Square Peg Side Archives

28
Feb 17
-

“Who knew I was happy?”

Tags : depression emotions happy joy tracking understanding

(or Evidence Driven Therapy- it’s hard to argue with facts.)

One of our customers didn’t know he was happy. We’ll call him Bob. We’ll also make some of the facts a bit more generic, after all we want to maintain Bob’s privacy.

Bob suffers from bi-polar disorder and has been in therapy to help him learn to deal with it. Bob’s swings from manic to depressive have had a huge impact on his life and marriage, and like many who suffer from bi-polar disorder his own impression of his well-being tends to depend on where he currently falls between manic and depressive phases. Bob also happens to be one of WeFeel’s testers and has been using it since our early releases last year.

With Bob’s and his wife’s input we’ve been able to add features to WeFeel to help him both in his personal life and with his marriage. At the end of last year we added what we call dual customizable sliders to track things like where you fall between manic and depressive phases. Instead of just a Bipolar slider it’s completely customizable so you can specify what each end of the slider means…you want to track where you are on the scale of Homer Simpson to Elon Musk, you can do that.

My favorite “Bob” story so far is when he came in during a depressive phase, just a month or two after beginning to use WeFeel. As he started to speak with his psychologist, he was surprisingly upbeat. The first thing they did was pull out WeFeel’s dashboard for a quick look at his latest trends.

“Hey Bob, there’s a lot of yellow here.” (Yellow is the color WeFeel uses for Joy)

“I know, right! Who knew I was happy?”

Bob had been going through life assuming that, in general, he was a miserable person. It’s really easy to get stuck in that mindset, especially when you are fighting something like Bipolar Disorder. But then evidence was presented to him in a way that he couldn’t deny. After all, Bob created all of the emotion entries showing he was happy. When confronted with the facts, he was able to begin to shift his world view. Turns out in general, Bob’s a pretty happy fellow.

When when we talk about Evidence Based Therapy, or Evidence Based Mental Health care we mean practices and techniques that have been proven to work via recognized scientific research. But I think we can (and should!) take things one step further. In the business world we have business intelligence tools that can aid in evidence based decision making. WeFeel is essentially an expansion of those concepts adapted to individual mental health care. Previously it has been really difficult to gather and visualize empirical evidence about what has happened with a patient in between sessions. Instead, mental health care professionals have had to rely on not only their patient’s ability to recall past events, but also their ability to convince them to share.

Just like with Bob, you only need the first 3-5 minutes of a session for WeFeel to show facts and trends from events gathered as they transpired. We know that even with something as convenient as a phone, it’s still hard to remember to journal and track things. To help build the habit of capturing data, WeFeel helps patients to remember to track their emotions, moods, and pretty much anything you can think of by providing up to 10 random reminders throughout the day, and to schedule up to 3. That’s a lot of data points.

The good news is we sum it all up for you so that you just need to spend a few moments to check out the Discussion Points and Dashboard pages to identify important issues. Finally, you use those facts in helping to provide talking points, diagnosis, and treatment during your session. WeFeel doesn’t do the diagnosing, it simply provides an easy way to gather evidence. You then use it to help drive therapy forwards- Evidence Driven Therapy. It’s just an extra tool to put in your tool belt, but if you ask Bob, it’s one that makes you happy…or rather, one that shows you the happiness you’ve always had inside.

23
Feb 17
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Not It!

Tags : app business leadership management why

(Or the difficult case of monetizing mobile Mental Health Care Solutions)

Get a crowd of people together and ask who should pay for mental health treatment, and the likely result is a race to see who can shout out “Not It!” the fastest.

With the stigma that still exists around mental health some individuals can be embarrassed or uncomfortable to even seek treatment, let alone contemplate spending their money on it. When they do think about spending their money, they end up with bumper stickers saying “Gone Fishin’! ‘Cause it’s cheaper than therapy!” There’s also the large population that needs help but simply can’t afford it.

Outside of individuals, you certainly cannot go asking the trained professionals to stop making a living by demanding they give away their expertise for free. Prior to the Affordable Care Act here in the U.S., some of the insurance people would be the first to flee, and depending on your country, your government organization may have just ran out of the room pretending they didn’t hear the question at all, while others flat out say: “What? Health care? Wait! Not even health care, you mean mental health care? We’re not paying for that!”

Sure that’s a broad generalization, somewhat exaggerated for effect, but I bet you know exactly what I mean. And that’s for mental health care as a whole.

What happens when you start to throw technology into the mix? Who pays for that?

At the beginning of our journey here at WeFeel, we had to figure out that exact question. Something that is often forgotten is that technology costs money to develop, and companies must have a revenue stream to exist. The ridiculous amount of “free” apps have conditioned people to think that if it is on your mobile device it shouldn’t cost anything, while they having given in to being inundated with ads. We knew from the beginning the monetizing a mental health care service via advertising was fundamentally a horrible idea. I’m sure you can imagine some of the damaging scenarios that could occur when the two are mixed.

We decided to go out and talk to experts to see what had been figured out so far, but what we found was disappointing in the lack of quality and quantity of information. The vast majority of our research and advice showed that no one really knew. We were told people won’t pay for anything considered an “App.” We found that people had tried with mental health care apps before and failed because they couldn’t crack this one issue. We spoke with local practitioners, and the overwhelming feedback was they couldn’t see adopting technology if it meant they had to purchase something for their clients to use. So we sat down and decided we’d have to figure it out ourselves.

When data is lacking, logic and experimentation come to the rescue

Here is our thinking about different models:

Advertising revenue: As mentioned above this was simply a “No.” If it was the only way, then we’d simply rather not create the company.

Free: From the beginning, we knew that WeFeel had to have a plan to make money. That’s not why WeFeel exists, but we knew that we wanted features that no one was doing yet, like the ability to share data between individuals. That meant servers and technology running in “the cloud” (specifically Microsoft’s Azure in our case). That costs money, as does continuously improving the service and providing tech support. While we looked into creating the company as a 503c nonprofit, from a practicality side it just couldn’t work that way. So free was out.

