I bump fists. I don’t shake hands. In 2009, teaching 300 students was like wading into a cesspit of swine flu contagion.  After class, dozens came to meet me with big smiles, hands extended expecting my welcoming handshake.  During class there hadn’t been a quiet 15 seconds when somebody wasn’t coughing, sneezing, or hacking. So I closed my hand and offered my fist.  They closed theirs and we bumped.  Most thought I was trying to be cool.  I was just trying to keep from catching cold.

When you work with young people dedicated to burning boxes of candles with blowtorches, staying healthy means being careful.  So when Facebook told me 31 of my “friends” had used the “KeepMeWell” app, I clicked the link. I got the standard rigmarole of  Facebook’s familiar “Request for Permission” page. The KeepMeWell app wanted permission to access my basic and contact information.  And it wanted to post publish my health status and alerts.  Maybe granting that type of information gives you creepbumps, but I gave more access to the app that told me which Teletubby I am (Winky-Dinky).   I had way too much going on to be sick. I clicked “Accept.”

The KeepMeWell app would monitor my health status by calculating my overall risk.  I didn’t have to tell it anything – it would use something called “OpenGraph” to ascertain my risk level.  Its “KeepMeWell” meter would update me when anything altered my health status – a little icon that moved from green to red when I was at risk.  So the app had my back. Sure. I wasn’t going to tell it anything, so it if told me something to help keep me well, what the heck.

Then a week later it happened.  That telltale tickle in your throat that mutates into a painful swallow.  A body ache that made the walk to the bathroom feel like I had run a marathon. And a fever.  Despite the fist bumps and holding my breath to avoid sharing air, it had got me.  The flu.  I should have ordered the fashion surgical masks like my colleagues!

Attempting to minimize my imminent decline, I leave a Facebook message for my wife “I think I have the flu.  I am going home to keep from spreading germs.”  It can take my wife days to answer my emails, but she “Likes” this post right away.  Then something interesting happens.  That KeepMeWell app posts an alert in my newsfeed – my health risk has moved from green to yellow. 

I go to WebMD, search for “flu symptoms,” and read a  “Flu Guide” that recommends Chlor-Trimeton Oral.  I will grab some on the way home.  I open Facebook to log off and there is another post in my newsfeed.  Now I am at orange.  What the??

The down economy has even highly paid professors pinching pennies and I have a little trick in my pocket.  With ShopSavvy, an iPhone app, you scan a bar code on a product and it tells you where you can find the lowest price.  At the CVS I scan the Chlor-Trimeton and find that I can get it for a dollar less at Amazon.  I show the clerk the price on my iPhone and she matches the price.  Yee haw.

By the time I get home, I’m coughing with that nagging pain behind my eyes.  I settle in on the couch with a box of Kleenex and my iPad – “Dancing with the Stars,” the true panacea.  Before I bring up the video, I check Facebook.  Two new posts.  One is from KeepMeWell moving me all the way over into the red.  And the second is from my co-worker, Brian, one of the people who turned me onto the KeepMeWell app.  He isn’t coming into work tomorrow because KeepMeWell just moved him to orange. 

“KeepMeWell says I’m at risk for flu.  If I am sick for my wedding next week, Lucinda will kill me.  I am staying home!”

Sure, I made it all up.  But it could happen.  I didn’t read the ENTIRE terms of service, but the Cliff Notes version tells you that Zuckerberg et. al. own everything you do in Facebook – every single tag, post, message, like, and photo.  Facebook’s OpenGraph lets anyone write an app that can access all that information.  But it is going farther than that.  Facebook is now entering “partnerships” with a range of companies and organizations to enable what it is calling “Frictionless Sharing.”  In essence, Facebook is making it easy for other sites to push info about you to be stored in Facebook – so your OpenGraph isn’t just want you do on Facebook – it is becoming what you do online.

Are we getting dangerously close to the creep line? Privacy issues, right? And what are people going to do with this info?  Sure, a bunch of them are trying to sell us things. But there might be another way of looking at it. Facebook is becoming a permeable data source.  It stores info we voluntarily contribute about our tastes, behaviors, purchases, interactions, desires. Then we have the option to give apps (and companies and other organizations) permission to use it. Wouldn’t it be cool if those apps improved our lives?  What if they kept us healthier?

I will be talking about Facebook as a Permeable Data Source at the Digital Health Conference Extravaganza ( http://www.dhcx.org )on February 17^th in Orlando, Florida.

