Say Hello to Eye Phone

On January 15, a new app called Be My Eyes launched around the world. This is an app whose success depends entirely upon the goodwill of total strangers.

According to Forbes, for an app to do well, it’s got to be a great product. (Well, duh.) You also need a solid marketing plan. It shouldn’t overlook niche markets. And ideally, the app should work best when users rope in their entire social networks (which explains those endless streams of requests I get to play Candy Crush Saga). For the most part, I found this Forbes article illuminating (although ultimately not worth the seeping wound I sustained on my brain after learning there are apps called Zit Picker, Yo Mama and iFart).

The article failed to mention the bit about goodwill and strangers.

Thelle Kristensen, co-founder and CEO of Be My Eyes in Denmark, is not at all worried.

Be My Eyes is an innovative way for sighted people to loan their vision to blind people –anywhere in the world. It works like this: If you happens to be blind and want to know the expiry date on a yogurt container, or the contents of a soup can – small tasks if you can see, impossible tasks if you can’t – you can use the app to signal thousands of sighted volunteers. When someone responds, the two of you are connected by live video. Now all you have to do is show the volunteer what you want to see, and the volunteer answers your questions. Thank you and goodbye. (Both helper and user can rate each other afterwards, for everyone’s protection.)

It’s brilliant. Obviously, a lot of other people agree. Over 7,800 blind users and close to 100,000 sighted helpers have joined the Be My Eyes community, and those numbers are rising steadily. More than 20,000 acts of kindness have been performed in the twelve days since the app launched.

In other words, goodwill not a problem. “When we started Be My Eyes, our immediate response was that people were willing to help,” Thelle told me, “especially when they experienced how easy it was, and how big a difference they could make in a short period of time.” Bingo. I’m a huge fan of lazy good deeds. Making an impact without much effort? It only means you’re more likely to go out and do it, again and again. Thelle is surely onto something.

And it is making an impact. “We knew that the relief of not being a ‘burden’ to a specific person was a great value proposition to the blind users,” Thelle added. In other words, most blind people would really like to not have to knock on their neighbour’s door for the fifth time today just to ask for help. (Hear more about this from inventor and co-founder Hans Jørgen Wiberg, who himself has a vision disability, at this TED Talk presentation in Copenhagen.)

Thelle noted: “The feedback has been tremendous since the launch, and people are pitching in with ideas and developing further on the app from all around the world.”

So it’s not much of a gamble after all, is it? If you want to be part of this world community, you can download the app here. (If, like me, you’re not part of the iPhone tribe, you can sign up to wait for the Android version, here.)

Now there’s really no excuse for ignoring those calorie counts on the product labels. (Photo courtesy of Be My Eyes)

KISS Principle: Keep It Simple, Sweetheart

I was super happy to be a part of Craig and Marc Kielburger’s “Brain Storm” column for The Globe and Mail a few weeks ago. The co-founders of Me to We and Free the Children canvassed a few kindness experts – including me – about injecting more common courtesies into our day-to-day routines. I talked about the importance of keeping your eyes and ears open, since it’s my belief that there are countless opportunities to do good deeds, just as long as you’re on the lookout for them. (And, yes, I did refer to doggie-doo in a national newspaper!)

Then the Kielburgers asked readers to weigh in online, and some of their ideas were published in the newspaper’s January 2 edition. Inspiring? I’d say. A common theme here was simplicity: Smile at strangers. Hold the door. Give compliments. A schoolteacher suggested a stronger focus on kindness in the classroom. Another reader talked about the value of warm, active listening (without glancing distractedly at your smartphone!). Someone suggested reminding people close to you how much they’re loved.

One woman shared this thought: “I believe we should speak our minds in a positive way more freely to strangers we meet in our everyday life. Comment when you feel they have said or done something that you respect or just let people know that you appreciate their positive energy.”

That’s what I had in mind when I thanked a bus driver, last week, for waiting a few extra seconds after he dropped off a frail lady on a snowy sidewalk. He wanted to make sure she was walking safely before he sped off. As for me, I wanted him to know I wasn’t impatient about getting to my own stop – and, in fact, appreciated his compassion.

How about you, smart and lovely people? What ideas do you have for adding more acts of kindness to an ordinary day? We’d love to hear them.

