Archive for May, 2011
tEWN Update (newsletter archive, May 16, 2011)
Posted by Bob M. in Announcements, Newsletter Archive, Uncategorized on May 15, 2011
tEWN stirs things up with this new blog post challenging the love affair employee benefits and wellness professionals have been having with behavioral economics, the book Nudge, choice architecture, and outcomes-based wellness (in which employees are rewarded or penalized based on biometric results). Read the blog and voice your own opinion in the Comments section.
Speaking about Comments, we are in the process of remodeling our blog section and have added a feature that allows you to request email notification when someone replies to your Comment. This is new feature designed to encourage discussion. Help us test it out.
E2E Sites
In the tEWN Forum, member Erin Thompson asks for input about employee-to-employee (E2E) networking sites intended to increase engagement in company-wide health initiatives and wellness programs. What do you have to say about E2E? Log-in and say it!
New Employee Wellness Events
Several upcoming wellness conferences have been added to the tEWN Events section, including theWellness Innovations Congress, which will feature CoHealth co-founder Fran Melmed and tEWN founder Bob Merberg presenting on professional development for wellness professionals using social media.
Designing Incentives for Health and Engagement
Join the upcoming CoHealth tweet chat about designing incentives for healthy behaviors, with special guest Paul Hebert, managing director and lead consultant at I2I.
The tweet chat will be held Wednesday, May 18, at 12 noon Eastern. Visit the tweet chat Event listing on tEWN, and click on “Attending” if you plan to be there.
If this all seems foreign to you, check out the Tweet Chat Cheat Sheet.
Choice Architecture
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Uncategorized on May 14, 2011
In Nudge, behavioral economists Thaler and Sunstein tout choice architecture as if it’s a new idea. Tobacco companies (and other merchandisers) have used it since time immemorial. Public health leaders have relied on a similar approach, “social marketing,” for the public good. For more about Nudge, choice architecture, behavioral economics, health incentives, and so-called outcomes-based wellness programs, see our post “Be Afraid: Behavioral Economics and Outcomes-Based Wellness.”
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Bob Merberg’s Blog
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Be Afraid: Behavioral Economics and Outcomes-Based Wellness
Posted by Bob M. in Commentary, Employee Wellness Programs, Uncategorized on May 15, 2011
In their disjointed but best-selling book, Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein promulgate a trendy school of thought known as behavioral economics. The gist of their position is that bureaucrats are smarter than the rest of the “mindless Humans” (to use their term) and therefore obligated to manipulate our decisions to save us from our hopelessly irrational selves.
The manipulation is called a nudge — “shove” doesn’t sell books. The bureaucrats, those creating the nudge, are “choice architects.” Of course, truth be known, choice architecture has been around as long as Phillip Morris — longer even.
Thaler and Sunstein spin a web to persuade us that a hodgepodge of existing or proposed social initiatives have a common behavioral economics thread. Men’s-room hygiene, substance abuse, fast driving, organ donation, popcorn consumption, and 401(k) enrollment get lumped together as the playthings of choice architects who, Read the rest of this entry »
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biometric, corporate wellness, incentives, outcomes based
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