Tag Archives: ageingbetter

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Techy lunch in the City shows community spirit of corporate lawyers

I’m a big admirer of the the techy tea party movement pioneered by Sharon Tynan for Age UK London and then developed nationally by EE and Age UK. There’s now a National Techy Tea Party Day – or you can organise your own, as I reported last year from Primrose Hill. My friend John Popham has extended the idea to a techy Christmas party.

The original format is simple – companies invite older people to their premises, rather than send staff volunteers out to do good things in the community. Or hopefully both.

Then there’s tea, cakes and some face-to-face – or shoulder-to-shoulder – learning about technology. These days that’s as likely to be smartphones and tablets as laptops, with the option to bring your own or use devices provide by the organisations.

Learning at lunch

I think that the informal, conversational approach of techy tea parties, where people decide what they want to learn about, is an important complement to more formal training courses – and useful to people who already have some tech experience and want to explore further. If you bring your own device, then what works at the tea party works at home too. Not always the case with courses. Social media surgeries are another great model.

So when I spotted two local events in the City of London Healthwatch newsletter I asked Sharon if I could come along … provided I promised to blog a piece or otherwise help out.

I’ve lived in the City for 15 years – after various moves around the Midlands, Surrey, Reading, west London and Brighton – and it’s my favourite. There’s more than 7000 residents among the 300,000 workers, and lots to do, not least at the Barbican Arts Centre which is cheaper and better than many West End venues. Cheapside is now a lively High Street, and more pleasant than most.

Although bankers, lawyers and residents co-exist fairly happily we don’t usually get invited to lunch … so I was particularly tempted by the offer of a Techy Lunch at global law firm K&L Gates. They have offices in One New Change, the big shopping and restaurant complex across the road from St Pauls.

Link to video

Sharon had introduced me to Alison Westlake, who organised the event for the City’s Age Concern . In the video that I shot at the lunch, Alison describes how useful the events are for residents, and Fez Abbas, from K&L Gates, puts the event into the context of the company’s wider commitment to service in the community, explained here.

The sandwiches and cakes were excellent, K&L Gates staff exceptionally helpful, and residents contributed their own insights about the online world.

Conversations at the event, about the difficulty of finding information even when fairly confident online, gave me an idea for some possible follow through. While the City of London Corporation has good general listing of services, attractions and events, they can’t cover the whole range of smaller groups and informal activities in and around the City.

In addition, there’s scope for bodies serving older people – and anyone else – to improve their information and communication. Age UK London is running a Tell Me campaign on this.

I’ve been developing ideas with colleagues for a Maps, Apps and Storytelling initiative to provide people with better pathways to their interests, develop stronger networks in a community, tell stories, and help develop conversations online and off. One aim would be to support initiatives to address loneliness and social isolation … which can be an issue even at the heart of the City.

I’ve had some great discussions recently about developing a project in East London, using a mix of radio, other technology and events, and possibly linking up with the City for support.

I’m now thinking that I should make a start nearer to home, and see whether a group of tech-savvy City residents – and maybe corporate volunteers – would explore how best to use tech with other methods to help connect people with local opportunities, services and sociability.

I don’t think we necessarily need to develop a substantial new local web site or forum. A recent report published by NESTA and Cardiff University’s Centre for Community Journalism shows how difficult it is for the first generation of hyperlocal community sites to sustain their activity – not least because there are now so many source of information, together with DIY personal publishing via Facebook and Twitter. It’s as difficult to evolve hyperlocal digital business models as it is to keep local papers going.

The big challenge, in my mind, is how to make the most of existing local communications and resources, with an emphasis on making sense for different interests, connecting conversations, and helping people contribute. Adopt the principles of Asset Based Community Development in the digital world … join up rather than start up. I’ll see if I can gather any support for the idea and report back. If we can’t invent something appropriate both for the City and elsewhere, combining resident and business skills, where can we?

I’ll also be looking at what’s happening elsewhere. London can be complacent.

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Update on Living Well in the Digital Age 2

Over the past few months I’ve been blogging at mediablends.com about my exploration, with Drew Mackie, into Living Well in the Digital Age, and been rather remiss in failing to provide an update since April – so here goes.

The most interesting recent development has been that the Centre for Ageing Better – initially slow to recognise the importance of digital technology – has now caught up, with the welcome announcement of a Digital Initiative and recruitment of a digital manager. More here

In addition, the Big Lottery Fund, which supports the Centre with a £50 million endowment, is promising to explore how digital technology could play a bigger part in the community projects that it supports. More here.

BIG has also announced £2 million of funding for a consortium to train and support hundreds of digital champions. The consortium – One Digital – is promising cooperation with others in the field. More here

We ran a workshop in July to explore how best to take our ideas forward – report here – and then things rather died during the holidays. My next step is to check in with the new digital manager at the Centre for Ageing Better, when appointed next month, and see if we can link the exploration to the Centre’s digital initiative.

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Updating exploration into Living Well in the Digital Age

Update summary: Over the past month we’ve run a workshop with the Department for Communities and Local Government; developed some ideas on why digital innovation is important on various fronts; engaged with the new Centre for Ageing Better; and authored a paper on networks and network mapping. In addition I’ve taken a few steps to re-organise content, including moving blogging about Living Well across to mediablends.com and setting up a wiki.

Blog posts from mediablends.com

Here’s summaries of recent posts on mediablends.com archived on a new wiki.

Next steps in our Living Well exploration Briefing for workshop held with the Digital Inclusion Group and Department for Communities and Local Government, outlining our ideas for Living Labs March 27 2015

Living Well workshop report Report on the workshop held with the Digital Inclusion Group and Department for Communities and Local Government March 27 2015

Do we need Operating Systems for Living Well in the Digital Age – or a more human worldview? The new Open Policy Making toolkit from Cabinet Office helps me join up the idea of a new operating model for government with an operating system for local labs for Living Well in the Digital Age. Together they could support the emerging Grey Cells model for digital service development and citizen online engagement. However, doubts emerge about the analogy. 04/04/2015

Practical ideas for making sense of technology in Care, Living Well and #AgeingBetter Local councils and partnerships will this year be faced with the growing challenge of deciding what technology solutions to develop and promote for care, health and wellbeing in their community. We’ve put together some ideas on how to approach those issues, from our exploration into Living Well in the Digital Age. The paper is here.

