Love Apple Seed

When it comes to the Apple company, I love the infant Apple, the Apple seed. I love Apple’s vision and passion of long ago. The Apple where Steve Jobs was figuring out how to make positive impacts on the world while still on this planet.

Investopedia says it well where:

..what satisfied him [Steve Jobs] most was watching kids use Apple products in the classroom

Steve Jobs wanted to improve people’s life experiences. He saw that he could do that through Apple products. Steve Jobs is gone, but it’s my hope that the momentum of his positive vision continues through the decades.

There is a new hope. Tim Cook spoke about the general philosophy of Apple and it’s captured nicely in the article Apple’s mission statement (Tim Cook text). I recommend one checks out the “The most interesting lines” section. It captures the concepts of keeping it simple, make a difference, keep focused, be excellent, and make excellent products.

So, keep the faith when it comes to your own personal mission statement and carry on! What is your personal personal mission statement? Feel free to share it with me on Twitter and let’s make paradise on earth happen together!

Wondering about the Wandering Retreat on 10% Happier?

Is the “Wandering Retreat” the most ambitious and craziest course on the 10% Happier meditation app? I say yes!

Dan gave us a preview tweet tease back in December with this picture of Jeff Warren and Dan Harris:

Since then, I have been waiting for this release with great excitement! It has arrived and I am overwhelmed with how good it is. The course is heart warming, insightful, pragmatic and frankly a work of art.

It's a work of art.

Discussing the Plan and Working on Dan’s Face

The course begins with seeing a little bit of Dan’s work day which is quite fascinating. While a little bit of makeup is artfully applied, he discusses the retreat. As he says, part of the plan is to literally get lost.

Next, I’m seeing a sweet and cute family scene that makes me smile brightly. It transitions to hearing family goodbyes of “Bye Daddy!” and “I love you!” It’s truly touching.

This switches to a funny scene where Jeff and Dan meet and choose where to go. Dan initially suggests a luxury beach retreat! There’s some playful back and forth where the choice is between luxury and the woods. In a lighthearted way, Dan says “Coursing under everything you’re saying is a raging river of like you’re a sissy if you don’t do the latter.” Jeff playfully says “That’s right.” Meeting adversity head on, they chose the woods.

Meditating On Day One

Camp is set up and the day ends with their first meditation. Now, here’s where the app does something truly magical. As opposed to a hard transition from video to recorded meditation, you are led into an experience that goes like this. You’re watching the video, you close your eyes, and then you’re meditating with them in the woods. That is exactly how it feels! Well done!

In the meditation itself there’s a mixture of nature sounds, Jeff’s guiding voice, and what I will describe as the occasional technology related sounds. This demonstrates a great integration of meditation practice with real life. Here there’s equanimity and really just taking it all in.

After the meditation, there’s a funny and insightful followup discussion around the campfire.

Meditation Follow Up Discussion

Dan doesn’t hold back his innermost thoughts where he has “an embarrassing moment.” Although I don’t want to spoil it by sharing this hilariously funny moment in detail, I don’t think Dan’s going to hell for it.

After their first day, the adventure continues with hiking, swimming and insightful wisdom shared along the way. It’s worth watching the videos multiple times and listening carefully to the wisdom that is shared. Among other things, a great thing that Jeff shares in the “Field Naturalist of the Mind” is:

You’re experiencing your own experience through the only means that you have available which is your own experience.

It’s clever and deep. That might take time to sink in and context is needed. He’s saying this in the context of meaningful and playful exploration that is available by training the mind. What Jeff is sharing throughout the course is practical and pragmatic yet it’s life changing.

Jeff and Dan touch on so much in this short retreat such as pain, equanimity, compassion, and Jeff’s favorite of muditā which Jeff says is “like celebratory joy.” What I especially like is at the end where they deal with “a mathematical impossibility” of logistics that Dan is facing. Will Dan make his meeting? Will Jeff make his flight?

