Everyone agrees we need better (financial) health.  We also agree that those who are less (financially) healthy need to make bigger behavior changes.  This is hard stuff.  It’s also where most of the (financial) industry says they can only do so much.

As a culture, we have a lot more experience changing our physical health than we do our financial health.  I think it’s instructive, therefore, to study the best practices in health and adapt and apply them to our financial health.

Nike announced Nike Fuel at SXSW a month ago.  I believe this is a brilliant app/product/behavior changer that the financial industry should appropriate as soon as possible.  Here’s the deal:

Nike Fuel is a sleek black plastic bracelet.  Its supply is limited, its design chique and its marketing exciting.  I want one.  So do you! It interacts with a sexy iPhone app which lets you set a goal.  Then it measures, by proxy, your movement and infers calories burned, in real time. When you click the discreet single button on the wristband, it displays your realtime data and your distance from your daily goal.  Technically, the platform lacks sophistication: if you hold your hands still if your legs are moving, you wouldn’t be any calories wiser.

What I think is so exciting about this gizmo is that it productizes a problem, connects long-term goals to short-term behavior, makes something abstract concrete (ironic, because it’s actually making something concrete (the body) abstract (a virtual set of digits)), and makes an obligation into a game.

I’ve long been stymied by the fact that we all make economically irrational purchasing decisions that are entirely socially rational: Why pay a premium for a BMW, even if you can’t afford one?  Why get that flat screen TV?  So many things we purchase give us status, tell others we’re doing well, or help alleviate some bad feeling of being poor.  Poor people are often more generous for this reason.  Socially sensible, economic nonsense.

So why can’t most appreciating assets give us this important social value? People can’t see I’m doing well if I pay 0ff a credit card, or deposit money in a CD.  But we all need others, and ourselves, to see we’re doing well, unless we’re very very rich.  I bet this simple fact is what’s between us and dramatically greater economic security.

Something like Nike Fuel could show others and ourselves that we’re doing well financially, by linking something we wear to something that’s hidden in an account.  It would remind us of what we can do today to achieve a long-term abstract feeling goal.  It can turn something serious into a game.  As my college philosophy professor was keen of saying, “It can eff the ineffable.”