Years ago, at the first KaiNexus User Conference, I had a conversation with one of our customers (shout out to the awesome Chris Luckett and Kettering Health Network!) that really stuck with me. He spent a half hour explaining to me the multitude of ways in which KaiNexus would help families improve, a use-case that had never occurred to any of us before.

Like so many of the conversations we’ve had with our customers, this ultimately resulted in some new developments to KaiNexus. After several months of development and design work, it’s with great pride that I announce that we’re launching KaiNexus Kiss: The Relationship Add-On.

Ok, so let’s dive right into KaiNexus Kiss to see how you can start, spread, and sustain improvements in your relationship:

Calendar

Have you ever forgotten your anniversary - or your mother’s birthday - only to find out the morning of and have to buy an “As Seen on TV” gift from Walgreens on your way home from work to save face?

KaiNexus Kiss spares you that awkwardness. Load important dates into the calendar to remind yourself with plenty of time to get the requisite gift. Bonus points if you assign a task to someone else to take care of it for you (Pro Tip: Make this a private improvement so you don’t get caught).

File Sharing

I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten suckered into cooking dinner because my partner claims he doesn’t have the recipe. By keeping important information like recipes in KaiNexus, we both have access to them all the time.

Now that I think about it, I often have to take the lead on things I don’t want to because I have the documentation… scheduling vet and pediatrician appointments, contacting babysitters, scheduling home maintenance… I can’t wait to get all of this stuff in KaiNexus so that we can flip a coin to delegate like normal people.

Avoid Confrontation & Misunderstandings

Human communication is 7% spoken language, 38% tone of voice, and 55% body language, according to Dr. Albert Mehrabian. If you’re anything like me, this breakdown gets you in trouble on the regular.

For example, when I say “Stop leaving the door unlocked,” what I mean is:

But what my partner hears is:

Now that we have KaiNexus Kiss, I can just submit in opportunity for improvement explaining why it matters to me that he leaves the door unlocked all day. I can choose my words more carefully since I’m writing them down, and there’s no room to misinterpret my attitude! He can acknowledge my comment with a thumbs up, right within the module, so we don’t get stuck in a pointless debate. Look at that improved communication!

Identify Bottlenecks

How often are you, your spouse, and your children getting into arguments over whose turn it is to do specific chores, whose fault it is that you’re always running late, and why your house is such a wreck?

KaiNexus makes it easy to identify the causes of inefficiencies and failures like these with an easily configured, instantly readable bottleneck board.

You can log in from any device and instantly see that Little Johnny is consistently the bottleneck preventing you from getting to school on time, or that your partner’s inability to put her things away is causing everyone to have to spend more time cleaning on the weekend.

That’s at least 4 arguments per week that you’ve avoided. You're welcome.

Charting Progress

Ok, let’s get into a personal example here. At my house, we have an English bulldog. If you have one of those, you know that everyone who sees them on the street thinks they’re adorable and everyone who knows one personally thinks they’re repulsive.

Ok, maybe that last part is just me… in any case.

Cletis, our bulldog, is notorious for relieving himself in the house. Before KaiNexus Kiss, we’d have big fights over how often it was happening, what was causing it, and how to prevent it.

Since introducing KaiNexus Kiss to our household, we now have a family project to reduce the amount of dog urine on the floor. We’ve submitted a variety of OIs around this topic, ranging from getting him checked for an incontinence problem, medicating him for anxiety, and letting him outside more frequently.

We then tracked incidents in a chart, and found that by simply picking up novel object from the floor (boxes, bulk paper towels, etc), we can get his accidents down to a mere 2x/mo. That’s progress, right? (RIGHT?!)

Badges

Remember how good it felt when you were a kid and your teacher gave you back your homework with a big sticker that said “Great Job!” on it? I miss that. Sure, it was a small token of recognition, but as adults, we really don’t get encouragement like that from anyone. Parenthood, especially, I’ve found particularly lacking in recognition and gratitude.

Enter, KaiNexus Kiss.

In this module, we have a few different packs of badges that you can order for $0.99! My favorite is the parent pack. In it, we have badges you can award your partner (or yourself!) with when you complete parenting milestones such as flying cross-country with a toddler without losing it (by “it,” I mean both your mind AND the kid), mastering the art of cleaning poop-splosions, and learning to communicate with your teenage son.

Escalate Improvements

This one is going to be somewhat controversial, because it involves in-laws. So, bear with me here.

Sometimes, there are big conflicts in a relationship that seem to be unresolvable. You’ve tried charting progress to no avail, badges aren’t incentivising change, and your partner appears to be using filters to block your feedback on the topic. When you’re running out of options, it might be time to escalate the OI to your partner’s parents. What quicker way to get a change than to get his mom on the case?

Pro Tip: When escalating isn’t working, sometimes it’s best just to use the transfer feature.

Sign Up

This module is available to all KaiNexus users at the discounted rate of $9.99/mo, which is a steal, in my opinion, when you consider that the average couple’s counselor charges $75-150/hr, and a divorce lawyer charges at least twice that.