Why #AgeingBetter funders and policy makers should embrace digital technology – some resources Digital technology is increasingly important for Living Well in the Digital Age. Here’s suggestions on why funders and policy makers should review existing resources. 21/04/2015

Twitter helps @BetterAgeing Centre engage with potential for digital innovation in #AgeingBetter The Centre for Ageing Better has responded positively to a Twitter discussion about the lack of reference to digital technology in its strategy. Sending a blog post in draft helped. 22/04/2015

How do we shift from yet more research and reports to innovation in #AgeingBetter? Ideas please If we believe yet more old-style research and reports isn’t the way to promote greater innovation for living well in the digital age, how can we help organisations like the Centre for Ageing Better make the change? Ideas please 23/04/2015.

Networks and network mapping

Drew Mackie has authored a really comprehensive paper on networks and network mapping

Reorganising content

Here’s how I’m re-organising content following earlier blogging on this site, and use of  a Google site.

  • First, blogging is now over at mediablends.com, on a Withknown site. The advantage of that is the site allows you to automatically post the title and a link to Twitter and other social media. Any responding tweets then curate under the post, which makes it easy to track conversations. It also uses webhooks to post to the team space we have on Slack.com.
  • Second, my son Dan set up a Git-powered wiki on mediablends.org.uk where I’m gathering content from earlier sites, archiving the blog posts, and adding longer papers with Drew Mackie.
  • Third, I’ve followed Dan’s advice in using Markdown both on the blog and wiki: that’s basically text files with simple markup like # • [] () that an editor turns into html. It’s quick to write and easy to transfer between sites.

I’ll update occasionally here, but do please take a look at mediablends.com and content on the wiki.

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Switching focus from Ageing Better to Living Well with tech: it’s all personal

The Ageing Better exploration into how innovations, enabled by digital technology, can help support personal well-being, has now reached the point where we can drawn some conclusions and plan the next stage.

As you’ll read in the summary below, the exploration, which I’ve been leading with Drew Mackie, was triggered by the Big Lottery Fund’s £82 million  Ageing Better programme, and particularly the initial lack of ways to exchange experience and introduce digital innovation. We’ve been working with the Digital Inclusion Group of Age Action Alliance. (DIG).

As I reported the other day, BIG has now opened its online community for testing, and there is a space for Ageing Better. We should hear more about local plans – and innovative developments – in a couple of months when the partnerships know how far their business plans have been approved, and receive confirmation of funding.

Meanwhile the main conclusion in our report is that we should switch our focus from programmes, to exploring in more detail what digital technology means to the individual – in different situations, with different interests, needs, capabilities and support. The scope for digital healthcare is likely to be particularly important, as Tony Watts has highlighted.

We’ll be playing through what that means in a workshop next month with DIG, and I’ll be posting more here about the approach we’ll be taking, based on the games and simulations reported here.

Summary from our interim report

The exploration into how to use technology for Ageing Better started in the autumn of 2014 with the idea that it should be possible to map organisations and resources in the field to enable more sharing of experience, reduce constant re-invention, and promote cooperation. The Big Lottery Fund hadn‘t done that centrally in 2014 for their five-year £82 million Ageing Better programme – could we demonstrate an alternative bottom-up approach, building on past work in the field?

This report summarises the journey that is documented more fully on our site – and comes to the conclusion that we should switch our focus from technology in Ageing Better, at a policy and programme level, to technology for Living Well as individuals, together with what is needed to support that in local communities and centrally. The challenge is that every individual has different interests and preferences – so one size of support doesn’t fit all.

Over the four months from September 2014 we moved beyond the basic idea of mapping of resources and organisations to:

The rationale was that we needed to know what we were looking for in mapping, before starting a big trawl. It‘s been a voluntary effort so far, and we needed to focus. We decided that if we could generate ideas on tech for Ageing Better, and cluster those, we could then look at which organisations might share experience and perhaps work together.

We were able to test some of our emerging ideas against a wide-ranging discussion at a symposium on technology and innovation, organised by the South East Forum on Ageing. Our blog post linking our exploration to the SEEFA discussion was re-published by Age Action Alliance.

What emerged from that – and our other explorations – was that the idea of promoting cooperation among organisations in the field, to achieve greater benefits and innovation, was somewhat naive. As other commentators confirmed, co-operation is difficult because organisations are competing with each other for funding; innovation is difficult because few organisations actually use social technology. The major challenge is culture. We could map ideas, organisations, and resources – but the likelihood of making any difference is low.

At this stage – in February 2015 – we are considering a change of focus towards the individual. It seems likely that the greatest progress will be made by exploring how older people – and those who help – can choose and use technology for personal well-being.

Tony Watts, chair of the South West Forum for Ageing, has set out how to make progress by linking digital health and digital inclusion. Roz Davies provides a model of citizen-centred care and digital health provision. The Grey Cells initiative from the Department for Communities and Local Government provides a framework for digital engagement that could help connect the individual and programmatic models.

So at this stage we are considering reframing the exploration towards Living Well with Technology – what can be done to enable and support the individual. Although our focus is on older people, the lessons will be more widely applicable.

Mapping, connecting, convening is needed at the programme level, but we don’t have the resources to do that, or any leverage to achieve much change. We do, however, suggest some modest ways forward.