One-time fee: Many apps are sold by paying a fee to an app store and then you get the app. The problem with this model is it generally only works if the data is stored locally on the device, because you don’t have the overhead of the cloud and often you don’t provide technical support (or if you do you charge a lot more). Storing data locally doesn’t allow for sharing between people, syncing between multiple devices, or restoring data if you loose your phone. Those were all key features we wanted in WeFeel, and so this model simply couldn’t work, unless we started releasing new versions and requiring people to purchase them each time one was released, and that gets old…fast.

Provider-based subscriptions: In this model, each mental health care provider pays a monthly subscription, and in return gets a number of licenses that they can give to their clients. The overwhelming feedback we found here in Utah is that many of them simply couldn’t afford it, or couldn’t be bothered with that. We talked to some people who had attempted that model before and couldn’t gain traction. Another drawback we found is that if a person switched therapists they would loose access to WeFeel unless the new provider also had a subscription. This made no sense to us. A person’s mental health is theirs to own, and if WeFeel can help the individual we don’t want access to be controlled by someone else. In fact a core tenant of WeFeel is that the individual owns and controls their data. A provider-based subscription simply won’t allow us to meet that objective.

Individual-based subscriptions: Thanks to companies like Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify, and Pandora consumers are becoming more and more used to buying technology as a service. And yes, while we also sometimes think “not another subscription to pay!” in this case we think it makes sense. Our costs are tied to the usage of the service. More importantly it gives us some unique benefits. First,it also allows us to have a base, free-version of the app for people to try that limits access to the things that cost us the most to deliver: sharing, journaling, and hosting large amounts of data. Then because we can sell the subscription via app stores directly in the WeFeel app, it means we don’t have to store any identifiable information from the customer on our end. No credit cards, no email addresses, or phone numbers. We simply get paid a percentage from the app store.

This is huge for us in maintaining things like HIPAA compliance, and more importantly for us to help people feel comfortable logging their deepest emotions, since we physically can’t know who they are. The individual also gets to not only own their data, but to control who has access to it, including the ability to stop sharing with their therapist. By doing it this way we’ve created the concept of a mental health record that transfers from therapist to therapist at the control of the patient. We think that’s pretty cool.

But there are some downsides. What happens if a large organization wants to buy subscriptions for people? We solved that by creating a licensing portal that maintains anonymity, and when an organization buys a license they are purchasing it on behalf of the individual. Once a patient is licensed that subscription is tied to the patient, and not the organization. This is pretty much a hybrid of the individual-based and provider-based models.

The final hurdle is what is the right price? And to be honest we’re still working that out. Typically you price this things based on the utility they provide, but how do you value the ability to improve one’s mental health? We could compare it to medication and say many people spend upwards of $30 a month on pills, and so we could randomly state “we’re easily worth half that so $15 a month sounds right!” We could argue one’s mental health is worth more than watching TV, and Netflix is around $10 a month, so $10-$15 a month is still about right.

The problem is when comparing to those kinds of things, people simply do not want to pay for mental health services. Showing the value of the service doesn’t necessarily work, and we don’t have enough data yet to make definitive statements like “WeFeel reduces the need for the number of sessions per patient by 10%”

So here’s where we are right now, we spent some time looking at subscription prices that we felt in general most people could afford. Then we did some experimentation. We initially tried $60 a year, which was seen as a bit high but doable by most of the people we spoke with. We didn’t randomly pull that number out of a hat, it was based on cost projections and helping to grow the company rapidly.

And it seemed OK, until we had couples come into the mix. In couples therapy you really need two subscriptions, and $120 a year per family was higher than some of our early adopters could afford.

We changed our growth model and dropped the price to $40 a year, and for many that was OK, even couples. But we were finding that the therapists in our test program were reluctant to ask a patient to go out and spend $40. So to alleviate that concern we put WeFeel on sale at $20 a year. Now the therapist could say that its roughly the same price you would spend on pens and notepads for a year, which you’d be buying anyway to do your “homework.”

For the sake of transparency, I don’t know that as a company we can sustain that $20 sale price for the long term (though I’d like to be able to). That low of a rate means we have to have 3 times as many subscribers to break even. But in the early stages of a company, especially when you are trying to create a market, sometimes a “low low price of just $19.99!” is what you have to do.

If you’ve made it this far, I’d love to get your feedback as to what you think is not only fair, but practical for your patients.

Finally, for those in the industry, we’ve also heard your concerns regarding people who can’t afford WeFeel at any price. How do we get WeFeel into their hands? I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. And I’d like to run something by you all.

What if we instituted a pay it forward program?

Essentially it would work like this, each paid subscription would include the one for the individual who paid for it, and one to be donated to someone in need. To do this it would have to be all or nothing. Remember we don’t have a way to track who paid for what. That’s on purpose, but means we can’t allow a person to buy two subscriptions at a discount and then choose to donate one. It also means we’d have to at least bring subscription prices up to a point that we could cover the operating costs of a second subscription. So what are your thoughts? Would your patients be encouraged by the fact that in getting a subscription they are also helping someone in need? Would they see it as an added burden?

I look forward to hearing responses. Feel free to comment here on this post, or to email me directly at jeff@wefeel.us

21
Feb 17
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WeFeel: Therapist’s Toolbox vs. Therapy Substitute

Tags : app emotional awareness emotions name emotions teamwork tracking understanding

It’s hard to believe that it was almost two years ago that we came up with the idea for WeFeel. Despite there being hundreds of “mental health” apps already on the market we saw a huge hole that no one seemed to be interested in or willing to fill. Organizations have been racing to create apps that help treat specific issues, and there’s even some really cool tech out there that is trying to automatically diagnose individuals using machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze an person’s environment, and physical response.

I think those are all great things. In fact, as someone on the autism spectrum, the idea of getting help without having to actually go get help is very appealing. But as we looked at things back at the beginning of 2015, we found the same results that have been reported in articles published more recently: many, if not most mental health care apps aren’t backed by any studies or clinical evidence, and worse…many are flat out damaging to an individual’s mental health. The problem, as we saw it, was that most of the apps and services being created were designed to be a substitute for therapy,

So what did we do? We went out and talked to psychologists, psychiatrists, marriage counselors, certified therapists and anyone else willing to provide input to find out what physical tools they already used, what proven techniques existed that merely needed to be converted to a mobile format, and then we got to work. Our philosophy became how do we help therapists by augmenting what they already do, instead of how can we replace them with an app.

