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ATX Aging & Innovation Summit

The ATX Aging & Innovation Summit sold out again, but I'd gotten my ticket in time. This year's focus was "Aging in Community", which aligned perfectly with my interest in innovation in housing, especially cohousing and cooperatives. Highlights for me:

Design Thinking — A team of IBM facilitators gave us a hands-on workshop, training us how to use IBM's Design Thinking process to research and brainstorm solutions to hard problems: ignorance of services, isolation from community, and generational segregation.

Tech Startups — Mary Anne Connolly of MACMedia ran us through a panel of CEOs describing their startups:

  • Iris Plans offers a free service (paid by insurance companies) to guide seniors and the chronically ill through their health directives, using video conference calling with an expert to facilitate the family discussion with adult children.
  • Clairvoyant Networks is harnessing the IoT to support caregivers of memory patients: combining wearables with other sensors communicating over locked down wireless service, caregivers can remotely evaluate conditions, track location, and be reached in a button press.
  • Theora Care and CareStarter couldn't make it, but Guide Change, part of the Capitol Factory incubator, crunches data to spot potential financial mismanagement and even fraud from relatives, problems most commonly affecting older widows.
  • Remedy, already established for urgent care house calls (with compact testing labs), is now branching out into video-based telemedicine that progresses to house calls only as needed. The primary focus is keeping Medicare patients out of the ER, but the model is growing for providing primary health care via organization-specific portals. Unlike other telemedicine approaches, they don't lose patients over "what if I need tests?" worries.

Google Accessibility — The closing keynote was a sweeping overview of accessibility technologies and challenges, given by Henri Fontana, who is Technical Program Manager of Accessibility at Google. A version of this talk will be given at SXSW Interactive next year. I came with a solid background in accessibility requirements for software products, but this session was far broader and focused helpfully on a fuller range of disabilities and specifically on the issues associated with aging. For example, the more subtle cognitive issues that worsen with age include lessening ability to sustain concentration and lowering tolerance for cognitive load (multi-tasking), leading to frustration (easily overwhelmed and defeated).

Given that aging users increasingly need the support of smart phone apps and online services but find themselves less and less able to manage technology, see screen details, mouse and tap accurately, and type (much less type on tiny screens, given peripheral neuropathy), Henri suggested that smart voice technology (both speaking commands and receiving information) promises the most elder-specific benefit.

I imagine the elderly being able to use a smart speaker (Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, etc.) for an increasing list of tasks:

  • "Call Mary!" or, just "911!"
  • "Do I have an appointment today? When do I have to leave?"
  • "Schedule my ride to the bridge club."
  • "Raise the thermostat a few degrees."
  • "Order more Orange Gatorade and toilet paper."
  • "RSVP yes for the carpool to church."
  • "Play back 60 Minutes." "Slideshow my photos."
  • "Do I have any new email from family?"

There would also be more and more "push" assistance automation:

  • "There is a new weather advisory. Rain will turn to sleet by 6:30."
  • "Uber has been ordered and will arrive in 7 minutes."
  • "Take your evening medications now."
  • "It is Elaine's birthday. Do you want to call her now?"
  • "Put out the recycling for pickup by noon."
  • "Printing out medical history and medication list for Dr. Natov."

This is a major take-away that I've been thinking about: Combining smart speakers with smart sensors (data collectors on power plugs, coffee makers, motion detectors, electronic door locks, lighting, GPS wearables, and more), all manner of IoT data collection and analysis will make it possible to evaluate, track, diagnose, surface issues, and extend the independence of elders while supporting their family and caregivers.

Next year will be AustinUP's third technology summit, in doubtless a still larger venue, given that they sell out. I hope to attend and find out what Austin technology startups are doing in this space!

November 30, 2018 in Cohousing, Web/Tech | | Comments (0)

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So, why cohousing?

Now that I'm a member of a cohousing community in development (Ralston Creek Cohousing), folks are asking how I got into it. Truth is, I've been intrigued with the concept of cohousing long before I ever heard the term. Here's where my ideas came from, best I can remember:

  • As a tween, I watched The Waltons and noodled about how smart and supportive their multi-generational common house was; the older folks were able to contribute and also have the support they needed, the parents had many helping hands, and the children had the security of more adults to rely on. Living in an extended family seemed far more balanced than the nuclear family models all around me, which tended to result in too much responsibility being carried by the mother.
  • As a teenager, I read In This House of Brede (see Diana Rigg's great performance), and I was deeply moved by Phillipa's letting go of her glamorous professional life and dreamy apartment in order to join the deep sisterhood of a cloistered Benedictine community. I seriously considered becoming a Franciscan sister.
  • I commuted far to college and was socially isolated, but I stayed in graduate housing at UT Austin for my master's degree. Living with other graduate students from all over the country and the world, I learned how suite-style living with shared common spaces made for easy and ample companionship, and the shared meals in the dining hall were a wonderful way to enjoy that diversity of people. I was aware that it worked so well because we were all graduate students, so we shared a lot of traits (such as introversion), values, and interests. We were a tribe.
  • When I joined my first software startup company, several of the founders shared a large house, and several of the single programmers lived there as well. I envied the easy, fun lifestyle they shared. And the longer I worked in software shops, the more I realized that I enjoyed them because of the type of people who tended to work there, much like graduate school, and wouldn't it be nice to extend that environment outside of work hours? to live with your tribe?
  • I reconnected with an old coworker who, depressed, had quit his job and traveled broadly. Seeing him years later, I found him greatly transformed, and I learned that he had been living communally in the local Zen center for over a year. I was amazed at the benefits he'd gotten from Buddhism and from living intentionally. I wanted what he had.

About that time, cohousing surfaced. An email search reveals that I first mentioned "cohousing" eight years ago, hoping to interest my folks: "I found out about cohousing.org from a brilliant scientist whose blog I admire: http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2010/05/odds-of-cooking-grandkids.html". Now I knew what to look for, but it was several years before my own path got serious. Then life happened: I divorced and empty-nested in the same year, so I stepped up my search for new intentional ways to live.

I started seeing and sharing articles about cohousing in Scandinavia, and I signed up for newsletters for cohousing.org and ic.org (Fellowship for Intentional Community). It was there that I learned about a Cohousing Association regional conference being held in Boulder, Colorado. Wanting the excuse to visit family in Colorado and wanting to tour and test my notions against actual cohousing communities, I splurged and attended the conference. Definitely worth it!

While in Colorado, I stayed at my brother's brand new house in a net-zero (carbon-free) development just south of Boulder, called the Geos Neighborhood. I learned that Geos had space allotted for a future condo-style cohousing unit, called The Gatehouse, just down the street from him! The community is still in the forming stage, so I joined to get in before all of the apartments were spoken for.

At the same time, I joined every cohousing and co-op group that I could find here in Austin. Sadly, those who have been working in this area for years tell me that Austin is actually one of the hardest cities in which to develop cohousing, due to the nature of its zoning codes. Just as disappointing, the CodeNEXT initiative that would have addressed this has just been torpedoed. However, there are multiple groups that are working on housing innovation, and I'm eagerly attending and supporting all that I can:

I'm very excited about the growing energy around making cohousing work in the United States, for more than just well-heeled retirees (although they deserve credit for driving this forward, as they look for alternatives to the sad senior housing experiences of their parents). I hope to contribute what I can to its success, as well as enjoy the experience of it! Anyone else?

 

November 28, 2018 in Cohousing, Homestead | | Comments (0)

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