Conclusions from the exploration so far

I think we can conclude:

  • There‘s lots of opportunities for innovation and use of tech for ageing better – but it is difficult to move forward on a broad front because of cultural and other barriers in organisations in the ageing and inclusion industries. There‘s great work being done – but also much re-inventing of the wheel. Competition for funding inhibits cooperation. Lack of familiarity with technologies limits development taking account of the consumer adoption of mobile tech. As this blog post summarised, the energy is around people apps and connectors – not organisations.
  • We need a shift of metaphor and framework from digital divide. Instead of thinking how to get people to learn about computers, we need to focus on how to help people adopt just enough tech for their needs, and how to support that. The models needed are personal and social ecologies.
  • We now need to experiment at several different levels: the individual, the surrounding social network and support system, and in programmes.

Overall, the issue is Living Well with Technology – rather than Bridging the Digital Divide.

Here are several ideas for moving forward:

  • Use the workshop games and simulations that we have been developing for our Living Lab to help people play through the options at different levels, and then turn the games into kits.
  • Test the ideas at a neighbourhood level
  • Explore the scope for work with partnerships in the Ageing Better programme, or with towns and cities aiming to create Age Friendly places.

Do get in touch if you would like to know more – david@socialreporter.com

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Switching focus from Ageing Better to Living Well with tech: it's all personal

The Ageing Better exploration into how innovations, enabled by digital technology, can help support personal well-being, has now reached the point where we can drawn some conclusions and plan the next stage.

As you’ll read in the summary below, the exploration, which I’ve been leading with Drew Mackie, was triggered by the Big Lottery Fund’s £82 million  Ageing Better programme, and particularly the initial lack of ways to exchange experience and introduce digital innovation. We’ve been working with the Digital Inclusion Group of Age Action Alliance. (DIG).
As I reported the other day, BIG has now opened its online community for testing, and there is a space for Ageing Better. We should hear more about local plans – and innovative developments – in a couple of months when the partnerships know how far their business plans have been approved, and receive confirmation of funding.
Meanwhile the main conclusion in our report is that we should switch our focus from programmes, to exploring in more detail what digital technology means to the individual – in different situations, with different interests, needs, capabilities and support. The scope for digital healthcare is likely to be particularly important, as Tony Watts has highlighted.
We’ll be playing through what that means in a workshop next month with DIG, and I’ll be posting more here about the approach we’ll be taking, based on the games and simulations reported here.
Summary from our interim report
The exploration into how to use technology for Ageing Better started in the autumn of 2014 with the idea that it should be possible to map organisations and resources in the field to enable more sharing of experience, reduce constant re-invention, and promote cooperation. The Big Lottery Fund hadn‘t done that centrally in 2014 for their five-year £82 million Ageing Better programme – could we demonstrate an alternative bottom-up approach, building on past work in the field?
This report summarises the journey that is documented more fully on our site – and comes to the conclusion that we should switch our focus from technology in Ageing Better, at a policy and programme level, to technology for Living Well as individuals, together with what is needed to support that in local communities and centrally. The challenge is that every individual has different interests and preferences – so one size of support doesn’t fit all.
Over the four months from September 2014 we moved beyond the basic idea of mapping of resources and organisations to:

The rationale was that we needed to know what we were looking for in mapping, before starting a big trawl. It‘s been a voluntary effort so far, and we needed to focus. We decided that if we could generate ideas on tech for Ageing Better, and cluster those, we could then look at which organisations might share experience and perhaps work together.
We were able to test some of our emerging ideas against a wide-ranging discussion at a symposium on technology and innovation, organised by the South East Forum on Ageing. Our blog post linking our exploration to the SEEFA discussion was re-published by Age Action Alliance.
What emerged from that – and our other explorations – was that the idea of promoting cooperation among organisations in the field, to achieve greater benefits and innovation, was somewhat naive. As other commentators confirmed, co-operation is difficult because organisations are competing with each other for funding; innovation is difficult because few organisations actually use social technology. The major challenge is culture. We could map ideas, organisations, and resources – but the likelihood of making any difference is low.
At this stage – in February 2015 – we are considering a change of focus towards the individual. It seems likely that the greatest progress will be made by exploring how older people – and those who help – can choose and use technology for personal well-being.
Tony Watts, chair of the South West Forum for Ageing, has set out how to make progress by linking digital health and digital inclusion. Roz Davies provides a model of citizen-centred care and digital health provision. The Grey Cells initiative from the Department for Communities and Local Government provides a framework for digital engagement that could help connect the individual and programmatic models.
So at this stage we are considering reframing the exploration towards Living Well with Technology – what can be done to enable and support the individual. Although our focus is on older people, the lessons will be more widely applicable.
Mapping, connecting, convening is needed at the programme level, but we don’t have the resources to do that, or any leverage to achieve much change. We do, however, suggest some modest ways forward.
Conclusions from the exploration so far
I think we can conclude:

  • There‘s lots of opportunities for innovation and use of tech for ageing better – but it is difficult to move forward on a broad front because of cultural and other barriers in organisations in the ageing and inclusion industries. There‘s great work being done – but also much re-inventing of the wheel. Competition for funding inhibits cooperation. Lack of familiarity with technologies limits development taking account of the consumer adoption of mobile tech. As this blog post summarised, the energy is around people apps and connectors – not organisations.
  • We need a shift of metaphor and framework from digital divide. Instead of thinking how to get people to learn about computers, we need to focus on how to help people adopt just enough tech for their needs, and how to support that. The models needed are personal and social ecologies.
  • We now need to experiment at several different levels: the individual, the surrounding social network and support system, and in programmes.

Overall, the issue is Living Well with Technology – rather than Bridging the Digital Divide.
Here are several ideas for moving forward:

  • Use the workshop games and simulations that we have been developing for our Living Lab to help people play through the options at different levels, and then turn the games into kits.
  • Test the ideas at a neighbourhood level
  • Explore the scope for work with partnerships in the Ageing Better programme, or with towns and cities aiming to create Age Friendly places.