We were lucky enough to have found Dr. Scott Seaman, a forward thinking psychologist based out of Orem, UT who was willing to test WeFeel with his patients (with their consent of course!). We spent six months or so refining WeFeel in a clinical setting, adding tools to help a therapist treat things like depression, anxiety, and addiction, and to help with couples therapy, and autism spectrum disorder.

The more we worked together, the more flexible WeFeel became. Our initial idea of having WeFeel prompt you once or twice a day to create an entry grew into adding up to 10 random prompts and three scheduled ones. Early concepts like the ability for a couple to share their emotion entries turned into the ability for a patient to securely share their data with a care provider, who then could remotely monitor the status of their patient. A quick and simple way to enter core emotions became a fully customizable interface that could track anything from a single item to 19 separate items- the 19th was because a customer emailed us and asked for just one more custom slider to help her track an item that would help her meet her goals.

Once we had data, we found that we could do really cool stuff with it. There were the obvious things like Dashboards to help visualize and narrow down patterns and triggers, and we used a bit of if computing power to be able to find topics to discuss via word clouds and sorting through entries to find those with the deepest feelings.

But, as we got results from real world use, we found that while it was nice to have all that data, data without action is only part of the solution. We knew that a common treatment step is to give the patient a plan or “coping strategy” like counting to ten whenever you are angry, or calling a friend when you are feeling depressed. We were missing that ability to help treat symptoms, and so we took a look at how we could help a therapist work with their patient to provide customized action prompts. We wanted to create a generic toolbox for the therapist to use to treat anything. It was just a matter of converting this existing and proven technique into something a mobile device could perform.

WeFeel already knew when a person was angry, since they already created an emotion entry for it, so it was just a matter of adding the ability to provide the therapist’s directions as a reminder. The solution was to just take that existing practice and simply add Coping Strategies to our toolbox. Now, the therapist can work with their patient to devise an action or behavior and enter it into the toolbox. Then when the patient logs that they are feeling a certain way, WeFeel will automatically prompt them to follow the strategy that matched. It can even have up to 16 different strategies to match different situations.

The next thing we knew we had patients using WeFeel to help them overcome addiction by prompting them to take action at the early states of feeling a craving. In this case, we made a super-customizable tool, and Scott came up with an awesome way to use it.

It turns out, as we created WeFeel, we were giving hope to people as they worked with their therapist to come up with their own unique way to use it. We helped enhance the bond between care provider and patient, instead of isolating them from their therapist. By working in clinical setting, getting real world feedback, and most importantly listening to our customers WeFeel is now making a difference, and I think that’s pretty cool.

29
Sep 16
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The Other Side of “We”

Tags : aspergers autism awareness emotions family fear friendship understanding

We…

Imagine a large field. Populate it with images of people. Close your eyes and think for a minute about “We.”

Here’s a happy little field with a stream running through it to help you out:

When you envision “We” who joins you in your field? If I say to you “religion”, does the population change? What if I say “politics”? How about “nation”?

We are…

In your mind’s eye, what are the people wearing? What color is their hair, eyes, and skin? What are they thinking? What do they believe? What are their traditions? What makes them part of your “We”?

Here’s a peaceful waterfall to admire while you contemplate:

We are bound together by…

Now, in your mind you should have a picture of your “We”. You know what makes your group special. You know what ties you together. You know what makes you a “tribe”. If you wanted you could actually see the bonds between each individual, see each link that connects people to each other, and to you.

Perhaps one of the links says “family”. Maybe it says “community”. If you try you can break the links down even further into individual concepts. The link called “religion” breaks down to its constituents: beliefs about god, purpose, sacred rites, holy books and all those strands that make up the religious ties between you and your “We”. The link called “politics” does the same. As you imagine this you can see all the connections vividly, the most important connections thick like steel cables, unbreakable. When you imagine this you feel whole. A part of something bigger than yourself. Part of a tribe. Part of a family.

You now have your mind map of “we.”

Pause for another moment to internalize this picture you’ve created.

Here’s a cool visualization of the links that make up the Internet to get lost in:

“I” from “We”

Now that you are firmly rooted in your “We”, I have to wonder, what part of the whole makes the individual? Was this image created over time based on your upbringing, your income, or perhaps your genetics? Why is this your tribe and how tightly do you feel bound to them?

What would you do for the people within this cloud of connections you’ve created? Would you give your hard earned money to support them? Would you give them your time? Would you give them your life? What would you do to continue to belong to this family?

I find the dichotomy in many cultures that profess the importance of individuality while simultaneously stressing the importance of family, tradition, and loyalty to be confusing. Does your “I” depend on strands of approval those connections? Does your “I” venture out into the darkness of that beyond your tribe, or does it stay close, comforted in the knowledge that “We” have all the answers “I” need?

When you think about “I”, how much of you is held together by “We”?

Bonds, or Bondage?

I’ve seen it said that no man is an island, but I am. In fact, there’s an entire subset of people without the innate ability to create, visualize, or depend on those bonds that make “We”. Like most people, I was taught from an early age the importance of “We”. We are Family. We are Christian. We are Muslim. We are Jewish. We are Republicans. We are Democrats. We are rich. We are poor. So many different versions of “We”.

But I can’t see it. My mind map is empty when I do this exercise. I would guess that for many that thought is depressing, overwhelming, and possibly unimaginable. Maybe you feel sorry for me. Maybe your “We” does too.

I’ve chosen to see it as a blessing, because I am free. Once I stopped believing that to exist I had to belong, which I never could figure out how to do, I was able to stop trying to force those strands that make up the connections of “We” into existence . I was free to be wrong. Free to examine other forms of “we.” Free to see that:

With the bonds of “We” comes the bondage of “We”.

How many of your deep down core beliefs you hold as “truth” are really bonds that help you feel part of “We”? Is that thought too difficult to face? How many of life’s potential experiences have you missed because some of the bonds of “We” determine your actions? Do you find safety in the limitations or regret at lost opportunity?

How many good people will you never know because they are not part of “We”?

How many people in this world are “they”? When you imagine “them”, do you feel disdain and distrust? Are “they” evil? Are “they” scary? Are “they” they cause of your problems?

