In a way this skill is an experiment. In this time, when negative feelings and animosity seem to be all around us, it is easy to lose sight of the good in people and appreciate the kind acts that they do. If you truly use this skill, you will force yourself to pay more attention to those around you and the kindnesses they show. You will also start to see how you are spreading kindness in your world. Hopefully, you will identify opportunities where you, too, can say more kind words and perform more kind deeds for others.
With Kindness Counts, you can track words or deeds of kindness, with you as the doer, recipient or observer. To make it interesting, each user’s input will be associated with the state where their Echo device is located. You’ll be able to find out which state has the most acts of kindness logged, as well as, hear the kindnesses you’ve logged since you first started using the skill.
After enabling it, you will be asked to give permissions for the skill to access the Device Address for your Echo device and Location Services so that the state where it is located can automatically be logged with each kindness you log. You will need to grant those Permissions for the skill to work properly,
Here are some of the things you can do with Kindness Counts along with the phrases to use for each: • To log a kindness - Say, Alexa, log a kindness and you will be asked questions to categorize whether the kindness was words spoken or actions performed, whether you were the doer, recipient or witness of the kindness and the date it occurred. • To hear a list of the kindnesses you’ve logged – Say, Alexa, tell me my kindness log. • To hear the leading states (up to the top 5) for kindnesses logged so far in the current quarter - Say, Alexa, what states are leading currently? • To hear the top states for previous quarters – Say, Alexa, tell me the leading states for the second quarter of 2019, for example. • To hear the current rank of a specific state, such as, Virginia – Say, Alexa, where does Virginia rank?
In calculating the state leaders and the state ranks, I adjusted the raw counts of kindnesses of the states based upon data from the U.S. Census Bureau (See Citation below). Otherwise the states with the larger populations would have an unfair advantage.
Clearly, I don’t know how popular this skill will be or whether, once enabled, how consistently it will be used. It is my attempt to make this world a little brighter and help us all appreciate those around us more.
Here's a YouTube demo of Kindness Counts - https://youtu.be/c1ZpgxyLaCs
Citation: Estimates of the Total Resident Population and Resident Population Age 18 Years and Older for the United States, States, and Puerto Rico: July 1, 2018 (SCPRC-EST2018-18+POP-RES) Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division Release Date: December 2018, Note Revised May 2019
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