Do get in touch if you would like to know more – david@socialreporter.com

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Big Lottery Fund soft launches online community – and advertises an interesting job

The Big Lottery Fund has opened up an online community platform that’s been under development for some months, judging by earliest message in some of the forums, and news trailed here. The Welcome says:

You’ll be able to network with other people, learn about previous projects, get expert advice and share your knowledge.

There are online spaces for countries, programmes, projects and groups. I’ve been particularly interested – as discussed here – in a platform for knowledge exchange on BIG’s Ageing Better programme, and that’s now available here.

I haven’t spotted any formal announcement of the online community , although BIG is advertising the post of Digital Community Manager. I gather that’s a replacement, rather than new job, and the site is currently being used for some live testing.

I’m interested in the development strategy, because the usual wisdom – see Feverbee’s excellent resource – is that this should be a carefully managed process from the outset.

I hope there may be a blog post explaining the process, and inviting enthusiasts to give feedback and ideas. I think one of the challenges/opportunities will be to engage people who currently use the various BIG twitter accounts and tag streams, and connect with BIG blogging, which tells some great stories. There is some blogging here.

My hunch is that success will also depend on internal engagement, and whether BIG staff are able/encouraged to join in. That would make it an attractive way to get guidance on funding, and tap into the enormous knowledge resources that BIG holds about projects. I found some encouraging posts from funding managers.

Either way Digital Community Manager is going to be an interesting job.

I’ll hold off further comment until I’ve had a look around, and take the positive view that it is really good news BIG has created the space, and is hopefully open to input on how it develops. Hope to see others in there too.

Update: just spotted this strap line “Welcome to our online community – Test phase! Help us improve by signing up and feeding back!”

At last we have a shared framework for deep thinking about digital engagement

Any party or coalition that comes to power after the May election will have have to re-address the two main aspects of the government-social digital landscape.

One the one hand they’ll need to continue to use tech in transforming and improving services (and saving money), driven from the top. On the other they’ll have to continue to support ways to help more people get online to use the services, as well shopping, working, learning, socialising and doing all the other good stuff the Internet enables.

The landscape can be pretty confusing, with score of different programmes, agencies and organisations in the innovation, transformation and digital inclusion businesses.

Fortunately a small group in the Department of Communities and Local Government, led by William Barker, have done a great job of surveying and mapping, and come up with a draft blueprint that begins to show who’s who, who is doing what, and how they relate. Click to enlarge, or see the original here.

Grey Cells model

On the left side of the diagram is stuff that government has to get right, including access, affordability, usability, and standards – and on the right are the activities government wishes to support … and hopes other people will get right. These include health and well-being, community participation, quality of life, supporting learning, and economic and working choices.

Each of the “Grey Cells” has links to back up documents, and William explains on the Public Service Transformation Network blog how they developed the framework.

As I wrote earlier, the Grey Cells work evolved from an initial focus on digital connectivity for older people, and you’ll find in my post links to a really impressive database of local case studies and good practice, a resource pack, as well as results from a number of events. It’s a model of how other cells could be filled out from the policy-makers perspective.

I think that the Grey Cells blueprint could provide us with a much-needed framework to connect policy and programmes with the reality of what’s happening on the ground – whether through local programmes, or people’s choices as consumers to acquire a new phone, tablet or (less and less) a computer.

I’ll post more about different aspects of the framework. Among the major challenges, as I see them, are:

  • How to populate the right side of the blueprint with day-to-day stories, conversation and connections that complement the official reports and programmes. Unless everyone involved can talk about the issues and opportunities, little will change. There are some stories  and practical ideas there already, and I hope to help, with others, through the Ageing Better exploration. Earlier posts here.
  • How to enable people in public services to connect and collaborate online with anyone else. Civil servants can meet face to face, some can blog and maybe tweet, but many sites are blocked to their desktops and using anything as simple as Google docs or Quip.com seems extremely difficult. They are digitally excluded.
  • How to make progress when many of the organisations don’t understand or use current digital tools – as John Popham says here – and there are additional cultural challenges.
  • And most importantly, how to enable personalised engagement. None of this works unless people, individually, decide to start to use digital tools and services, and connect with others.  Maybe a minimum personal technology assessment kit would help.

The good news is that we now have a framework within which to address the challenges, and come up with some ideas for moving forward. I just hope no politician decides to “weaponise” the digital divide in election campaigns. It’s more complicated than that, as Grey Cells shows us.

Update post on Grey Cells from William Barker at Open Policy Making

 

 

 

 

 

SEEFA symposium identifies challenges to innovation in Ageing Better – it’s culture as much as tech

Summary: a symposium on innovation, technology and later life provides confirmation that many of the challenges to making use of tech for ageing better are organisational and cultural as well as technical. We have plenty of tech – the issues are how to personalise and support use appropriate to people’s needs and situation. But ageing organisations can’t do that if they aren’t using social tech themselves.

I found the SEEFA symposium last week on ‘Transforming not excluding – the impact of information technology and innovation on later life’ most useful because it didn’t focus on innovative technology. It was more of a high-level distillation of the sort of day-to-day conversations people are having in the field. However, it could have been even more useful with some additions, including fairly standard social tech. More on that later.

SEEFA is the South East England Forum on Ageing, and the event was hosted in the Lords by Lord Filkin, who is chair of the Big Lottery Fund’s Centre for Ageing Better. Several score people, mainly in later life, were addressed by Baroness Sally Greengross and a good range of speakers with experience in industry, ageing, care and other fields.

I was one of a panel asked to make a contribution, and there was a lively Q and A. The symposium was facilitated with an informal-yet-informed touch by Guardian public services editor David Brindle so that, unusually for this sort of event, if felt like a big, sensible conversation.

I was particularly listening out for confirmation or otherwise of the ten provocations about innovation in Ageing Better that I posted recently, and the challenges I distilled from those for the Ageing Better exploration.