Most of all, what do you fear if you started cutting some of those strands? Will you be bullied, pitied or ostracized? If you identify those fears could you face them?

What will fear cause you to do in order to maintain your status as “We”?

Will you compromise your ethics to avoid becoming “one of them”? Will you support an undeserving leader? Will you become the bully? Will you refuse to speak up when you see wrong doing? Will you refuse to give “them” a chance to be heard, just because “they” aren’t contained within your mental image?

And that is the core of it all. From the beginning of this post I’ve had you creating mental images. Visualizations of what makes your reality. But if you stop to think about it that is all it is: a mental image. A picture in your head of how the world should be, and who should be in it. It is an ephemeral painting that you fight to make eternal and unchanging. And often with that fight comes intolerance, divisiveness, and hatred.

I’m not damaged. I’ve been given a gift. I can see both the power for good and the corruption that comes from “We”. I am the equivalent of a Mars rover, a robot observing and collecting data, weighing things based on logic and reason.

I’ve also been given a curse. I look in on all of the various versions of “We” from the outside, and I don’t know how to relate to you. I don’t know how to say “please just open your eyes to the bigger world” without offending. In fact, the minute I started asking people to consider their fears, some who read this became offended. Who am I to ask them to question their “We”?

So on my island, I sit alone; having loved ones around me. Part of me wishes that I could have that desire and ability to be part of a group. Despite the limitations that may come from a need to belong, I do see the advantages. Part of me wants to scream at the top of my lungs “HEY EVERYONE, YOU ARE HEADED ON A PATH THAT LEADS TO GREATER PAIN BECAUSE OF YOUR FEAR OF LOSING YOUR “WE”!”

I don’t have the right answer. So I leave it up to you. You have to decide. You have to have the courage to choose to expand your version of “We” to include everyone, despite the fact that it will break many of the ties that make your reality. For me, that process was painful, but nowhere near what I imagine it would be for someone who depends on those connections to be whole. I would guess the thought is terrifying. But I feel it is important to at least ask you to consider it. You can work to simplify the kinds of bonds that connect you to others, you don’t have to erase the whole picture.

As you tear away the pieces, you will find that you only need a single strand: “human”. When you do, there can be no more “they” or “them”.

“We will work with them” becomes “we will work together”. But I fear that it is still easier to choose to remain “We” and “they”.

Because after all is said and done there is comfort in:

“We are righteous”, “We have truth”, and “We know what is best”.

11
Aug 16
-

Borrowed Trust: who’s your lender?

Tags : aspergers awareness crowd wisdom management understanding

(or When did I lose my ability to decide where to eat without the whole planet’s input?)

As you navigate through this age of overloaded information, you’ll find that, by necessity, you will have to take shortcuts when it comes time to making decisions. If you use Yelp, Amazon, EBay, or any other service that features reviews given by people “just like you” then you probably have taken one of those shortcuts. You know what I’m talking about, ’cause just like me you’ve thought:

“I’ve never heard of The Steaming Burrito, but 92% of the reviewers say it’s the best, and so I shall dine there tonight!”*

For me, and maybe some of you, it’s become an addiction. Maybe addiction isn’t the right word. More like it has become so deeply integrated into my process that I won’t eat it, buy it, watch it, or hire it unless I can find something online that tells me it’s OK. Anonymous validation that if I want a steaming burrito, it’s gonna be good (and not overstuffed).

Crowd sourced information can help us make better decisions

If you are from the “When I was young our video games had 8-bits, one d-pad, and two buttons and we grateful to have it because our parents’ video games were rocks!” generation you’ll remember a time when you talked to actual people to get an opinion on a purchase, new restaurant, or movie. Well some of us did that, some of us who aren’t so good with the talking just found one thing we liked and stuck with it.

But even the most outgoing, know-everyone individual still had a limited pool of knowledge to draw from. We made lots of bad purchasing decisions. Case in point:

While people have been pondering the concept of the “Wisdom of the Crowd” for a long time (we’re talking more than 2000 years ago when Aristotle wrote about it), there hasn’t been a way for an individual to have near instantaneous access to the thoughts and opinions of huge amounts of people until fairly recently in human history.

Lior Zoref, showed us what can happen if we take the idea of crowd sourced thinking to the extreme back in 2012 when he gave the first ever crowdsourced TED talk. He recreated a classic example of guessing the weight of an OX by bringing a live ox on stage, the results are impressive.

So that settles it right? Evidence says turning to the crowd to make decisions is a good idea. I like good ideas. I like not having to expend mental energy on figuring out if I should spend my money on the latest mediocre remake of a mediocre movie from a time when I thought giant, sarcastic turtles that know karate were a good idea.

But…(and this time I’m not gonna flip it)

When we use online opinions we are borrowing anonymous trust

One of the benefits of the good ol’ days…or maybe just ol’ days, is that when we went and asked for an opinion from someone, we also had an existing relationship of trust with that individual. We wouldn’t have asked them in the first place if we didn’t put some weight into the validity of their response. That’s not to say, we don’t still ask our friends for advice, but that in many cases we have taken something that used to have an initial barrier of “Do I trust what this person will tell me?” and turned it into “Since lots of people have an opinion on this, it is equally (or more) valid than that of someone I know.”

We choose to seek out someone (anyone!) who already has built a trust with whomever we want to deal with so that we can minimize our risk. Once we find them, we can borrow their trust until we have some of our own. The more people we borrow from, the more confident we are that we have made a correct decision. And thanks to group feedback systems, there are now efficient means of borrowing huge amounts of trust:

5247 people gave it 5 stars, it must be good!

It’s crazy if you think about it, in less than a generation we went from depending on the voice of a trusted few, to the voice of thousands of random people to help us with our decision making process. There’s just a slight problem with that:

Anonymous trust can be purchased, faked and manipulated

In our efforts to make efficient decisions, we’ve inadvertently made the online review such a valuable commodity that it’s now become subject to Campbell’s law/Goodhart’s law. The gist of these laws/rules say that the more important a measure becomes, the more susceptible to corruption it becomes and that once a measure of something becomes a target/goal, it no longer is a good measure.

