I have become a fan of disintermediation recently. Don't worry, I had to look it up too:
In economics, disintermediation is the free market removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: often explained with the phrase, "cutting out the middleman". - Wikipedia
It all started when I bumped into Alex Faire of FairCareMD.com, where he is hooking up patients directly with doctors and cutting the insurance companies out of the loop to drive up efficiencies, and drive down costs. He was one of the first people I have heard describe himself being in the business of disintermediation. The concept stuck with me, and I have started to see it in more and more places... it even sparked a small business idea around non-anonymous direct instant mobile ad buying, but I digress. :)
As network technology gets more ubiquitous, as social technologies tie us together easier, the flow of goods and services, preferences and behaviors across these networks becomes much more liquid. We no longer need a "middleman" to connect us to the things we want. We can be connected to these things, these creators, these people... ourselves.
I think this has ramifications for the work I am doing at MeYou Health. As we have been out in the market, working behind the scenes to unleash our business model into the wild with a set of pilot customers, we have come up against the status quo of wellness programs. This status quo generally consists of the company inserting something in your way. If you want to lose weight? You *have* to do it at a certain time, for a certain duration, and *only* with other employees. They try to not make the restrictions feel like limitations, but they are. They have inserted themselves between you and your well-being.
So I would say the biggest market challenge we have been facing is trying to convince companies very comfortable with buying these types of programs to entertain getting out of the way.
Why not let your employees sign up in a context that you do not own and do not brand? How about letting them sign up with the people that *really* support them like their friends and family? How about enabling them to learn about things beyond weight and fitness that might be impacting them in ways they cannot yet comprehend? Empower your employees to begin, but after that, please step aside and let people take the journey in a way that will work for them, and their own unique and complicated circumstances.
That right there is the disintermediation of corporate well-being programs! Scary. Fun. Stay tuned!
Of course, if we are inserting ourselves into the process, are we the new middleman? Oh god. Where does it end?
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