You can also review key points yourself from the symposium, because John Popham declared #itlater the event hashtag and dived in to lead some tweeting and then created a Storify.

Here’s my provocations, (enhanced with some comments I received). I’ve added points from the symposium discussion, and from people tweeting in response to the stream. See John’s Storify for attributions.

1. There isn’t an opt-out from technology – but you can choose how much you participate. (Technology has changed the world dramatically, and it will continue to change. What’s important is enabling people to choose how they engage).

From the symposium and tweeters:
Why isn’t technology transforming people’s lives as much as it might? Are people aware of the potential?
Technology is changing fast – you don’t have to be older to get out of date.
People can feel more in control of their lives with appropriate technology  – but tech makes things smaller and faster, which can be challenging.
Social connectedness is a key determinant of personal well-being.
Older people don’t want to be singled out – they want to be part of everything.
“Older people” is not an identity but a statistical category

2. Government is concerned that many older people are not online – but there are limits to what government can do. (People will engage with what’s interesting and useful to them, and use devices that most suit their needs).

From the symposium and tweeters:
Focus on the individual, their needs and interests.
Focus on what tech can do – not what it is.
There are distinct business benefits in connecting older people – however some businesses don’t want older customers who create problems.
Everyone needs a reason to change, and changes to services could be the catalyst.
Lack of basic education and literacy is still a barrier for many.

3. Everyone needs Internet access … but beyond that, no one size fits all. (Cost is a barrier, and then personalisation is important).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The lack of rural connectivity continues to be a huge problem.
Confirmation at the symposium about cost – or perceived cost – as a barrier to adoption, and the need for personalisation of devices and use.
There is no such things as a typical older person
Be careful about language. “Older lady said she didn’t need “mobile banking” because her tablet never left the house”.
Need to build people’s confidence

4. Computer courses and basic skills training don’t meet the needs of many older people. (Tablets are much easier to use than computers for most purposes, and smart phones and smart TVs may also meet many people’s needs).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The digital skills needed for work are generally not the same as those needed for non-work entertainment, learning, communication.
People working in organisations have tech “done for them”. It’s a shock to retire and find you have to do-it-yourself.
Older people tend not to search Youtube for user guides. Printed manuals are still needed.

5. Simpler interfaces are needed for computers and mobile devices – not just more functions. (Older people should be involved in design).

From the symposium and tweeters:
A lot of discussion about the need for co-design.
Why are there no big new products for older people at the Consumer Electronics Show?
A lot of support for “simpler”.
Some people were urging inclusion of older people as users of the latest tech, while others favoured more simple, low-cost options. It’s probably not either-or – it depends on the individual, their situation and preference. Personalisation – not general dumbing down.

6. Relatively few organisations in the ageing field are actively engaged in the online world or using collaborative tools. (Using social technology should help enable greater greater cooperation).

From the symposium and tweeters:
If you aren’t using social technology you can’t understand it
Organisations in the field generally don’t provide staff with equipment, software and devices relevant to people’s personal non-work needs
If people in organisations don’t use social technologies, their ability to share knowledge is severely limited
“What does it say that only four people in the room at #itlater have tweeted during the event”

7. Digital social innovations in services are not scaling. (There’s too much focus on the tech, and not enough on what it does, together with a lot of re-invention).

From the symposium and tweeters:
There is much potential for using tech to help people in care lead a good life and connect with friends and family. Why not adopted more?
Funders are supporting new developments, rather than encouraging adoption and adaptation of existing

8. There is a raft of research, but little knowledge-sharing of that and day-to-day practice. (A lot of research is hidden and not transferred to practice. A culture of competitive tendering reduces people’s inclination to cooperate and use what’s already available).

From the symposium and tweeters:
“Not invented here” is a huge barrier to adoption. Partisan discussion of issues and solutions doesn’t help.
Need to break out of the silos.
Much research and other knowledge is in formats that are unusable by practitioners – we need new knowledge products.
In 2015 all digital events should be promoted vigorously with a hashtag inviting wider debate and be live streamed
“We’re sharing as much as we can on http://connectingcare.org.uk ! Plz suggest more & banish wheel reinvention”
The first step to change is securing the buy in – changing organisational culture to be more open to innovation and tech

9. The energy for change lies with apps, connectors and storytellers. (To which we can add, evolution of trusted technologies such as TVs. Bring the storytellers together).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The potential for using TV was one of the hot topics at the symposium, with recommendations for a number of devices.
Tablets are increasingly proving more attractive than computers – but again depends on the individual and activity.
We need to be better storytellers about how people are using technology
Don’t push people to use stuff they have never experienced. Start by letting them see how others use tech

10. The digital divide is no longer a useful metaphor. Reality is more complex.

I’ve mixed insights from the symposium into the exploration provocations partly for my own purposes, and partly to show how it is possible to build on existing knowledge. All of these points could be remixed into a different set of provocations – and you are welcome to do so.

What’s now important, I think, is focusing on key challenges and developing ideas tro meet them. I’m trying that on the site hosting the exploration into innovation Ageing Better.

When David Brindle called on me for a contribution at the symposium I said (expanded somewhat here) that when I was a mainstream reporter on the Evening Standard in the 1970s we had typewriters, hot metal type-setting and a cuttings-based library. Reporters were a crucial channel – if they did their job well – in transmitting what was new and innovative. Few people had access to a cuttings library. Newspapers and other publishers owned the technology.

I noted as a reporter then, that we would see, in any field, a cycle of forgetting. Faces would change as people moved jobs, but the same stories would resurface as “news” every three or four years, if you checked in the library. Most people wouldn’t have a cuttings library, and so couldn’t know whether it was new or not – which was fine for a lazy reporter.

But why is it that we see the same sort of thing today, when people have the means of research and publication on their smartphones? Why is so much publishing of newsletters and reports designed for the paper-based library, rather than a format that allows easy sharing? Why is research funded that duplicates past work?