For example, on Yelp you have a restaurant and you know that 5 star restaurants get way more business than three star ones. You need to boost that rating and so you “bribe” your patrons by giving a 10% off coupon when they post a 5 star review. You took what was a good idea, providing people with a means of judging quality, and corrupted it by buying good reviews in order to draw in even more customers. As an aside I need to mention that, Yelp is doing all they can to fight these purchased and faked reviews.

And that brings me to what prompted this post. Back when we were working on our (unfortunately failed) Kickstarter campaign, we were contacted by people offering to sell us likes on Twitter and Facebook. There were places that would take our money to pledge it right back to our campaign in order to make it look like we had more real supporters.

We could buy fake trust and lend it out to all those people who needed to borrow some in order to trust what we were doing. Being the naive not-so-little Aspie that I am, it made no sense to me until I started looking into the value of borrowed trust. It turns out cheating the system is a huge thing.

You can go to fiverr.com and find thousands of people willing to sell you a review, but if you are thinking you could make a quick buck this way, you might get sued. And if you are a merchant buying fake reviews- Amazon’s already sued thousands of its own vendors so you could be next.

So what are we as intelligent (you are still reading this post that has gone waaaaay long, so you clearly are smart) individuals supposed to do? I did the search for you and found a piece of advice that I really liked on a page from some attorneysthat will get fake bad reviews removed for you:

Trust the 3 star review

That’s something I never thought about. I normally jump to the 5 stars and then the 1 stars and ignore pretty much everything else. Logical to me- see what the best and worst of something is. But something in that article stuck with me:“Nobody leaves a fake three star review.”

So for me, I’m going to change how I borrow trust. I will start by looking at the 3s; taking the time to read the comments. People who post 3 star reviews seem to point out both the good and the bad of whatever it is they are reviewing. There’s no rabid fan loyalty and no agenda. I’m certainly not saying don’t trust places with 5 star reviews, and definitely not saying choose the mediocre 3 star somethings.

Give loyalty to the services that are the best out there. Just be smart about the unknown. The trust you are borrowing may not be real. If honesty is what you value you most in your trust lender, then right there in the middle with the 3s are a great place to start.

*Ok, so I made up “The Steaming Burrito” but you know what I mean.

08
Jul 16
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Blurry Lines, Corporate Caste Systems, and the Emotionally Detached Leader

Tags : fear friendship leadership management teamwork

I love lines, and boxes, and points of demarcation. Everything in its file drawer in my head. This is mine, that is yours. Useful person, Useless person. Godlike senior executive, plebian workers to be expended at will.

Oh wait. I think that last one may be wrong. Or maybe it’s not. No. It’s gotta be wrong doesn’t it?

What I mean to say is, traditional management teaches us to not get too close to those who work for us. I know this ’cause I was learned it in the University. I been gived readin’ books on “how to be a great boss” that done did said it. Some’un wrotes it. Must be gospel.

Just because an expert said something doesn’t make it the right thing for you

Here’s the problem with lines: Different people (often “experts” in their field) draw the lines in different places. This causes me all kinds of trouble. I go through phases of voraciously reading everything I can about a topic, and often end up with very conflicting points of view on the same subject bouncing around in my head. I have to actually think and come up with my own conclusions.

Many of the places I’ve worked keep some separation between management and not-management. Often, they go so far as to draw another line between executive leadership and management. This is great for the people that draw the employee charts. It leads to nice triangley shapes. And since I’m an “executive” I get to be the pointy part at the top. I like pointy, it’s better than pointless.

Speaking of points, here are some of the reasons I’ve been given to avoid fraternizing with the help.

Don’t develop close relationships with people who work for you because:

You’ll likely end up friends with some and not others, which could be seen as unfair.
They might not respect you, or take you seriously.
Friendships are based on equality, and bosses aren’t equal. They have to do performance reviews, set salaries, give promotions.
They might take advantage of your kindness.
You might have to fire them in the future, which will be difficult if they are your friend.

Here’s the thing. Or at least a thing. Look at that list. What’s the driving factor between each item. I’ll give you a hint…they all take about future possibilities. Things that might happen.

When you don’t do something because it “might happen” you are acting out of fear.

Fear is a powerful motivator. It can be a great thing in certain situations. It keeps us safe from danger. But it also causes us to miss out on having a deeper, more meaningful existence. And more importantly, fear can cause us to draw unnecessary lines. Lines that keep people out of our lives. Lines that lead to thinking some are better than others. Lines that effectively place a caste society right in your office.

Right now, where you work, do you really feel that your leaders sincerely care about your life? Do you really care about people who work beneath you? Have you ever thought about the fact that we use phrases like “Bob works under me” or “the people below me on the org chart” are like saying we’re above them… better than, even?

And you thought we were progressing towards equality.

Here’s what I think: I’ve chosen to treat people who report to me (directly or indirectly) as someone I care about. Yes, in the end I have to make the final decisions, and I get to bear the responsibility of failure or success, but having more on my shoulders shouldn’t have to mean I have to be some unreachable island. When I care about others I can best serve them as a leader, mentor, and even as a friend.

I get that it’s a bit ironic for me to say that, because by nature I’m about the most emotionally detached person you’ll find. Despite that I’ve found that when you see each person on your team as someone who is trying to do their best in life, and someone who is worth getting to know, you’ll find coming to work is a much better experience. You will all be more productive and happier, which rubs off on customer interactions, which equates to more customer loyalty, which in the end means a more successful company.

So even though I’m simply not good at being a friend, and as a result I’ve failed my fair share of times, I still think my life has been better for trying to cross the line between boss and employee, and the teams I have been a part of have been more successful for my efforts.

Have some taken advantage of me?

You betcha! But there have been many more times where someone would go the extra mile to get a job done because they knew that it mattered to me, and you do things for people you care about.

Have I held on to an employee longer than I should while trying to help them get their life together?

Check! While I’m a big believer in parting ways with an employee who can’t fit in for whatever reason as early as possible, I’m also a big believer in trying to bring out untapped potential. While I haven’t always succeeded in my efforts, I’ve had some people turn around to become top performers. I wonder what their lives would be like today had I just tossed them to the wind? Overall the benefit to myself and the companies I’ve worked for has been greater than the bit of wasted money on holding on to a few of the wrong people for too long.

Have I had to fire a friend?