Jeff says he has the perfect meditation for this common ailment titled “Where is a Thought?” The context is to work with the thinking process as it is. It’s extremely useful and I will be using this meditation often!

Logistics and a Meditation

So, wonder no more. This latest “Wandering Retreat” course is a beautiful gift to the #10PercentHappier community. With humor and beautiful nature scenes throughout, wisdom and practical tips are shared.

If you wish, check out my other posts about the 10% Happier app or better yet check out the 10% Happier app itself now!

CARROT iPhone App Video Marketing Done Right

The maker of the CARROT TODO app does user experience and marketing right in so many ways. To keep this post short, let’s just focus on one bit of video marketing titled CARROT Launch Trailer. The video is fun enough that I even saved it to watch again!

The video starts with some exciting music and a strong message similar to this: “the todo list with a personality.” It’s a good clear message which shows how it distinguishes itself and what the app does.

With the blue circle pulsing, the video moves on to the playful and humorous statements of “Let’s play a game. We’ll call it ‘Don’t Suck at Life.'” It shows some functionality of the app and then moves on to the rules of the game. Get stuff done or CARROT will get mad!

As someone who has used the app for years, I guarantee she (CARROT) will get mad. CARROT is often referred to as the user’s “new mistress.” Here’s the video:

One thing the video doesn’t show you is the funny and sometimes creepy (in a humorous way) push notifications that the app receives. I highly encourage you to turn the notifications on. Although the humor is often dark, it is fantastically funny. Check out the app for yourself!

Communities in Nonsocial Mobile Apps

Nonsocial apps with a social community inside of them. It seems to make sense since you already have a captive audience. However, does it always make sense? Let’s first dive into mobile apps that come with communities.

Besides the obvious social mobile apps, there are multiple apps with communities aka groups inside of them. These apps are not primarily social apps, but they attempt to support a community. Since humans are social beings, it can be a nice feature which can make the app more appealing and thus used more often.

Some Community Supporting Apps:

  • Argus – It’s a highly social activity tracker app that has a groups section. There’s more on Argus further down in this article. iPhone and Android apps exist.
  • Coursera has a “Discussions” area in the iPhone app. There’s an Android app too. Discussions are not available until a course starts. So, one cannot peek inside right away and explore it.
  • Lose It! – Weight Loss Program and Calorie Counter – Has a “Social” section with many groups in it. The group activity in it is kind of strong. Strongest are the groups which are promoted as “Featured Groups”. iPhone app and Android app exist.
  • Not quite a discussions area, but Udemy has a Q & A section which has questions directed at the instructor in a particular instructor. This provides longterm value with credibility in the information since the answers come from the instructor. However, there is no sense of community. They offer an iPhone app and an Android app.
  • It’s worth noting that I have seen apps drop support for groups. That can sometimes be the smartest move.

More on Argus

The target audience of the app focuses on people who like to be social while tracking health, fitness, meditation, sleep and other trackable activities. Even though the semi-new groups section is pretty dead, there’s a novel tie in from a group into the tracked activities of group members which I find interesting.

It’s interesting in how it provides a kind of newsfeed style of tracked activities. You can tap on a button in the group and see a combined newsfeed from the group members. Compared to the messages button, this has much more activity. Unfortunately, most of the activities have nothing to do with the particular group you are in since they are not filtered. At a glance, it’s also a slightly confusing user experience.

Also, the downside of the groups section is that it’s slow to load and has an annoying bug which makes the iPhone app crash when you click on a link. As a side note, I happen to run a meditation group in Argus that has 25 members.

All that said, it’s worth a look. The groups has potential if a few things are tweaked, promoted, and fixed.

Externally Support the Community?

Should one just tie into an existing social app such as Facebook to support a community? It’s a fair question. Facebook has a groups feature which can be successful. The most successful Facebook group I have been a part of is the Octalysis Explorers. It has over 2000 members. Like any group, a lot of effort goes into keeping the community engaged. Fortunately for the Octalysis Explorers, Yu-kai Chou is a master at the art and science of engagement. He has a handful of awesome and loyal people who support the effort.