At the symposium there was no reference to the work of organisations like Nominet Trust and NESTA in this field,  to sites like Connecting Care, or people like Shirley Ayres who do so much, often unpaid, to share experience in the field. I’ve gathered those and other references here.

I think that discussion at the symposium, and what I’ve gathered from the exploration, provides insights into the re-invention of wheels, lack of sharing, and silos:

Culture

  • Organisations operate in a highly competitive funding environment, so they are reluctant to share ideas that might be used by someone else in a bid
  • Funders and sponsors want organisations to demonstrate how their resources produced results. Collaboration could dilute that.
  • Organisations want to promote their work and profile.
  • There is comfort in staying within your professional silo
  • Managers want to control and deliver – not encourage innovation and exploration that might not meet targets
  • Government wants scale and it is easier to do that through one-size rather than personalisation
  • Senior people in London-based organisations are more easily able to go to events and network with policy people and funders than people outside London. There’s not much incentive for the London circle to share.
  • “Networking” is what you do to increase your knowledge and influence … not to help connect others with ideas and opportunities

Technology

  • While social technology does not on its own enable cooperation and sharing, it makes it far more possible, and among those who use it engenders a culture for that.
  • Most organisations, and their staff, in this field are trapped in old tech systems designed for a different age. Even if they want to use social tech they may not be able to.
  • Learning has to be done in people’s own time, often with their own devices
  • Where social media is used, it is mainly for broadcast and marketing, rather than sharing useful resources
  • Unless people are using social technology, they don’t know what’s possible

Of course there are lots of exceptions … but am I wrong? John Popham has recorded some heart-felt audio here on organisations and social tech.

As I’ve said in this piece, I found the symposium very useful and interesting, and I was glad of the opportunity to contribute. Big thanks to Peter Dale and Julia Pride. It was impressive.

However I don’t see how SEEFA – or any similar organisation – will be able to take their exploration into technology, innovation and older people to the next stage without more use of the technology themselves.

For example, in terms of this sort of event I would suggest a plan, as part of the logistics, to blend online and offline activity, including:

  • Social media accounts for the organisation – at least Twitter and a blog
  • Online research by staff to scope the field, and curate some resources relevant to the event to set the scene
  • Pre-event activity online to engage people who may follow the Twitter stream, contribute, and/or blog
  • Online registration – if places outside the organisation are available
  • An online landing page about the event which can then be referenced in tweets
  • Speaker bios and outline content so that contributions can be co-ordinated beforehand
  • Recruiting participants to tweet
  • An agreed hashtag
  • Video interviews, and ideally streaming
  • Curation of online content after the event

If John Popham hadn’t committed time and expense to come to the event, and then act as a social reporter to declare a hashtag, lead the tweeting, and Storify the tweets, we would have to wait some weeks for a report. It might then not be in bit-sized pieces that can be shared. (I do the same sort of thing, but John is a better live-tweeter. He does great video too). There wouldn’t have been much external participation without contributions from Paul Webster and Shirley Ayres, creating content and alerting their networks as well as John’s and mine.

So my friendly suggestion to SEEFA is this: before publishing a report of the symposium, no doubt including barriers to innovation, please start using the technology! SEEFA’s experience in doing that, together with some of members, would provide very valuable additional insights.

Update: SEEFA have kindly invited me to talk to their executive about the technology challenges facing organisations. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to share some ideas – and also learn about the realities of running an organisation with volunteers and limited resources, in a fast-changing world.

 

 

SEEFA symposium identifies challenges to innovation in Ageing Better – it's culture as much as tech

Summary: a symposium on innovation, technology and later life provides confirmation that many of the challenges to making use of tech for ageing better are organisational and cultural as well as technical. We have plenty of tech – the issues are how to personalise and support use appropriate to people’s needs and situation. But ageing organisations can’t do that if they aren’t using social tech themselves.
I found the SEEFA symposium last week on ‘Transforming not excluding – the impact of information technology and innovation on later life’ most useful because it didn’t focus on innovative technology. It was more of a high-level distillation of the sort of day-to-day conversations people are having in the field. However, it could have been even more useful with some additions, including fairly standard social tech. More on that later.
SEEFA is the South East England Forum on Ageing, and the event was hosted in the Lords by Lord Filkin, who is chair of the Big Lottery Fund’s Centre for Ageing Better. Several score people, mainly in later life, were addressed by Baroness Sally Greengross and a good range of speakers with experience in industry, ageing, care and other fields.
I was one of a panel asked to make a contribution, and there was a lively Q and A. The symposium was facilitated with an informal-yet-informed touch by Guardian public services editor David Brindle so that, unusually for this sort of event, if felt like a big, sensible conversation.
I was particularly listening out for confirmation or otherwise of the ten provocations about innovation in Ageing Better that I posted recently, and the challenges I distilled from those for the Ageing Better exploration.
You can also review key points yourself from the symposium, because John Popham declared #itlater the event hashtag and dived in to lead some tweeting and then created a Storify.
Here’s my provocations, (enhanced with some comments I received). I’ve added points from the symposium discussion, and from people tweeting in response to the stream. See John’s Storify for attributions.
1. There isn’t an opt-out from technology – but you can choose how much you participate. (Technology has changed the world dramatically, and it will continue to change. What’s important is enabling people to choose how they engage).

From the symposium and tweeters:
Why isn’t technology transforming people’s lives as much as it might? Are people aware of the potential?
Technology is changing fast – you don’t have to be older to get out of date.
People can feel more in control of their lives with appropriate technology  – but tech makes things smaller and faster, which can be challenging.
Social connectedness is a key determinant of personal well-being.
Older people don’t want to be singled out – they want to be part of everything.
“Older people” is not an identity but a statistical category

2. Government is concerned that many older people are not online – but there are limits to what government can do. (People will engage with what’s interesting and useful to them, and use devices that most suit their needs).

