Water

A recent comScore report shows that demand for online health information is growing at a rate four times faster than the total Internet. In fact, despite conventional wisdom that older people are not heavy Internet users, researchers have found that the Internet age gap almost disappears when it comes to searching for health information.

I guess its no surprise that one of the world’s most successful innovators – AOL co-founder Steve Case – is leading the pack in expanding online health resources with his site, Revolution Health Network. Case says that he’s learned two important lessons over the years: you can convince people to try almost any product with good marketing, and timing is everything. He doesn’t mention persistence but his own history underscores its importance: it took AOL four years in the 1980’s to convince computer giants to build a modem into PC’s because nobody thought consumers would be interested in logging on.

Steve Case and his wife Jean also run the Case Foundation, which supports innovative causes. Among them is the PlayPump Water System, designed to increase access to clean water in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. The lack of clean water supply is a worldwide health disaster.

Loretta likes to show off Camino PR’s commitment to water conservation. When visitors arrive she begins her office tour in our tiny bathroom, where she has converted the toilet into a water conservation system. She installed a tiny sink on the top of the toilet; when you flush the clean water first runs into the sink (for hand washing) and then runs into the toilet for flushing purposes. I often recommend that she allow visitors to discover our clever conservation renovation on their own, but she can’t contain her enthusiasm.

Bathrooms are great marketing venues. My father used to hang instructional posters in our bathrooms at home, which is how I came to learn all of the referee signals for professional football. If Loretta were to have more restraint, our visitors would discover Camino’s conservation efforts by reading this sign, which hangs in the tiny bathroom:

“Every day the United States uses about 5.7 billion gallons of clean water to flush toilets. Meanwhile, more than 1 billion people worldwide lack access to clean, safe drinking water. The lack of clean, safe drinking water is estimated to kill 4,500 children per day. We know that conserving water at Camino PR is not going to get clean water to people in need. But treating clean water as a precious commodity is one step toward living our values.”