April, 2016

Great Scott! The LMC Insider Spotlight!

MEET LMC’s SCOTT FELDSTEIN 315854566_c300611c4a_o

Scott is a writer, speaker, culinary junkie, musician and Jedi master. As Brand Manager and Copywriter at Laura Mitchell Consulting, he uses his creativity to effectively communicate company values to just the right target demographic. In addition to 15 years of experience in technology, Scott has studied psychology, religion, education and computing and holds a master’s degree from Marquette University.

Q: If you could vacation anywhere on the planet, where would you go?
A: Spain. I’m kind of a foodie and I hear that Spain is becoming the new food capital of the world. But Europe and Asia are both really calling to me.

Q: So you’re a foodie. Tell us what your favorite food is and why?
A: Hmm. My favorite food…SO hard to say. Thin crust pepperoni pizza? A well made cheese omelet? Excellent chili? No, I’m going to go with a really good Cuban sandwich.

Q: What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?
A: I would remind myself that things that seem permanent always change in time. When things seem awful, it’s important to remember this. But there’s the flip side: when things seem great, it’s just a matter of time…

Q: What food do you dislike?
A: Quinoa. It just doesn’t taste like food to me. Also, sweet bagels. They’re just wrong. They shouldn’t exist, period.

Check out this gallery of Scott’s excellent creations:

In fact, Scott is so passionate about the notion of sweet bagels that he was compelled to write a short essay on the “wrongness” of sweet bagels. Read it here.

Q: What do people not know about you?
A: I used to be a professional photographer. I was hired for weddings, sporting events, parties, and the like. In fact, my photography is still on Flikr. I loved it, but after my fair share of weddings, I decided to move on. I still like to do it for fun, but just not as a primary business. It’s been very helpful for stock photography with LMC.

Q: What is something that you would like to learn to do?
A: Bake. I cook a lot, but don’t bake a lot except for the New York Times’ no-knead bread. The world of baking is mysterious. There are so many recipes that I would like to make, but I just don’t feel confident enough to try.

Meet the rest of the team here. Have a marketing question? Talk to us! Email us at info@lmcllc.us for more information.

Dave Pedigo, CEDIA’s Senior Director of Emerging Technologies

Q&A With Leaders in Technology and Aging

Each week on Tech Tuesdays, we’ve been featuring innovators in the Technology and Aging industry. Today, we spoke with Dave Pedigo from CEDIA. Here some highlights from our conversation.

Q: Hi Dave. Good to talk with you. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

A: I’m the Senior Director of Emerging Technologies for CEDIA. Our focus is the custom electronic industry for the residential side, things like home automation, home theater systems, distributed audio, distributed video, home health, and so on. My job is helping to identify the emerging trends, opportunities, and threats to industry. And I also help manufacturers and integrators communicate back and forth, and to identify new channels of revenue.

[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Things are happening so fast, we can’t humanly comprehend the rate of change. [/pullquote]

Q: How did you get into this industry?

A: Back in the early 2000s, I’d been working for a trade association for the satellite industry. Then I got recruited to work for CEDIA, and I’ve been here for the 12 years since.

Q: So, what is CEDIA? Can you tell me about it?

A: CEDIA is the trade association for the custom electronics industry. It’s an international association, with 3500 member companies world-wide, representing manufacturers and home technology professionals. We do so many things in addition to the trade show. We used to have the slogan, CEDIA: More than just a trade show. We’re involved with government affairs, lobbying, and watching for potentially harmful legislation. We also write industry standards, help develop best practices, and work with industry partners to try to create the industry. We help connect manufacturing with suppliers, and with home owners. In a short time, electronics have gone from “nice to have’s” to “must have’s” in the home

Q: Have you seen changes to CEDIA over the years?

A: (laughs) Yeah, that’s hysterical. I don’t think there are that many sectors that have changed as rapidly and dynamically as we have. The biggest change is the change from analog to digital. And we’ve gone from huge computers to pocket-sized computers. There’s HDTV, aging in place… Digital health is at such an amazing time right now. We have a whole council with various areas of expertise, trying to keep track of their own segments of interest, and even they can’t keep up with how fast things change. There are so many announcements coming out, just in the last week, so it’s almost impossible to keep up with and comprehend.

Q: You’ve seen a lot of what goes on in the industry. What do you think it’s doing right?