From the symposium and tweeters:
Focus on the individual, their needs and interests.
Focus on what tech can do – not what it is.
There are distinct business benefits in connecting older people – however some businesses don’t want older customers who create problems.
Everyone needs a reason to change, and changes to services could be the catalyst.
Lack of basic education and literacy is still a barrier for many.

3. Everyone needs Internet access … but beyond that, no one size fits all. (Cost is a barrier, and then personalisation is important).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The lack of rural connectivity continues to be a huge problem.
Confirmation at the symposium about cost – or perceived cost – as a barrier to adoption, and the need for personalisation of devices and use.
There is no such things as a typical older person
Be careful about language. “Older lady said she didn’t need “mobile banking” because her tablet never left the house”.
Need to build people’s confidence

4. Computer courses and basic skills training don’t meet the needs of many older people. (Tablets are much easier to use than computers for most purposes, and smart phones and smart TVs may also meet many people’s needs).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The digital skills needed for work are generally not the same as those needed for non-work entertainment, learning, communication.
People working in organisations have tech “done for them”. It’s a shock to retire and find you have to do-it-yourself.
Older people tend not to search Youtube for user guides. Printed manuals are still needed.

5. Simpler interfaces are needed for computers and mobile devices – not just more functions. (Older people should be involved in design).

From the symposium and tweeters:
A lot of discussion about the need for co-design.
Why are there no big new products for older people at the Consumer Electronics Show?
A lot of support for “simpler”.
Some people were urging inclusion of older people as users of the latest tech, while others favoured more simple, low-cost options. It’s probably not either-or – it depends on the individual, their situation and preference. Personalisation – not general dumbing down.

6. Relatively few organisations in the ageing field are actively engaged in the online world or using collaborative tools. (Using social technology should help enable greater greater cooperation).

From the symposium and tweeters:
If you aren’t using social technology you can’t understand it
Organisations in the field generally don’t provide staff with equipment, software and devices relevant to people’s personal non-work needs
If people in organisations don’t use social technologies, their ability to share knowledge is severely limited
“What does it say that only four people in the room at #itlater have tweeted during the event”

7. Digital social innovations in services are not scaling. (There’s too much focus on the tech, and not enough on what it does, together with a lot of re-invention).

From the symposium and tweeters:
There is much potential for using tech to help people in care lead a good life and connect with friends and family. Why not adopted more?
Funders are supporting new developments, rather than encouraging adoption and adaptation of existing

8. There is a raft of research, but little knowledge-sharing of that and day-to-day practice. (A lot of research is hidden and not transferred to practice. A culture of competitive tendering reduces people’s inclination to cooperate and use what’s already available).

From the symposium and tweeters:
“Not invented here” is a huge barrier to adoption. Partisan discussion of issues and solutions doesn’t help.
Need to break out of the silos.
Much research and other knowledge is in formats that are unusable by practitioners – we need new knowledge products.
In 2015 all digital events should be promoted vigorously with a hashtag inviting wider debate and be live streamed
“We’re sharing as much as we can on http://connectingcare.org.uk ! Plz suggest more & banish wheel reinvention”
The first step to change is securing the buy in – changing organisational culture to be more open to innovation and tech

9. The energy for change lies with apps, connectors and storytellers. (To which we can add, evolution of trusted technologies such as TVs. Bring the storytellers together).

From the symposium and tweeters:
The potential for using TV was one of the hot topics at the symposium, with recommendations for a number of devices.
Tablets are increasingly proving more attractive than computers – but again depends on the individual and activity.
We need to be better storytellers about how people are using technology
Don’t push people to use stuff they have never experienced. Start by letting them see how others use tech

10. The digital divide is no longer a useful metaphor. Reality is more complex.
I’ve mixed insights from the symposium into the exploration provocations partly for my own purposes, and partly to show how it is possible to build on existing knowledge. All of these points could be remixed into a different set of provocations – and you are welcome to do so.
What’s now important, I think, is focusing on key challenges and developing ideas tro meet them. I’m trying that on the site hosting the exploration into innovation Ageing Better.
When David Brindle called on me for a contribution at the symposium I said (expanded somewhat here) that when I was a mainstream reporter on the Evening Standard in the 1970s we had typewriters, hot metal type-setting and a cuttings-based library. Reporters were a crucial channel – if they did their job well – in transmitting what was new and innovative. Few people had access to a cuttings library. Newspapers and other publishers owned the technology.
I noted as a reporter then, that we would see, in any field, a cycle of forgetting. Faces would change as people moved jobs, but the same stories would resurface as “news” every three or four years, if you checked in the library. Most people wouldn’t have a cuttings library, and so couldn’t know whether it was new or not – which was fine for a lazy reporter.
But why is it that we see the same sort of thing today, when people have the means of research and publication on their smartphones? Why is so much publishing of newsletters and reports designed for the paper-based library, rather than a format that allows easy sharing? Why is research funded that duplicates past work?
At the symposium there was no reference to the work of organisations like Nominet Trust and NESTA in this field,  to sites like Connecting Care, or people like Shirley Ayres who do so much, often unpaid, to share experience in the field. I’ve gathered those and other references here.
I think that discussion at the symposium, and what I’ve gathered from the exploration, provides insights into the re-invention of wheels, lack of sharing, and silos:
Culture

  • Organisations operate in a highly competitive funding environment, so they are reluctant to share ideas that might be used by someone else in a bid
  • Funders and sponsors want organisations to demonstrate how their resources produced results. Collaboration could dilute that.
  • Organisations want to promote their work and profile.
  • There is comfort in staying within your professional silo
  • Managers want to control and deliver – not encourage innovation and exploration that might not meet targets
  • Government wants scale and it is easier to do that through one-size rather than personalisation
  • Senior people in London-based organisations are more easily able to go to events and network with policy people and funders than people outside London. There’s not much incentive for the London circle to share.
  • “Networking” is what you do to increase your knowledge and influence … not to help connect others with ideas and opportunities