Virtual reality used to be the stuff of science fiction.  Somehow the heroine gets sucked into a computer and now she is fighting nefarious viruses.  It happens, right?  Well, VR has come a long way.  And now clever researchers are exploring ways to use this technology to influence our behavior in positive ways.  One of those researchers is the Grady College's Grace Ahn — and she is our guest for the next Digital Brown Bag (Tuesday, 1/31, 2P, Room 171, Miller Learning Center).  Come join us and see some of the wild stuff she is doing.

Good morning, yesterday. 
You wake up and time has slipped away. 
And suddenly its hard to find the memories you left behind. 

Remember, the times of your life.

Close your eyes and sing the above lines.  If you are ancient like me, you can almost remember the commercial.  A moving van is loading up out front, a woman is packing photographs of her family.  In 1977 this tear-jerker broke up the non-stop hilarity of "The Love Boat" and "Chico and the Man."  You can watch it here (http://bit.ly/xHuiyK).  But be forewarned.  You won't be able to get it out of your head. Old-school viral when that was just an annoying song everybody around you was humming.

That ad came to mind when I read that Kodak has filed for reorganization –ok, bankruptcy.  George Eastman started selling easy to use cameras dirt cheap in 1889 so he could make big profits when people needed film.  By the 70's, practically all film purchased had that classic yellow and red Kodak logo.  Then came digital.

In 2004, I finally made the move to digital.  I bought my first real digital camera.  I heard about how people were uploading their pictures. Flickr was just starting out but I wanted to print my snapshots, not just share them.  Plus, how much longevity could you expect from a company that wouldn't buy the vowel.  So I started using Kodak's Ofoto online service which morphed into KodakGallery.  Why Kodak?  It felt comfortable, trustworthy, over a century old.  Hey, who knew more about photography than Kodak, right them?  I uploaded thousands of pictures and printed hundreds of them. 

KodakGallery was easy and cheap.  I didn't pay for storage — only the pennies for the prints.  Besides the irresistible temptation the UPS man provides for my dogs  by leaving the pictures on my doorstep, it has been convenient.  But there was a guilty bonus that I haven't told anyone.  Every time the TV news crews covered a disaster (tornado, flood, fire) with crying home owners clutching their crumpled and stained family photos, I was glad Kodak had my back.  Those pictures mean more to me than any possession (yeah, even more than my awesome Prius).

Then last Thursday, Kodak files for bankruptcy.  Chapter 11 is a time honored legal protection from creditors and investors.  I respect it.  We need it.  And, yes, Kodak says it is going to take care of me still offering all of its services and I believe it probably will.  But now I feel differently about Kodak — and all the online storage services I use for pictures, documents, videos, music.  I feel vulnerable.

Those companies are offering me "cloud" services (and, believe it or not, I actually own the trademark "THE CLOUD" — and I am willing to sell — let's do coffee).  I'm not really a cloud customer — I am cloud investor.  I entrust these services with crucial parts of my very identity.  Those bits and bytes I have been transferring to them aren't just patterns of electromagnetic energy.  They are my memories.  And then one day I wake up and suddenly its hard to find the memories I left behind?  As Kodak sorts through their investors and creditors, what are they going to do about me?  How much is my past worth?  And suddenly I feel a lot like those people in disaster zones holding tight to those pictures — tenuous connections between a comfy past and an uncertain future.

Our next Digital Brown Bag will be on Tuesday, 1/31 where Athens own Evoshield (http://www.evoshield.com/) will share how they are using new and social media.  2:00P room 171 in the Miller Learning Center.

Every project in the NMI starts with five words, "Wouldn't it be cool if …."  We have done some crazy cool things.  Wired tablets to Segways.  Rigged cameras to take pictures of you in from of the Arch.  Built apps to control your microwave oven.  They were cool, sure.  But this semester we are focusing some of our projects beyond cool all the way to crucial.  We are going to explore how new media technology can help people make better health behavior decisions.  Students are devising ways to use their technowledge to encourage people to lose weight, exercise, avoid diabetes, and eat better.  And we are leveraging new capabilities pioneered for relevant advertising to help people live healthier.  Think Facebook's OpenGraph.  And we aren't alone in this focus on health.  At the inaugural Digital Health Conference Extravaganza (http://www.dhcx.org) in Orlando in just a few weeks (2/15 – 2/17), geeks and health professionals will be assembling to share ideas.  I will be there.  And over the next few weeks, I will share with you what I will be talking about.  And if you have ideas for creative health-related projects (and if you want to work with us on them) let me know.