Get Live, Stay Live Was A Huge Success!

The first ever Get Live, Stay Live Health & Arts Showcase was a resounding success. Over 300 youth and their parents came down to the Bayview Opera House on Saturday, July 25th, to check out performances from DJ Truth, Bread Me Out Family, RoachGigz, Young Bari, San Quinn and many more local artists. Ten percent of the attendees were tested on-site, and 150 visited a clinic prior to the event to pick up an access card for free admission! Our host Marcus tore the house down with safer sex messages, while SFDPH’s YUTHE Team, BMagic, No More Funerals, 3rd Street Clinic, New Generations Health Clinic and other organizations helped hold it down.

Visit www.getlivestaylive.org frequently for pictures and updates. We are beyond privileged and proud to have hosted an event like this for youth in the Bayview while collaborating with our partner organizations. A huge thank you to everyone that made Get Live, Stay Live possible! We can’t wait for the next Get Live, Stay Live event slated for October 2009! Hope to see you there.

FINALLY! Technology-based Prevention Strategies Hit the Mainstream!

"'It's safe to say that some of the [current STD/HIV] prevention efforts are not working. New, innovative methods will be required to get through to this generation of young people, for whom text messaging and the Internet are integral parts of daily life,' says Dr. Yolanda Wimberly, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at the Morehouse School of Medicine and the medical director for the Center for Excellence in Sexual Health."

Oh, Yolanda, ISIS <3 U. According to the new "Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 2007" report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, STD transmission rates are on the rise – particularly among women and minorities, between 15 to 24 years old.

FINALLY! The mainstream media, doctors, health educators and even the government have discovered what we at ISIS have known for about seven years now: Technology, particularly internet-based and text messaging, is an incredibly effective way of making sexual health information easy and nearly free to access for everyone.

Our peer STD partner notification website, inSpot has been replicated in 10 states, 11 cities and is quickly growing. SexINFO, our sexual health text messaging program has been replicated in Washington D.C. as part of the RealTalk Campaign and is definitely the service to watch. Both of these services break down the barriers that prevent open, honest communication around sexual health and fill the information void.

Surely this article has piqued your interest in technology-based STD prevention methods, so you’ll definitely want to check out the Sex::Tech Conference Focus On Youth, where innovators in technology, past, present and future and sexual health badasses converge to show us all the goods they’ve been cooking up to facilitate dialogue and prevent disease transmission. The Sex::Tech Conference is the only place that you’ll be able to see many of these emerging sexual health innovations and talk to their makers. There might (definitely!) be some ideas or partnerships for you to take back to your organization and implement in the future!

Wow inSpot Wow!

I am declaring this week inSpot week in the ISIS office. And you know that inSpot has to up to something big to get this title so early in the week! First, on Monday Plos Medicine, a peer reviewed open access journal, published an article on inSpot. Click here to read it! Now, inSpot is getting some heavy attention from major media players.

Check out these links:
inSpot on ABC News
inSpot on MSNBC
inSpot on CNN Health

Announcing the new ISIS myspace page

Internet Sexuality Information Systems, Inc. (ISIS) is excited to announce the launch of our new MySpace page!




Definitely check out the site to hear and see the latest and greatest ways to practice safe sex and find answers to sexually related questions that you might not be able to ask any of your friends or family.



We showcase some of the winners of the Fresh Focus Sex Ed Video Contest as well as the winners of some of our latest contests and the messages are tight. There are photos from the 2008 Sex::Tech Conference held in San Francisco and the latest info on what ISIS is getting ready to launch in the coming months.



We hope you enjoy and visit often, tell your friends to log on as well.



See you soon!


Blessings,



AfroPeruvian Queen






























Blessings,







AfroPeruvian Queen

ISIS Animation

I thought it might be a nice change to do an ISIS process blog. We always have a lot of balls in the air around here. We're really lucky around here and get to work on amazing projects that tend to have creative and fun aspects to them. We are currently working with several partners on a research project that will live in Myspace. Basically, we are trying to harness and shape the power of web 2.0 represented by the communicative powers of Myspace to get people talking about sexual health and HIV. And the interesting kicker is that the research limb of this project will try to measure the effects.

For the project we are creating an animation that will be sort of a serial drama. So far the process of creating this has been a fun challenge for me. I started pretty green, with very little knowledge of the world of animation- don't get me wrong I love cartoons but I didn't know what we into developing them. We found an amazing company to work with Rudner Design Works and they are helping us put the pieces together. They are slowly pulling images out of my head and putting them on paper. I even got to write my first ever script! Check out the first images for the first installment of the series.

A Little Help From Our Friends

Dear Friends,

We need your support! We have entered our SexINFO project into the NetSquared Mashup Challenge and would love your vote. This could provide us some much-needed development support in growing the project.

Please take a second and vote for us at the NetSquared Mashup Challenge

Note: If you're not a TechSoup member, you'll need to register to vote. Thanks, it means the world to us.

Once logged in, click here for to vote for SexInfo then click "Vote" in upper right corner.


Thanks for your support.

- The ISIS, Inc. team

KOKH FOX Oklahoma gives inSpot a nod.

Something about inSpot.org being call the "disease website" is kinda funny. Thanks KOKH FOX Oklahoma for spreading the word.

Sex::Tech Mega Success!

ISIS staff is taking the rest of the week off to recoup after an amazing, surprising and wonderfully productive two days.

We want to extend our warmest thanks to all of our participants both in front of and behind the scenes.

We are working on finding the best ways to connect Sex::Tech participants virtually, as well as share thoughts and materials between us so we can continue to work together. We will be sending out follow-up information early next week.

Let's not lose this momentum! With new partnerships, new friends and a budding Sex::Tech community the possibilities for new media's influence on youth sexual health and sexual happiness are endless.

Fresh blogger face for Friday

ISIS has been changing whether you realize or not. Our new program manager, Allegra Madsen, will be guest blogging on Technically, it's About Sex! She's both cooler and nerdier than me and has blog ideas pouring out of her ears...I just can't hold her back any longer. Stay tuned for future sex/tech/health salads she'll concoct.



Happy Friday!