Stormy Habit Weather

In the USA this winter, Mother Nature has thrown snow into many peoples’ lives. Schedules and internalized daily habits were disrupted through imposed external forces. New opportunities and habits took shape. Some people embraced the moment as a time to create a snow shark.

Glancing at Amazon, I see others read and commented on the Hooked book written by Nir Eyal with contributions from Ryan Hoover.

The recent snow event got me thinking about habits extinguishing and habit competition. Do more people habitually check the weather now? What are they not doing anymore? If a mobile app provided the weather as a side feature during a snow storm, would people use it more? 

The Argus iPhone app has the weather as a daily integrated feature of its personal dashboard of your life. So, I wake up and look at the temperature high/low for the day on Argus while seeing other things like how much sleep I got.



Although it seems much of the focus is currently on building products that form long term habits, I think exploring how to keep people using their products even through stormy habit-disruption times will serve well too.

I invite us all to discuss this in the Facebook Hook Model community.

Why Create A Hook Model Community?

You may ask, why create a facebook community around the Hook Model? Simply put, the Hook Model works well. Really well! You can create products and services that people habitually use. It's the combination of psychology, business and technology. So, it's fun and profitable!

How did I discover the Hook Model? I saw a GSummit 2013 presentation by Nir Eyal, read some of his posts, and finally read twice the book Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products.

Want a taste via video? If you would like, just slide the YouTube video slider below and pick anything to watch for 1 to 2 minutes.

This video above and slides are available on Nir Eyal's blog post "New Video - Hooked the Psychology of How Products Engage Us"

Coming up and co-chaired by Nir Eyal, the Habit Summit is on March 25, 2014. It's where experts "share their hard-won insights on how to build habits (user and personal habits)."

So books, videos and conferences. What was missing? Well, a place where like-minded people could focus as a group on the Hook Model framework, a Hook Model community.

I asked Nir in the Gamification Revolution spreecast The Ethics and Tenants of Habit-Forming Design with Nir Eyal for a community. He suggested I create one. So with his feedback, I created the Hook Model Community

We have discussed Nostalgia, the HabitZone, ATARI acronym, the virtual reality Oculus Rift, and more.

You are invited to come join our Hook Model Community at https://www.facebook.com/groups/hookmodel Although it's free, it's habit forming. ;) Of course, the choice is yours. Hope to see you there!