I’ve had to lay off a whole team of people I cared about. It sucked. But years after we shut the division down the team arranged a get together dinner to reminisce on old times. I temporarily wrecked all their lives…and yet I was still invited. That meant a great deal to me. I’m still proud to see all that they’ve accomplished since then.

If you are in a leadership position ask yourself:

“Do I keep an emotional distance between myself and those under my care because I am afraid of things that *might* be a problem later?”

If the answer is yes, maybe take some time to re-think what your team could be if they had a leader who they cared for as a friend. No one is saying you have to be BFFs, remember a friend is simply a “person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection.” So the question is:
Would you have a more positive workplace if there were more bonds of mutual affection?

Yes! Though it will be hard on you. You will have to have the willpower to not be biased, to not make poor decisions because you don’t want to mess up a friendship, and to treat everyone equally. But you rose to a leadership position because of your abilities. I’m sure you can handle it.

And if you work for an emotionally detached leader, it might be good to put yourself in their shoes. Maybe they aren’t very good at forming attachments to people, or perhaps they may have been taught their entire career that they can’t be close to anyone who works for them. Can you imagine what it would be like if you had to come to work each day knowing you weren’t supposed be friends with the people you interact with the most? It can be really hard, so why not do what you can to help them out? Afterall, they are also just there trying to do the best they can.

A wise mentor once told me “no one comes to work hoping to fail.” It’s much easier to see that when you care about each other’s success. The point of all this: Even in my black and white world, I can see that some lines aren’t so great. Sometimes we should blurry them up a bit.

Don’t let fear prevent you from getting out your eraser.

28
Jun 16
1

Awesome Buts (Or this complement will self-destruct in 5 seconds.)

Tags : business emotions management

Dude, that’s so cool that you climbed up there- let me get a picture. You are so awesome!

But, holy crap how did you manage to get your shirt so dirty???

See what I did there? Bet you’ve done it, or had it done to you. I just went and let my but get in the way of making someone feel good.

If you think about that from the physiological standpoint, what I did was even more cruel than it sounds.

A simplified explanation is that by giving some words of encouragement and approval his brain kicked up the levels of Dopamine, Oxytocin and Serotonin, making him feel good about himself, loved and successful. His reward system kicked in telling him everything is great. Shortly after, I knocked him down a few pegs causing those neurochemical levels to drop, inducing feelings of rejection and sadness, and since they were at a heightened state due to my previous statement, the difference felt is more drastic than if I’d not given the compliment at all. Not cool!

Flip your buts!

This isn’t my original idea, I first learned in from a leadership training session taught byKirk Weisler. His suggestion is that if you’ve got a criticism to say, and you’ve got something positive as well, always give the negative first.

“Devin, your shirt’s really messy and you should take better care of it, but that’s a really awesome spot you climbed up to so let’s get a picture to remember it.”

Simple to do, and why wouldn’t you want to leave a person feeling good about themselves? This isn’t just for with your kids or loved ones either. At work we can change:

“Bob, you’ve done a great job with sales this quarter. You’ve blown away your overall target, but we need you to get more enterprise customers.”

to:

“Bob, focusing on getting more enterprise customers next quarter needs to be your priority, but I wanted to congratulate you on the awesome job you beating your overall sales target last quarter.”

Which is going to leave Bob feeling more motivated to go out and help the company with its goals? The first scenario where we basically told him you did great but it’s not good enough, or the second where we gave him direction on where to focus his energy and then told him how how great he’s doing?

Follow This One Weird Trick to Make Your Buts Awesome

(Sorry, I just had to throw the click bait title in there, I couldn’t stop myself.)

I think Kirk’s advice is great, and I’ve tried to use it when I can. Recently I’ve had more time to spend with my kids while Kim is out building support for our WeFeel Kickstarter campaign, and I’ve caught myself both remembering and forgetting to flip my buts. And me being me, I got to thinking about how I could do even better.

Here’s what I’ve come up with. Whenever I feel the need to add a but to a statement, I want to try to figure out how to turn that into a learning opportunity. Instead of “you did great, but here’s where you failed” or even the better form “here’s what you could of done better, but I’m proud of you” I think we have an opportunity for a real conversation.

Something along the lines of

“Hey let’s talk about <topic>. Here are some things you may not have considered that I think could help out… What are some of the things you learned? If you were to do it again what would you change? Cool, I think you’ve done an awesome job so far and it’s great that you are thinking about how you can do even better. I can’t wait to see how you do next time!”

See what I did there? I got rid of the buts. And despite Sir-Mix-A-Lot’s preferences, sometimes no buts are the most awesome buts.

20
Jun 16
1

Make Happy Little Cognitive Dissonance

Tags : emotions happy joy understanding

How are you? Are you happy?

Like, right now, at this moment are you blissful? Do you currently feel that rush of neurochemicals permeating your brain causing a sense of Joy? What I’m saying here is, do you presently possess a combination of elevated levels of Endocannabinoids, Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin and Endorphins that is unique to your brain chemistry resulting in a sense of pleasure and enjoyment?

Cause you are supposed to be happy right now. In fact you are supposed to be happy all the damn time. I know this because I was taught from a young age that our purpose in life is to be happy. The religion of my youth says “Men are, that they might have joy.” My country was founded on the principle that I have a basic right to pursue happiness. Various forms of media have pummeled me with information on how to be happy, if only I just…….

{insert ‘x’ here} to be happy.

x = {Serve Others, Find Love, Give Love, Live with Purpose, Find God, Loose God, Take Drugs, Stop Taking Drugs, Be a Vegan, Eat like a Caveman, Exercise, Eat Chocolate, Eat More Chocolate, seriously all you need to do is have some yummy chocolate }

Something must be wrong with me!

Because I’m not happy all the damn time. I know this because for the majority of the past year I’ve been using WeFeel to track my emotions. Turns out, generally, I’m content at most; and that revelation was just depressing. Depressing to the point that sometimes I just stop using WeFeel to track how I feel because I don’t want the reminder that I’m failing at my purpose in life. I created the service to help myself and others understand emotion and what I found so far was that I must be doing life wrong.

(mixed memes are awesome)

What if we were wrong?