The people supporting the Octalysis Explorers group are continuously driving people to the Facebook group through multiple channels. Even in its own “Join the Movement” section, the group is highlighted in Yu-kai Chou’s great book titled Actionable Gamification – Beyond Points, Badges, and Leaderboards. There are also multiple administrators for the group. Also, there is always at least one person actively interacting with every post. A successful community relies on that kind of wonderful support from its administrators and its members.

Summary

Even though the implementation and user experience is pretty rough, it seems like the app with the most group activity without overt support is “Lose It!” However, that’s not saying much. The app with the most potential from a technology point of view may be Argus. However, Argus is already a highly social app so its group feature doesn’t add much.

If one can dedicate people to supporting a community on Facebook, that might be your best bet. If you go that route, you will need to continuously drive people to the group through your existing email marketing, verbal announcements in events or podcasts, and every other chance you get. Communities require care and feeding.

No matter how you support a community experience, it can provide an advantage over other solutions who don’t provide such. If one cannot dedicate the resources to the community experience or if the community experience doesn’t ever pay off, my advice is to drop it and refocus on other things.

10% Happier Meditation App Is 100% Satisfying

Just Meditate Screen

10% Happier iPhone App

The 10% Happier iPhone app has always had a strong foundation in sharing meditation knowledge and providing insightful guided meditations. With its latest new update, it provides so much more.

Through its humorous Q & A interview style, Dan Harris asks the questions and meditation teachers share their insights, personal experiences, and wisdom. Even though it has been a year, that successful approach hasn’t changed since when I wrote Meditating on Meditation Mobile Apps. To this day, Dan Harris and Joseph Goldstein continue to enlighten people as they did a year ago. With the updates to the app over the last year, there are now seven courses with three additional instructors.

Using each of their decades of experience, the instructors in the courses share specific areas of expertise. Sharon Salzberg shares Lovingkindness and what to do with distractions. Dr. Judson Brewer shares mindfulness around eating. Oren J. Sofer focuses on mindful communication. Joseph teaches the fundamentals, focus techniques, open awareness meditation, and answers practical questions every meditator has had at one point or another. All of them share personal stories and have caused me to laugh or have moved me deeply.

All of this course material is excellent for the beginner, satisfying for the experienced meditator, and yet entertaining due to Dan’s experience as a “skeptical newsman” using the Q & A format.

With the latest update, there’s even more than just the courses! The team behind the 10% Happier app has solved the riddles of “what do I do after finishing all the courses?” and “How do I integrate what I learned into facing my day to day challenges and aspirations?” In addition to the “Courses” section, there is a “Just Meditate” section which contains new content grouped in three sections along with an additional teacher, Alexis Santos.

With the idea of integrating mindfulness into your life, the three sections are titled as “Lightly Guided”, “On The Go”, and “Exploring.. (Stress, Self Judgement, and so on).” Since the update has come out just days ago, I have not yet checked out every single new meditation out of the 21 new ones that are available. However, I have marked “Lovingkindness + Walking”, “Self Judgement” and “Open Awareness” as favorites already. They did a great job in making it easy to add and remove favorites.

In fact, I think the 10% Happier meditation app should win an award overall. It’s a great example of an app that has gotten so many things right. The deference to content, its sharp look, proper use of user interface components and the overall app organization is just fantastic. As the app has grown, it has even avoided inserting the controversial hamburger menu. As an iPhone software developer at CARFAX that works on the CARFAX – Find Used Cars for Sale iPhone app, I can tell you that it’s not easy to avoid having the hamburger menu in a mobile app. Although admittedly, sometimes it might be the right thing to do.

To sum up, 10% Happier was already a wonderful app rich in instructive yet humorous meditation content. It began its life with a solid foundation and focused purpose. They’ve added to that foundation a rich “Just Meditate” section that’s fun to explore and will serve a person throughout the day. I encourage you to check out the app yourself and enjoy the experience.