Parenting in the modern worldKyle SeamanTEDxMontreal

Translator: Jaime Ochoa
Reviewer: Capa Girl So, like most of you here, I've been pretty excited about
this technology and this data and everything that we can do these days to really make significant changes
in people's lives. So about a year ago, my girlfriend and I decided that we could reverse engineer this very mysterious thing called parenting. And, see what we could do. So, today I'd like to share just some of the things that we've learned
over the last year about this mystery of parenting and kind of the home environment.

What's important to remember is, parenting is probably
one of the most difficult tasks that most people will ever have
to face and have in common. And it's hard. It's about balancing
the now with the future while teaching the right habits and hoping that your kids
grow up to be great. So, what's amazing is, as I began
speaking with more and more parents I realized most of them
are making it up as they go.

So, anyone out there just feel normal. Yes, there's lots of resources but turns out, most parents will say, "It'd be easy if I had a PhD
or if I had time." The number one source of help for parents is this wonderful thing called Google. They go there, and it delivers them
their answer. So what I questioned was how can technology and data
and all these great things be re-purposed to actually make
a significant change in a significant amount of people's lives.

It turns out most people have parents. It seems like a great market to go after. So, that's what we did. As I began to look at the day
of a family's life I realized there's this structure that exists and there's these things
that I like to call pivot points.

They're points in the day where the routine takes
a significant change. Where the speed is different,
something's different in terms of kids don't usually
react well to these pivot points. For example, meal time. Or, brushing teeth.

Or bedtime. Ask any parent how much they look forward to these moments in the day and if they don't sort of cringe they're not being
completely honest with you. And, it was just a really
interesting finding for us so we started to dig in deeper to this. We started holding these
day-long interview sessions with multiple parents.

And this is one of the boards I created after talking to one family. The red indicates any pain point
that he feels in his day. What was the coolest part, though, is I forgot to take this down
in between interviews and when I came back into the room
there was a dad standing there smiling ear to ear on the phone. I asked him, "What's up?" And he's like: "We're, normal!" (Laughter) It turns out
that most people assume that these tasks,
that these pivot points should be simple,
and that they're not.

They're incredibly chaotic and what's new is most people
don't really care why, they just want to know it's normal. But what's new is when you
figure out the why the why is, in most cases it's one
of the only points in the day where kids have any say. Where they can actually say no. Most of their day is about being ushered around
ushered along, and saying yes all the time.

So these are points where they can
really show their empowerment. So, what we found out
is parents need this. [Is this normal?] But I thought we could do something
a little bit more engaging, but how do we do it?
How do we define normal? How do we make it so
that a family's life is easier? So, first of all I asked: Why normal?
Do we really just want to be normal? What does that mean? It's important to understand it is not about being like everyone else, or even being average. But it is important to know
that you are not alone, that you are doing this and you are not screwing up; and that's the point
people are really striving for.

Take growth charts. They're one of the earliest
measures of normal the doctors have been using for years, and it gave parents confidence
that their kids should be growing. So, we want to see how can we take that and how can we take technology and continue to define normal for families. And, that's what we did.

We have kids using our platform, logging in every day,
checking off tasks, buying rewards, just having fun. And what's cool is it's pumping data
into our system. So one, we can finally answer
the age old question that, yes, girls are better behaved
than boys. And also, any parents
with a nine-year-old at home, if they're not behaving great, expect that.

It turns out, across our user base nine-year-olds have this
tremendous draw in behaviour. They don't want to do anything. Maybe it's the rebellious age,
maybe it's not; but what's cool is, we're starting
to surface these points and we can deliver this back in
a relevant timely manner for parents, so they start to feel a little more normal. So we started to look top tasks.

Turns out kids don't really hate
brushing teeth that much, laundry is OK, and homework's fine. But other other end of the spectrum, cleaning the bedroom, putting away toys,
and washing dishes, are hated amongst most kids. So again, if you are a parent, who find yourself struggling
at these points, you are normal. And it's so funny how much
of an impact it has to be told that, yeah, you are normal.

So, I've been speaking about this
from the parents' perspective, the secret is -- I am doing this for the kids,
I have been all along. And all too often, we forget
how awesome it is to be a kid. I mean it's one of the coolest
that anyone will ever go through. Anything's possible,
you're the coolest people around.