A dog waste receptacle in Germany. My question is, how do you keep your dog from wriggling while you hold his hind end over the bin? (Photo courtesy of Mister GC / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Like the Way Melissa Etheridge Does

I’m at that age where some of the adults I know – we’re talking full grown and fully established individuals – are folks I first knew as small little kids. These people are 20 years younger than me, yet they’re well over the age of majority. It’s freaky.

When I first met Danny, I was a university graduate living in the basement apartment of his parents’ house. He was four years old. Sometimes I babysat him, and often I walked him to school. He was energetic and spirited. Once, he rehearsed and then performed a rousing one-man-band rendition of “I Have a Little Dreidel,” just for me. The things you never forget.

The grown-up version of Danny works as a flight attendant. If I had to place a bet, I’d gamble that he’s the upbeat, friendly sort who rolls with the punches. I’ll bet his passengers like him. The respect, apparently, goes both ways… along with occasional starstruckness. Here’s what Danny wrote on Facebook last week: “Melissa Etheridge and her lovely wife were on my flight yesterday. Can I just say that they are the nicest, coolest and most amazingly CHILL people that I have ever had the pleasure of interacting with?”

Danny embraced this opportunity to let Melissa E. know how much her music has meant to him. One amazing performance in particular, he told her, “…influenced me as a kid to feel music with as much passion as possible.”

The singer’s reaction? She patted his arm, thanked him and called him kind. Her wife called him a sweetheart. (“I’m part of their family now, right? That’s how that works?” Danny added hopefully in his online report.)

Their flight out of Quebec City was considerably delayed while ramp crew took frequent warm-up breaks to prevent frostbite. (If you’re from this part of Canada, you know it was so cold last week that even the snowmen were shivering.) “Melissa and her wife were the ONLY two people to ask me how I was holding up and feeling while dealing with the delay,” Danny wrote. “Her wife was joking that Melissa should get on the interphone and do a couple numbers.”

He was struck by their graciousness, and their compassion. Especially while he laboured his way through day nine of a long 11-day work stint. “This was very much welcomed and appreciated,” he noted. “Both of them were complete class acts.”

Of course celebrities can be do-gooders like anyone else. They step in to staunch blood when it’s called for. They donate to ALS research while drinking scotch and looking classy. And they ask a weary flight attendant how he’s feeling, right when he most needs to hear it.

“It was definitely a moment,” Danny told me. Thanks to this and a couple of other musical encounters over the past week, he’s rediscovering his love for guitar playing. (Dreidel songs, too? We are left to wonder.) Melissa Etheridge not only cheered my young friend Danny, she inspired him. Rock on.

Puppies and Babies and Happiness

If by resolution you mean “firmness of resolve” (Merriam-Webster), then yes, I suppose I have some for 2015. I am resolved to work hard but play well. And I’m pretty firm about it.

January is a time for looking back as well as forward. So I thought I’d investigate which stories on 50 Good Deeds captivated you most in 2014. Interestingly, the two most popular posts cover the topics of dogs and babies (which, as you probably know, tend also to be well represented on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Coincidence?).

The most widely read post of 2014 was “Newfoundkindness.” This story described a therapy pool that was generously provided to an oversized, overadorable Newfoundland puppy in Moncton, New Brunswick.

“Lows and Highs” scored the next-most hits. This post detailed the outpouring of support for an Alberta set of triplet baby boys, the Lows, all of whom are in treatment for eye cancer. Check out the photo. Even more overadorable, if you ask me.

What is it about kids and pets that enchants us so? I suspect all those cutie-pie pictures and videos must have a whole lot to do with it. Which is why 50 Good Deeds is moving forward, in 2015, with a charming story about a dog-and-owner reunion: When Sue Perry moved to New Brunswick from Ottawa, she thought she’d never again see her service dog (Sue is deaf). She’d lost Milo six months ago. Recently, an animal welfare group managed to track Milo down – in Gatineau, Quebec, where he was now living with his new adoptive family, which included two kids.

So the family held a pow-wow. Should they give him up? “It wasn’t an easy decision,” dad Nicolas Adam told CBC, “but we felt it was the right thing to do.” (They eventually took in another dog.) With the help of volunteer drivers, and donations to cover gas money, Milo travelled to Fredericton, New Brunswick, to be with Sue again.

And what was going through Milo’s doggy mind when he saw his dear friend Sue after half a year apart? Have a look at the video. His high-octane tail-wagging and kissing frenzy say it all. Who needs words?

Happy 2015. Really happy.

I have no reason to add this photo of two cute puppies, other than the fact that you love it. You know you do. (Photo by SOMMAI / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)