This idea that we are supposed to be happy didn’t originate with some genetic memory I’ve had since birth. It was taught. In much of western culture we are actually indoctrinated from a young age that our default state of existence should be one that is chemically induced by receptors in our brain. And so we obsess about finding “true” happiness (whatever that means…is there a fake happiness?), and stress about the times when we aren’t. We actually induce a state of anxiety (also caused by brain chemistry) worrying about why we aren’t in a different chemical state. How weird is that?

20 something years of dissonance

In the early 90s I had the chance to live in Taiwan for a couple years. Talk about culture shock. I was there to spread the word that western religion brings happiness. And I kept running into all these happy Buddhists. A key tenet of many of the forms of Buddhism is that life is suffering, life is pain. The exact opposite of what I was taught, that life is about being happy. Yet there they were, all these miserably happy people. What gives?

Sokath, his eyes open!

Last week I wrote about Bo Burnham’s new special “Make Happy” It wasn’t a happy post. You are probably thinking “Yeah, but this one is even worse. Now you are telling us that we aren’t even supposed to be happy.” But I’m really not trying to bring you down here. I just want you to stop for a moment, and think about what you think about being happy.

Think about the fact that there are so many things that can make us happy, but there are also so many things that make us feel our other emotions. Why did someone, at some point, come up with the idea that out of all the emotions we can feel, we should pick “happy” as our default state? Could they possibly have been influenced by the fact that when we are happy, dopamine, the “reward molecule”, is released? It’s a cycle that makes us want to be happy. Being happy feels good!

And here is the epiphany I’ve found in pondering the essence of “Make Happy”:

We are happy when our brain is flooded with certain chemicals. Our base state of existence therefore cannot be happy; because if it were, you wouldn’t have to add neurochemicals to get there!

I’ve been wrong my whole life about happiness. I’ve been trying to pursue being happy all the time when in reality that doesn’t even make sense. From a purely chemical standpoint if you had the same levels of neurochemicals that induce a state of euphoria all the time you’d become immune to the feeling and would then need more of those chemicals to feel joy. Just ask an opioid addict how well that works.

Stop obsessing about happiness, and you just might end up happier.

So we’ve established that a constant state of happiness is illogical. By letting go of that pursuit we can stop the stress and anxiety of when we don’t live up to our expectations. I’m not saying we shouldn’t do things that make us happy. I’m saying that it’s ok to just be who we are when we are not happy.

In doing so, we can give ourselves the chance to embrace the whole experience of life. It turns out that by creating a service to understand emotion, I’ve accidentally created a way to see through some of my own incorrect beliefs about what I’m supposed to be doing here on earth. I’ve become more able to relish the fact that sometimes I’m afraid, or sad, or just down-right angry. I don’t have to have a need to try to find a way to turn those emotions into some level of joy.

And that makes me happy.

16
Jun 16
-

Pringles Cans, Burritos and things that don’t fit.

Tags : anger aspergers autism disgust music sorrow understanding

I generally don’t get symbolism, I’m just wired that way. Tell me something and I’ll think you actually meant what you said. Art and literature usually don’t cause any emotional stirring within me, regardless of how much I want it to.

But music…music can move me. On rare occasions I’m even temporarily gifted the ability to see deeper than the words in a performance, and I feel touched and enlightened.

These words are the beginning of one of those experiences for me:

I can’t fit my hand inside a Pringle can.
-Bo Burnham

A lament for our time…found within the closing performance by Bo Burnham during his Netflix special “Make Happy.” As he asks “If you feel me put your hands up,” hundreds of hands are lifted to the sky and Bo proclaims: “Look at all these hands that are way too big to fit inside a Pringle can.” “Pringles listen to the people!” “Just make them wider!” Such wisdom from a young man of 25.

OK, maybe it’s not that profound. However, as often happens with people on the spectrum, Bo’s performance got stuck on a loop in my head, and I ended up watching it over and over. Fair warning, “Make Happy” isn’t for everyone. Bo’s sense of humor would offend the majority of my acquaintances, but, for me, the loop I got stuck in helped me find meaning in his words.

My life with Asperger’s is a lot like trying to get Pringles out of a can that is too small for my hand.

In certain situations, no matter how hard I try to fold myself to conform to a standard determined by someone else, if I try to follow my own logic, what I want is just beyond my reach. Since “my way” of thinking can’t work, I get overwhelmed and just dump everything out and pick-up what I can, hoping I’ll be able to clean up the messy crumbs when it’s done. More often than not, I just leave small disaster in my wake.

Sometimes I literally end up dumping things around me out to get to things I need because I end up overwhelmed by the process. More often it’s not something physical, it’s the frustration of trying to communicate in a way other people understand which results in me spitting out a whole lot of words. Sometimes hurting people around me…I get the feeling people don’t like Pringles crumbs spewed all over them.

I often wonder how I get myself into those situations in the first place:

I wouldn’t’ve got the lettuce if I knew it wouldn’t fit. Wouldn’t’ve got the cheese if I knew it wouldn’t fit. Wouldn’t’ve got the peppers if I knew they wouldn’t fit.
-Bo Burnham

Bo continues on to tell of a time he went to Chipotle and got a chicken burrito. Going down the line he added ingredient after ingredient. When he got to the end, the guy tried wrapping it up but half the stuff spilled out, thus defeating the purpose of a burrito.

Why didn’t the expert warn him he was getting too much?

Did the expert think it was obvious that you can’t put everything in a burrito? Did he think Bo was the one giving instruction so he must know what he wants? Did it cross his mind that a little warning or advice could have made things better? Did he intentionally withhold the information because he gets a kick out of people’s burrito misery? (I’m sure there’s a tangent lesson in here about helping loved ones on the spectrum by telling them the obvious and not assuming their mistakes were intentional, but you can work it out for yourself.)

Regardless the burrito expert stayed silent, and Bo is left with a mess.

If only Bo had known, he wouldn’t have got half of what he did. The mantra cried over and over. “I wouldn’t’ve got the lettuce if I knew it wouldn’t fit.”

And there is a huge part of my life with Asperger’s summed up in a silly song.

Life often feels like a series of mistakes made because no one told me what to them was obvious.

And since no one explained to me how to behave, I’m stuck feeling like an idiot with a messy burrito spilling everywhere. I think many people can relate to that situation. But for me, and perhaps others on the spectrum, it goes beyond people just not telling me how to behave. Often I’ve been told. I should know better, but I simply didn’t have the capacity at the time to link that information to the situation I found myself.

