over again by parents.
We have one family in Vancouver,
and for months it was TV, dinner time, TV.
She assumed that kids wanted to watch TV.
She set up high scores house
and she made TV a reward that they could buy,
along with other things like craft night, baking.
And, 8 weeks later they haven't watched a single episode of TV.
She's discovered her 5-year-old loves baking,
and that her 8-year-old is a really enthusiastic
all-across-the-board- but-not-TV type of person.
And that's really cool because all of a sudden now
that Friday night that was once spent in front of the TV
is now a baking activity,
and you have parents and kids coming together;
and the cool part is we're empowering through the kids.
So, we're using the kids to help the parents continue
to feel normal, but pushing them to have
deeper moments throughout the day,
and it feels great because it's a gaming feedback loop,
everyone's confident, everyone's having fun.
And that's what gets me really excited as we see more
mobile and tablets, and everything coming out,
it's easier to provide these feedback loops and these
engagement cycles to really transform people's lives.
And I am also excited.
I really wish I was a kid these days.
Anyway, yeah, so that's what we're working on.
It's really fun, thanks for coming out.
It's been a great day everyone.
(Applause)