So, I wanted to really harness this and make sure that a kid's day
was as awesome as it could be. So, when I started thinking about
these pivot points, it was -- alright, so kids are clearly not happy, either. How can we make it
so that they're happy? Because my assumption was, if they are happy,
parents will be happy. So this is where I drew
the link to gamification.

Probably one of the ugliest words
that you've heard today, but something with a pretty neat meaning. It means taking gaming loops and feedback loops and applying
them in other places to make that activity more engaging. It can also be used in a second form
of making data which has been a big theme here today, making it accessible and usable to the average consumer, not someone who's studied data
for years and years. So, a great story around this that I have is, when I was ten, my brother was six, and I feel so bad for him having been
my younger brother; because when I was thirsty, I would propose the challenge: "Can you get me a drink of water
in less than 25 seconds?" (Laughter) And it worked, most of the time
I stopped counting, I never counted.

He always won,
he always felt great, and I got my water. And, it worked.
He felt great. He was getting this feedback loop. It then translated as I got a little older and I started my first business
which was lawn cutting.

I had some massive lawns
with a very small lawn mower. So I decided, "I'll time my laps.
Let's see how fast I can go." The beauty was, I was cutting in, so every lap was default faster. But, it was a hack that made me feel like
I was making progress. It was a feedback loop; and this is what games give you and that's why kids
are so addicted to them.

Everyone after the '90s knows
how satisfying it is to be told instantly how great you are. Those bleeps, those blings,
everything like that means a lot
even if it doesn't mean anything outside of that context,
it means something. So that's what we did
to the home routine. We turned it from being, "Do this", to, "here's your challenges, can you accomplish it?" And it turns out kids love it.

We even have parents
who were setting up these tasks and the kids are pushing
the parents to go through the day and really take it on,
and kids feel great. They want to be empowered. We forget how important it is
for kids to be empowered, especially when most of their days being told what to do. So, the other version,
and what comes back to the parents is, this is the data, this is a lot of data
like we've seen earlier.

It's not useful to most people. But we're seeing apps
being re-purposed around it, especially in the health care industry. And this is what we're looking
to do in the parenting industry. Relevant data when you need it.

So you know what you need to do now and you feel normal
and great and confident. Because once we establish
this confidence in parents, and this fun with kids,
the whole routine takes a whole new form and
cool things start to happen. In social media there is this general rule
called the 90-9-1 rule; meaning that all the content is created by one percent. Nine percent contribute,
comment, everything like that, but most of the internet is lurking, reading it, searching in Google; never actually contributing
to this conversation.

What was really interesting
is the parallels of this to the home, to the family. I always say there's that one percent, and everyone knows
that one mom or that one dad who just has the best ideas
all the time. Like, let's turn grocery shopping
into a game where you have to find all the purple vegetables,
that's great; and then, they have their 9%
which is their social circle. They talk about it a little bit;
but there's no way for that to be spread out to the 90%, and that is sort of the question.

Now that we've established normal, now that we have this great home routine, how can we take and expose
this great content to the 90% and what happens
when you start doing this? So, my favorite story is,
in the framework, we surface this great reward called ice cream for breakfast; and what's important to understand is it's so awesome
because you're six-years-old, you're at the breakfast table and all your siblings
are eating toast, it's great. It's this really empowering moment. So it quickly rose through the top rewards through our system. And it is really neat
seeing the assumptions being broken over and over again
by parents.

We have one family in Vancouver, and for months
it was TV, dinner time, TV. She assumed that kids
wanted to watch TV. She set up high scores house and she made TV
a reward that they could buy, along with other things
like craft night, baking. And, 8 weeks later they haven't watched
a single episode of TV.

She's discovered her
5-year-old loves baking, and that her 8-year-old is
a really enthusiastic all-across-the-board- but-not-TV
type of person. And that's really cool
because all of a sudden now that Friday night that was
once spent in front of the TV. Is now a baking activity, and you have parents and kids
coming together; and the cool part is we're
empowering through the kids. So, we're using the kids
to help the parents continue to feel normal,
but pushing them to have deeper moments throughout the day, and it feels great because
it's a gaming feedback loop, everyone's confident,
everyone's having fun.

And that's what gets me
really excited as we see more mobile and tablets,
and everything coming out, it's easier to provide
these feedback loops and these engagement cycles to really
transform people's lives. And I am also excited. I really wish
I was a kid these days. Anyway, yeah,
so that's what we're working on.

It's really fun,
thanks for coming out. It's been a great day everyone. (Applause).