A: What’s happening is the democratization of intellectual property. Now everything is digital, everyone has a computer, with the ability to do tons of programming. There are so many people with so many ideas, and it’s theoretically simple to take an idea and convert it to reality. So, my formula for the next industrial revolution is: 3D printing, social media, and crowd funding. Take those three things, and someone who has an idea, and what would have been difficult to pull off a few years ago, is relatively easy.

There are so many people with so many great ideas, and so much change. The chief scientist at Google calls it the law of accelerating returns. Things are happening so fast, we can’t humanly comprehend the rate of change. The Apple watch, for example, some people may say it’s a novelty. I use it mostly as a heart rate monitor, and it’s really accurate. I’m using it to collect long-term data that I can take when I go to the doctor, and say, “This is happening.” It quantifies the information.

So, all these things, whether it’s a gigantic or a small company, it’s faster to market. We’re collecting so much more data than we used to. We’re on the edge of solving a lot of problems. Another example with the Apple watch, they’re trying to tackle five major types of health issues. There are tests you can do every day on the watch. You tap the watch, and it measures how you do. Apple aggregates that anonymous data, and is looking for triggers for events such as asthma attacks. The data in aggregate will help all for solutions to our biggest medical problems.

Q: And what would you change?

A: A lot could be done better. If we start with premise that anyone with a dream can create a product, that is also the exact problem. There’s a lot of stuff coming out that is half-baked, or doesn’t operate well with other products. So there’s also a lot of stuff that: A) doesn’t work very well, or B) doesn’t work very well when put in combination with a series of other products, which, in a home, happens every day. Also, almost all the products being developed today are trying to get to market as fast as possible with the easiest ease-of-use, and they don’t take privacy and security into consideration. As an example, take camera manufacturers. Security cameras are great, don’t get me wrong, but to make them easy to set up by a typical consumer on a smart phone, they use techniques that allow for easy backdoor networking entrance, that make it easy to watch what your camera is broadcasting. And I get it, I promise you. The general consumer these days is willing to risk a potential privacy incursion for convenience.

Q: Do you have any advice you would offer an entrepreneur?

A: My biggest advice is that, if you’re getting into this, create a business plan. That might sound like simple, easy advice. There are plenty of people who get into this industry, because they’re passionate, or hobbyists who think they can make a living. But you have to figure out how you’re going to make money at it. If you are providing a good or service and not running the business well enough, and you go out of business, that’s a disservice to the customer. Too many people assume the technology side is the more important, when in fact running the business is more important, and the tech side will come to you. The sky is the limit, especially in home health. Holy cow. But you have to be able to stay in business.

Q: You’re an expert in emerging technologies. What do you see coming up that’s exciting?

A: We’re on the verge of some truly innovative solutions that will improve the quality of life. The biggest one for me is voice control. My father has some major health problems. He lives with me, on the main floor. When he gets up at night, he had been taking a flashlight to fumble around and find the keypad for the lights. But now he can say, “Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights 50 percent,” and the lights turn on. That’s not just a novelty when you’re in your late 70s and in ill health, it’s a necessity. You could say we could have done it with a motion detector, but I move around at night a lot and I don’t want the light to come on all the time. This is better. It’s just a simple example of what’s coming. 2016 will be an amazing year for voice control, for natural user interfaces, and also for virtual reality and augmented reality, which gets nerdy and sci-fi-ish, but it is here and really amazing.

Laura Mitchell Consulting is a strike team of experts in the aging and technology industry. Know someone that we should feature in our “Meet the Innovators” blog series? Contact us at info@lmcllc.us and let us know!

Blog, Event, Press

Laura Mitchell Consulting Selected for Social Media Magic at Local Nonprofit Conference

WEST BEND, WI — Laura Mitchell Consulting (LMC) announced today that their strike team of digital media experts has been selected to provide social media magic to West Bend’s inaugural Nonprofit Conference, coordinated by the Volunteer Center of Washington County and hosted by West Bend Mutual Insurance. This Nonprofit Conference is designed to educate, empower and connect local nonprofits with one another in an unforgettable event on April 28th, 2016 at the West Bend Mutual Prairie Center.

The conference features keynote speaker David Mann, giving a talk entitled “Embracing Change: How High-Performing Achievers Adapt.” The conference also includes multiple breakout sessions on topics such as fundraising, volunteer recruitment, insurance, branding, and business models. Registration is still open. Call the Volunteer Center at (262) 338-8256.