Technology

  • While social technology does not on its own enable cooperation and sharing, it makes it far more possible, and among those who use it engenders a culture for that.
  • Most organisations, and their staff, in this field are trapped in old tech systems designed for a different age. Even if they want to use social tech they may not be able to.
  • Learning has to be done in people’s own time, often with their own devices
  • Where social media is used, it is mainly for broadcast and marketing, rather than sharing useful resources
  • Unless people are using social technology, they don’t know what’s possible

Of course there are lots of exceptions … but am I wrong? John Popham has recorded some heart-felt audio here on organisations and social tech.
As I’ve said in this piece, I found the symposium very useful and interesting, and I was glad of the opportunity to contribute. Big thanks to Peter Dale and Julia Pride. It was impressive.
However I don’t see how SEEFA – or any similar organisation – will be able to take their exploration into technology, innovation and older people to the next stage without more use of the technology themselves.
For example, in terms of this sort of event I would suggest a plan, as part of the logistics, to blend online and offline activity, including:

  • Social media accounts for the organisation – at least Twitter and a blog
  • Online research by staff to scope the field, and curate some resources relevant to the event to set the scene
  • Pre-event activity online to engage people who may follow the Twitter stream, contribute, and/or blog
  • Online registration – if places outside the organisation are available
  • An online landing page about the event which can then be referenced in tweets
  • Speaker bios and outline content so that contributions can be co-ordinated beforehand
  • Recruiting participants to tweet
  • An agreed hashtag
  • Video interviews, and ideally streaming
  • Curation of online content after the event

If John Popham hadn’t committed time and expense to come to the event, and then act as a social reporter to declare a hashtag, lead the tweeting, and Storify the tweets, we would have to wait some weeks for a report. It might then not be in bit-sized pieces that can be shared. (I do the same sort of thing, but John is a better live-tweeter. He does great video too). There wouldn’t have been much external participation without contributions from Paul Webster and Shirley Ayres, creating content and alerting their networks as well as John’s and mine.
So my friendly suggestion to SEEFA is this: before publishing a report of the symposium, no doubt including barriers to innovation, please start using the technology! SEEFA’s experience in doing that, together with some of members, would provide very valuable additional insights.
Update: SEEFA have kindly invited me to talk to their executive about the technology challenges facing organisations. I think this will be a great opportunity for me to share some ideas – and also learn about the realities of running an organisation with volunteers and limited resources, in a fast-changing world.

 
 

All posts

Ten provocations about innovation in Ageing Better

Update: I’ve developed the Innovation in Age Better site to include an ideas platform, where you can add ideas, comment and/or vote. I hope to gather more from today’s symposium – see below.

I’ve got to the point in my exploration of innovation in Ageing Better when it feels like to good time to pull together some talking points, and then use any discussion to refocus on the challenges, ideas for action, and some mapping of who might do what. I never quite understand where I’ve got to until I’ve written it down, and I’ve been invited to a symposium in early January on ‘Transforming not excluding – the impact of information technology and innovation on later life’ organised by Age UKs in the South East and SEEFA, the South East England Forum on Ageing.

The symposium is being hosted by Lord Filkin, who is chair of the Big Lottery Fund’s Centre for Ageing Better, so I need a script in case there’s a chance to contribute. Or just pitch online, of course. All my Ageing Better posts here, including quite a bit on the challenges of BIG’s Ageing Better programme.

I’ll return to these provocations – and the follow-through process – in later posts, and pull together some of the references I have that back them up. Meanwhile, what do you think? There’s an open document here, for comments or additions.

1. There isn’t an opt-out from technology – but you can choose how much you participate. The world is being changed by the Internet and digital technology: work, entertainment, public services, learning, social connections are all being transformed. What’s important is help people choose what works for them.

2. Government is concerned that many older people are not online – but there are limits to what government can do. Government wants to save money by moving information and transactions online. Many older people don’t see the point, and no-one can force them. People need to see what’s useful to them personally – not to government.

3. Everyone needs Internet access … but beyond that, no one size fits all. Unless you work in an office, you will want devices and apps that meet your needs, not those of an organisation.

4. Computer courses and basic skills training don’t meet the needs of many older people. These days people are just as likely to learn by using a tablet, with help from a friend, volunteer, or younger member of their family.

5. Simpler interfaces are needed for computers and mobile devices – not just more functions. The wider range of tools can be provided at a second level, where they are less bewildering to new users.

6. Relatively few organisations in the ageing field are actively engaged in the online world or using collaborative tools. That’s a problem in developing policy or practice – because you can’t really understand the way that social media and the online economy and culture are changing the world, if you are only using office systems. Nor can you share experience readily.

7. Digital social innovations in services are not scaling. There are lots of innovative projects, but people on the front line may not have the tech skills, support or incentive to adopt them. Or they may not know about them.

8. There is a raft of research, but little knowledge-sharing of that and day-to-day practice. Organisations are competing for funding, and this works against a cooperative culture.

9. The energy for change lies with apps, connectors and storytellers: those developing useful personal devices and apps; those trying to connect ideas, innovators and investors; and those telling stories about what’s working in terms everyone can understand.

10. The digital divide is no longer a useful metaphor. Reality is more complex.

As I’ve said on the open document here, the exploration has given me quite a few ideas on how to move things forward, for example:

  1. Generating ideas for action around key issues: e.g. access, support, personalisation, simpler devices.
  2. Mapping who is doing what, and who might collaborate if better connections were made.
  3. Focusing on small-scale innovations that might scale.
  4. Starting from austerity zero: what might we do if existing programme were not around, and funding were very limited.

I’ll come back to those ideas in later posts. Thanks to members of the Action Action Alliance Digital Inclusion Group for their encouragement and input. I should emphasise they bear no responsibility for the provocations at this stage, although I’ll be checking out what they think.