A Perfect Match - A Social Media Love Story

The Perfect Match, A Social Media Love Story

@aaker @natwaterhouse

10,000diagnosedeach year

30%sibling match

70%registry from strangers

Act. Quickly.Design to scale.Do not fail.

Dear Friends, Please take a moment to read this e-mail. My friend, Sameer Bhatia, has been diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML), which is a cancer of the blood. He is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant. Sameer is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, is 31 years old, and got married last year. His diagnosis was confirmed just weeks ago and caught us all by surprise given that he has always been in peak condition. Sameer, a Stanford alum, is known to many for his efforts in launching the American India Foundation, Project DOSTI, TiE (Chicago), a microfinance fund, and other causes focused on helping others. Now he urgently needs our help in giving him a new lease on life. He is undergoing chemotherapy at present but needs a bone marrow transplant to sustain beyond the next few months. Fortunately, you can help. Let’s use the power of the Net to save a life…something that couldn’t be done years ago, but is now possible. Three Things You Can Do (click here for more details online) 1. Please get registered.Getting registered is quick and requires a simple cheek swab (2 minutes of your time) and filling out some forms (5 minutes of your time). Registering and even donating if you’re ever selected is VERY simple. Another friend of ours, Vinay, was also diagnosed with AML and requires a transplant. We have joined forces with Team Vinay (www.helpvinay.org) in order to get South Asians registered in the bone marrow registry. Both Sameer and Vinay need a match from another South Asian, however, very few South Asians are actually in the registry and this makes it difficult for doctors to find them a match. This is why we need your help. We are supporting Team Vinay in organizing drives nationwide, and I need you to get registered by visiting a local drive. Drives are currently taking place all around the country, including throughout California, Washington, Michigan, Illinois, New York and many other states. Please see the full list of locations here: http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=event. 

2. Spread the word.Please share this e-mail message with at least 10 people (particularly South Asians), and ask them to do the same. Please point your friends to the local drives and ask them to get registered. If you can, sponsor a drive at your company or in your community. Drives need to take place in the next 2-3 weeks to be of help to Sameer and Vinay.  Please use the power of your address book and the Web to spread this message – today more than ever before, we can achieve broad scale and be part of a large online movement to save lives.  3. Learn moreTo learn more, please visit http://www.nickmyers.com/helpsameer. The site includes more details on how to organize your own drive, valuable information about AML, plus FAQs on registering. Please visit http://www.helpvinay.org/dp/index.php?q=node/108 for more information on the cities where more help is needed. Another past success story from our community is that of Pia Awal’s; please read about her successful fight against AML at www.matchpia.org.  Thank you for getting registered to help Sameer and Vinay win their fight against leukemia – and for helping others who may face blood cancers in the future. Truly, Robert

june july augustwww.Cooper.com

11 weeks470 drives, 24,611 cheeks…

1 perfect match

Sameer shared his story from the hospital…

Live each day as if it were your firstDear Friends and Loved Ones,

I can’t stress to you how much I marvel at my blessed fortune every day, a fortune that all of you had a hand in creating.If you look back at my earliest posts on this website, you’ll recall a newly-diagnosed leukemia patient needing a transplant from a grossly underrepresented and traditionally apathetic community. Along with Vinay, I challenged you all to step up and spread the work; to register and respond when called upon to save a life. I knew that this process was very unlikely to benefit me directly, but I had faith—and was convinced by Robert and others—that I had an opportunity to bring visibility to this issue to benefit future patients. This worked as hoped, and two other patients found matches through our drives. And the unimaginable happened: I also found a match through your efforts!

So who is to credit for this? Each and every one of you. It could have been your email that caused the donor to register. All of you stopped to think for a minute, “What if this was me or someone in my family?” and then did something as simple as sending an email to everyone you knew. This was Awareness Building, and was a crucial phase of your efforts. Others of you—many of whom I don’t even know but hope to seek out to thank in person one day—vested yourselves even deeper by organizing drives. You did this at your companies, your colleges, in your local communities, and at your temples of worship. And one of you actually won the luck of the draw and got to be my donor.

What did we learn?

ENABLE ACTION

GRAB ATTENTION

ENGAGE

FOCUS

Sameer, relapsed within 3 months of his transplant.

He fought hard – but sadly, passed away in March 2008.

Of the 24,611 newly registered

Purpose Revealed

people were matched in 1 year alone.

immediatematch!

Could we…

….get 100,000 more into the registry?

Could we design for network effects,inviting others to participate?

Starting with one small email.

Dear Stanford Haas students–

If you were given the opportunity to save a life, would you?  A group of students is needed to lead a truly remarkable effort to save hundreds - possibly thousands - of lives.

You probably know that Leukemia is a form of cancer of the blood or bone marrow.  You might know that bone marrow transplants are a form of treatment.  But did you know that certain populations are dramatically under-represented in existing bone marrow registries?  The story that gave rise to this effort is that of Sameer Bhatia, a Stanford undergrad-turned-entrepreneur. Because of this story, the Haas Center is working with Professor Jennifer Aaker and others to find a team of students to develop a bone marrow registry and get at least 100,000 people signed up.   This is an opportunity to do something spectacular.  We are looking for a multidisciplinary team of students who can work collaboratively, self-organize, and who are interested in designing a social media/networking campaign to achieve this goal.  

Think you are up to it?     To learn more, contact Tom Schnaubelt @ 650-723-0992. Or come join us dinner at Branner Hall on Thursday, October 7th at 5:30.

D

…but how?

might we find solutions with a very different process?

might we engage a distinct community with diverse

skillsets?

cheek swabs

100,000

How might we increase the number of registered bone marrow donors to

help save more lives?

INSPIRATION CONCEPTING EVALUATION REALIZATION345 inspirations 287 concepts 25 final concepts 10 winners announced!

11 weeks

Feb 17 May 13

345 Inspirations, 290 Concepts, 175 Countries.

Vineet Singal

We learned…

3. Donation1. Awareness

We learned…

4. Spread the word2. Registration

Enrich the Mix Motivate + Reward

Make it Easy Demystify + Educate

Connect +Network

5 ways to innovate

DMV and MarrowVincent Cheng

What if you were asked to swab a cheek while waiting at the DMV to register your vehicle?

MatchpointCarola Ponce

A mobile application to help groups organize bone marrow registry drives.

DIY KitsSina Mossayeb

University-based crowd sourcing competition challenge platform to encourage ways of promoting registry increase—website with DIY resources.

Swab PartiesVeronika

Let’s apply the tupperware party principle to a good cause like having a “swap party" where people come together to inform themselves and get registered.

BeTheInternationalMatch.orgArjan Tupan & Krassimira Lordanova

This concept combines with the Interactive map of registered donors.

The Marrow TreeSocial Change in a Box

Be The Match

What did we learn?

design for others

create just enough

cultivate optimism

Technologistsdesign for networks

100Kcheeks

OpenIDEO

1,000,000

you

lives saved

lives saved

what have we learned?

lives saved

could we…

The End.

View all the OpenIDEO concepts here: http://bit.ly/bmc-realisation

Start your own social media love story here: http://on.fb.me/lqEwv9