Tag: Big Blue Test

Blue Monday!

As part of company-wide events scheduled for World Diabetes Day, my coworkers and friends were encouraged to wear light blue clothing to work and take a team photo to help mark the official “Go Blue” day.

As part of company-wide events scheduled for World Diabetes Day, my coworkers and friends were encouraged to wear light blue clothing to work and take a team photo to help mark the official “Go Blue” day. Each team that submits a photo will have a chance to win a health-themed group lunch. The winning photo will be published on the company intranet.1

Some of my colleagues work remotely and are only in the office a few times a week so I felt honoured that my friend Chris took the effort to drive the almost two hours from his home, just for the group photo. As you can see, I used the opportunity to raise awareness of the Big Blue Test.

My friend Pamela Howell sent me an email reminding me that New Order has a song called, Blue Monday which reminded me of course of the Erasure song, Blue Savannah.

At 1 PM today, my employer hosted a World Diabetes Day "Lunch & Learn" which was broadcast live on our internal streaming video system. Speakers included John Tsai, Vice President and Head of U.S. Pharmaceuticals Medical and Patricia Doykos, Direct of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation.

  1. Disclaimer: This is my blog. These words are mine. Not my employers. ↩

Blue is my favorite color

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In the United States, November is [National Diabetes Month](http://ndep.nih.gov/partners-community-organization/national-diabetes-month/) and November 14th is [World Diabetes Day](http://www.idf.org/worlddiabetesday/). To kick off what I hope will be a fortnight of blog posts about diabetes awareness I thought I would mention the work of the Diabetes Hand Foundation (dhf) and their [Big Blue Test](http://www.bigbluetest.org/).

The dhf is a non-profit organization founded by Manuel Hernandez. That's the same "Manny" that created TuDiabetes.com, a social network for people affected by diabetes. The Big Blue Test is an annual event designed to raise awareness around diabetes. The Big Blue Test kicks off the month with a video that encourages viewers to take part in the largest ever group diabetes glucose test on the planet.

The campaign reinforces the importance of exercise in managing diabetes. People with diabetes are encouraged to do the Big Blue Test any day between November 1 and November 14 at midnight Pacific Time, by testing their blood sugar, getting active, testing again, and sharing the results online at bigbluetest.org.

Last year, in spirit and support of the Big Blue Test, I made my own [videos](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2661EBD67B8DDBD5). I look like a goofball in those videos.

Anyway, today I will kick off my participation in the Big Blue Test. Sometime today, I will test my blood glucose, do some physical activity for 14 minutes, retest, and then [post my results to the Big Blue Test website](http://www.bigbluetest.org/#do_from_head).