I haven’t been the best of bloggers… actually, I have been a VERY bad blogger. Last time I posted in here was nearly a month ago. But there’s a good reason for this. We’ve been VERY busy! We’ve been to New York, to Madrid and all over the place preparing for November, Diabetes Awareness Month.
The presentation I will be doing next Wednesday at the AADE Annual Meeting 2011 in Las Vegas with Hope Warshaw (@HopeWarshaw), Amy Tenderich (@AmyDBMine) from DiabetesMine and David Edelman (@DavidTalk) from Diabetes Daily.
“We are proud and thrilled that our grassroots online video effort to raise awareness of diabetes has earned this recognition,” said Manny Hernandez, President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation (DHF) and founder of TuDiabetes.org, a social network of people touched by diabetes.
DHF received one 2011 Silver Telly Award, the competition’s highest honor, for Online Programs in the Social Issues category for the Big Blue Test video. The organization was also awarded one bronze prize for the Health and Wellness category.
The 2010 Big Blue Test video was produced by DHF in collaboration with David Edelman of Diabetes Daily (http://diabetesdaily.com) and Riva Greenberg of Diabetes Stories (http://diabetesstories.com). The video was directed and edited by Sean Ross (http://ethosphane.com). Roche Diabetes Care helped fund the initiative.
The video promoted the 2010 Big Blue Test, an awareness campaign to encourage exercise for those with diabetes. In conjunction with World Diabetes Day on November 14, DHF invited people with diabetes to test their blood sugar, do 14 minutes of activity, test again and share the results. The video was translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French and German, expanding the number of people who could watch it, understand the message and share it. Diabetes continues to be poorly understood by the general population. The Big Blue Test video helped increase public awareness and engaged viewers in a positive learning experience.
The video, which is less than 2 minutes long, features children and adults who have diabetes skating, running, swimming, dancing and cycling. “The Big Blue Test and the video message resonated with people,” said Riva Greenberg, writer and collaborator on the content development of the winning production. “We aimed to make people aware of the importance of activity in managing diabetes, and help children in need of everyday supplies to live.”
Roche Diabetes Care committed to make a donation of 75 cents, up to $75,000, to diabetes-related charities for every viewing of the Big Blue Test video. The video went viral and was viewed over 130,000 times.
The 32nd Annual Telly Awards competition received over 13,000 entries from all 50 states and numerous countries. Founded in 1978, the Telly Awards is the premier award honoring outstanding local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs, the finest video and film productions, and web commercials, videos and films. Winners represent the best work of the most respected advertising agencies, production companies, television stations, cable operators, and corporate video departments in the world.
“I have had Type 1 diabetes for 37 years. In October of 2010, I endured a life-threatening health crisis resulting in acute kidney failure. I have been on dialysis for the last 5 months and it’s been the biggest challenge of my life. The support and love sent my way by the diabetes online community has been incredible.”
After my recent (and last) dLife article, where I interviewed Cherise Shockley about the Twitter and Diabetes, I thought it would help to share a few other accounts of people with diabetes (PWD, in case you wonder what the title stands for) on Twitter.
Diabetes hashtags to watch on Twitter: #bgnow: to share your Blood Glucose NOW. #bgwed: to share your Blood Glucose on Wednesdays (in the same spirit of #FollowFriday). #dblog: diabetes blog posts. #DSMA: pertaining to Diabetes Social Media Advocacy topics.
Although the challenges faced by African Americans in the sixties and people with diabetes today are very different, because this article is getting published close to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2011, I took the liberty of applying some elements from his historical “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 to diabetes today.
In 1921, insulin was discovered. This moment came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of people with type 1 diabetes who, until then, had been doomed to die as a result of a non-functioning pancreas.
Ninety years later, lots of people with diabetes lack vital information and support that can help them live a healthy life with this chronic disease. And so I’ve written this article today to dramatize this shameful state of things.
