Update October, 2008: Here is a post about some scientific evidence that may lend credibility to the idea that a walking meeting may stimulate feelings of trust and personal warmth.

I was perusing through the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention’s excellent December, 2007 issue of Health Power! Prevention News, and happened on a review of this systematic analysis of the impacts of using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health (Bravata DM, Smith-Spangler C, Sundaram V, et al. Using Pedometers to Increase Physical Activity and Improve Health: A Systematic Review. Jama 2007;298:2296-304.)

More on that later, though. It stimulated me to write a post about how I use the pedometer in my work life, and my journey to develop “The Walking Meeting,” the coolest part of getting things done that I have added to my repertoire.

So what is this? About 3 years ago now, I was offered a pedometer as part of a test of a walking challenge. I have since upgraded to a non-freebie variety, as recommended to me by Mark Graban, publisher of the well regarded LEAN Blog. In the LEAN world, pedometers are great for time-motion studies.

They have been great for bringing fitness into the work environment, too, and changing conversations. My other nickname for this is “WWW” or “work while walking” (or maybe “walk while working), and here’s the recipe:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today marked a bit of a milestone for me in that my company issued pedometer died. I’ve been walking with it non-stop since 2004 - it was my permanent company brand. The thing about pedometers is that you can’t really buy them easily, but you can get them because so many organizations give them away. So today, courtesy of the Clinical Systems Improvement Group in the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygeine, I got rebranded. I’m still trying to evangelize the walking meeting here, but I admit it’s a little hard if the humidity is at a level that makes you want to duck into the nearest air conditioned space.

I spent the morning in the South Bronx, visiting one of the Institute’s facilities and meeting with leaders of Urban Health Plan, and then in the afternoon with folks from Clinical Systems Improvement. I will detail that information on the PCHIT blog when it’s up.

One thing I notice about New York is that people walk as fast as I do here (well, some of them do). It’s good that I can count my steps again.