I don’t always have the ability to know what is going to fit a given situation, and that can leave me stuck looping over where I went wrong after the fact.

I wouldn’t have talked so much about my interests if I knew how to read the “obvious” social cues that you want to end the conversation.

I wouldn’t have stayed silent to the point of it being awkward if I knew this was the part where I was supposed to participate since you made a tiny pause indicating you were looking to me to speak now.

I wouldn’t have talked over you if I knew that my pause for breath told you to begin speaking.

I wouldn’t have answered your question honestly, if I knew the correct thing to do in this situation was to be polite and validate your point of view.

I wouldn’t have sat in a corner secretly plugging my ears because it’s too loud and too much is going on if I knew of a socially acceptable way to deal with being overwhelmed.

I wouldn’t have tried to fit my hand in the Pringle can.

I don’t think that I can handle this right now.

(note, the video below is not exactly family friendly)

I know everyone gets overwhelmed and plenty of “normal” people have problems trying to fit in. It’s not a Asperger’s or Autism thing, and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s experience. While Bo is relating his own struggle of trying to deal with life and fitting in, the song resonates with me. If you want to really “feel” the internal conflict that I think many people on the spectrum deal with everyday, take the last 60 seconds of the video or so and then loop it… for an hour or two.

Not the most uplifting post I know.

But that’s the thing- life isn’t always about happiness and being uplifted. We feel sad, angry, disgusted, or afraid sometimes, and often more than one of those at a time. “Can’t handle this” transitions from talking about our problems to those conflicting emotions we find while trying to “Make Happy.”

But is “making happy” really the point to all this?

You’ll have to wait til my next post to find out.

06
May 16
-

And now for something completely different…

Tags : app aspergers autism

A little over a year ago I found myself in need of a job, and more importantly a purpose. I had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome a few years before and last year during Autism awareness month I decided to go public with that information.

The amount of support I received was great. From comments from good friends of “that explains it!” to people thanking me because they too were in the same situation I found it encouraging to know that I had done what the right thing, despite the fact that I was terrified it would mean the end of my career as an executive.

What does someone on the spectrum do when faced with that kind of fear?

To be honest, a huge part of me wanted to just give up, move in to my parent’s basement and play video games. I have to fight that guy off quite frequently.

Plus, it’s hard to do that with a wife and kids. Another part of me wanted to face the fear by going out and finding a job and proving that you can still be successful and open about your differences. That part lost. Instead, I decided to do something even more difficult, and the hardest part is still ahead.

An idea is formed:

I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist off and on since I was diagnosed, and during a session I realized that some of the way that industry works doesn’t make a lot of sense. For example, why would someone be asked to keep a mood journal, or a log of their feelings in a paper notebook of all things? Everyone has a smart device on them that is far better qualified for the job.

For that matter how can one even understand their feelings when they don’t have any data? Coming from the business world we have dashboards, charts, and ways to filter data in order to come to evidence based conclusions.

How difficult must it be for professionals in the mental health care industry do their jobs as effectively as possible when they don’t have technology to give them insight? A doctor can use an EKG, MRI, CT scan, or even a good old x-ray to get more data about their patient, and from that make far more accurate and helpful plans of treatment.

Why don’t we have that in mental health care?

The question of course triggered an obsession with solving the problem. Next thing you know it’s been a year of 60-80 hour weeks, learning to program (which I’ve never done professionally before) to create cloud based storage systems, synchronization routines, dashboards, and mobile apps to address the issue. Being autistic may have its drawbacks, but when that obsession turns to something useful there’s really nothing we can’t do.

With the help of my amazing, supportive, and creative wife Kim, we’ve created WeFeel, a service that allows a therapist to actually have data to facilitate treatment through emotion tracking, journaling, and data visualization. And a great side effect is it helps me better understand my better half because it was built to allow you to share that data with a loved one or a care provider. If you want to know more about it check us out.

Step one: create first revision of a service that can completely revolutionize mental health care…Check!

But like I said at the beginning of this, the hardest part is yet to come. You’d think creating the WeFeel service would have been the hard part. Now we’ve got to get people using it, and that means selling. And selling means talking to people.

Technology is easy. Talking to people…not so much.

Selling is something I’ve been good at, but as you can imagine it causes huge amounts of stress. I have to put on my I’m just a normal person like you outfit, and it chafes. But without it (selling that is not the chafing) we don’t get to eat…and I need chocolate in my life.

I’m not sure if the past year has been a way of avoiding a fear, or facing a new fear of can I build a company versus just helping someone else build theirs. But either way, the time for burying my head in computers has come to an end and now it’s time to put myself out there again.

I’m glad I don’t have to do it alone.

Wish us luck.

Older Posts

Category Archives: Square Peg Side

Feb 17

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(or Evidence Driven Therapy- it’s hard to argue with facts.)

Feb 17

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(Or the difficult case of monetizing mobile Mental Health Care Solutions)

What happens when you start to throw technology into the mix? Who pays for that?

When data is lacking, logic and experimentation come to the rescue

What if we instituted a pay it forward program?

Feb 17

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Sep 16

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We…

We are…

We are bound together by…

“I” from “We”

Bonds, or Bondage?

Aug 16

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(or When did I lose my ability to decide where to eat without the whole planet’s input?)

Crowd sourced information can help us make better decisions

When we use online opinions we are borrowing anonymous trust

Jul 16

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Just because an expert said something doesn’t make it the right thing for you

When you don’t do something because it “might happen” you are acting out of fear.

And you thought we were progressing towards equality.

Jun 16

Dude, that’s so cool that you climbed up there- let me get a picture. You are so awesome!

But, holy crap how did you manage to get your shirt so dirty???

Flip your buts!

Jun 16

How are you? Are you happy?

{insert ‘x’ here} to be happy.

Something must be wrong with me!

20 something years of dissonance

We are happy when our brain is flooded with certain chemicals. Our base state of existence therefore cannot be happy; because if it were, you wouldn’t have to add neurochemicals to get there!

Stop obsessing about happiness, and you just might end up happier.

Jun 16

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May 16

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