scary cool

I started a new job this past September in the Underwriting Department of one of our nation's major insurance companies.  It's a new experience for me to be working for a larger company, but I'm settling into the "cuberhood", and striving to excel in my new position.

My company is pretty proactive with various health initiatives throughout the year.  Whatever they are doing must be working.  My health insurance benefits commenced immediately, so I began paying my contribution toward the premium in September.  October was our open enrollment period, so I had to re-select my coverage options, even though I had just made the selections a month before.  Guess what... the premium decreased!  Decreased!  Yes, that's right, it got cheaper!  What the heck...

So, proactive health initiatives look pretty good to me... sign me up!

One of the initiatives is Destination: You, in partnership with GobalFit.  It involves a step tracker that attaches to your shoelaces and records the date, time and number of your steps throughout the day. For incentives to get out and move, my company has established goals, contests and prizes centered around the step tracking program.  Since walking and hiking are among my favorite activities, this is right up my alley!  I signed up and my tracker was delivered to my cubicle last week.

It's a pretty cool setup.  There is a data access point at the entrance of my building.  Every time I walk past this access point, wearing my tracker, the data stored in the tracker is automatically transmitted and downloaded to my account on the GlobalFit website.  I can log on at any time and see my activity and compare it against the average of the company participants.  It's all automated... all I need to do is walk.

Cool... but, scary at the same time!  I find myself wondering how else this technology could be used?  Am I the only one that thinks this way?  With all the technology that we carry around these days, what information about us does it contain, and who could potentially download our information "automatically"?

I'm pretty sure my step tracker is harmless fun... and I am having fun with it.  The main company goal is 2,000,000 steps from July 11, 2011 to July 11, 2012.  Since I was hired in September and got my tracker in January, I'm just a little behind... OK, I'm half a year behind.  So, my personal challenge is to see how close I can get to the goal in just half the time. (I DO like to walk!)