Tuesday was the start of the highly anticipated Mobile Health Conference taking place at Stanford University. Though not an on-site attendee, I’ve been staying up-to-date by tuning into the Twitter chat. You can too by following the hashtag: #mh2010.

While scanning the tweets, I came across what I consider a mother-daddy in the world of behavior change: an easy, do-it-yourself module for behavior change planning (see screenshot below) developed by Dr. BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab.

The wizard is designed to help those plan and design behavior change strategies through answering a brief set of questions. Depending on your answer, the wizard will describe the type of behavior you are working towards based upon Dr. Fogg’s Behavior Grid–which identifies 15 ways behavior can change (see image below).

This past week, I’ve been refreshing my knowledge of the different processes and documentation for social marketing and behavior change planning as one of my biggest observances in practice is that people like tangibles. They see a print ad or a PSA, and they can respond. But are those effective? Thus, in my current organization, I’m working to make behavior change and social marketing tangible and relevant–in terms of the new frontier of technology and the human experience. This is why Dr. Fogg’s work excites me–it’s a tangible. It breaks down behavior into bite size pieces we can understand, digest, analyze and follow-up on.

The conference continues on Tuesday, but already, even though I didn’t get to attend in person, I’m enthused to see that many of the presentations on day one got right into the heart of social marketing and behavior change–not just Dr. Fogg.

Why This Is Important to You…

If you are working to influence the world for good, have a mission or cause you are advocating, you need to get plugged into this arena. Social marketing is relevant and if you are doubtful, just scan the tweets from the Mobile Health Conference. We’ve all heard “Mobile is the future,” but social marketing and behavior change are right along with it. Want more evidence? Look at Jen McCabe’s presentation from the conference. The movement is growing. Join us.