“We wanted to develop a conference that would truly help our not-for-profit community,” said Sue Millin, the Volunteer Center Executive Director. “LMC’s team of digital experts was a natural fit to provide the live stream of content and add that digital energy and expertise to our event.”

LMC will be providing social-based content throughout the day, photo and video interviews on Facebook and Vine, and a stream of real-time conference highlights on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Live feeds will help both local and remote participants be in multiple places at once, enable more productive networking, and remind everyone why this show is an important event for all nonprofits in the area.

“We do tons of social media and conference promotion all over the country, but it feels good to promote a show in our own backyard,” said LMC founder Laura Mitchell. “Our team has strong ties to West Bend and the Volunteer Center. We firmly stand behind their mission and we’re honored to be a part of this inaugural event.”

Laura is a well-known fixture and pioneer in the technology/aging-in-place market. She has been speaking and attending the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit for the past 6 years, and in 2011 was honored with the Flame Award for Innovation. Laura has also been featured in Forbes Magazine for creative online strategies and Guerrilla Marketing. She and her team have coordinated online social evangelism for international conferences such as CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas.

About Laura Mitchell Consulting: Laura Mitchell Consulting (LMC) is a strike team of digital experts in connected health, social media, awareness campaigns, brand evangelism, growth hacking, guerrilla marketing and other out of the box marketing solutions. Founder Laura Mitchell is a cofounder of West Bend’s GrandCare Systems and has received accolades from many sources including Forbes, Dealerscope, AARP and the Consumer Electronics Association. Her awards include Top Women of M2M, Top 40 under 40 and Young Turks of CE. Laura keynotes all over the country on a variety of subjects including disruptive non-traditional marketing, technology in aging, and connected healthcare. (www.lmcllc.us)

About the Volunteer Center of West Bend: The Volunteer Center is a 501(c)(3) for-purpose organization that mobilizes volunteers and resources to help improve the quality of life in Washington County. Founded in 1983, the Volunteer Center currently serves more than 60 nonprofit partners and thousands of volunteers each year. (www.volunteernow.net)

Blog

Facebook’s New Emojis – What’s Your Reaction?

In February, Facebook added 5 new symbols to let you react to someone’s post. They’re meant to give you a shorthand way to respond without necessarily having to comment.Why the change? Because sometimes “Like” isn’t what you really feel. I don’t know about you, but when my friends post something about a tragedy, sometimes I don’t know what to say, but I know I don’t want to say nothing. It’s not like you can click the Like button in a situation like that.

“My dog just died.”
Like

I don’t think so.

Of course, the range of human emotions is probably larger than six. A lot larger. But maybe six is better than one. And human emotions are probably a lot subtler than fiercely angry, weeping with sadness, and laughing maniacally. Probably.

So, what do you think? Have you used Facebook’s new Reaction Emojis yet? Like? Love? Wow?

To learn more about Laura Mitchell Consulting, please email us at info@lmcllc.us or visit us at lmcllc.us.

Blog, Meet the Innovators

Meet the Innovators: Majd Alwan, Senior Vice President of LeadingAge

We recently spoke with Majd Alwan, an expert in the Technology and Aging space, the Senior Vice President of Leading Age, and the Executive Director for CAST (Center for Aging Services Technology.) We thought you might be interested in hearing the highlights from our conversation!

Q: Thanks for talking with us today, Majd. Let me start by asking you to tell us who you are and what you do.

A: I’m Majd Alwan, Senior Vice President of Technology at LeadingAge. I’m an engineer by training. I have a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering, a Master’s in Control Engineering, and a PhD in Mobile Robotics from the University of London, Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine.

I am also the Executive Director of the LeadingAge Center for Aging Services Technology (CAST). At CAST, we bring together aging service providers, especially those who are forward thinking, along with innovators from technology companies, and researchers from universities who are involved with developing and evaluating technologies. Our mission is to accelerate the cycle of developing, evaluating and adopting technology that can improve the quality of care and the quality of life for older adults and care providers, and help reduce the cost of caregiving on society. I know it sounds lofty, but I believe anything is possible if we put our minds to it, and have the right players and the right approach.

Q: How did you get started in this industry?

A: I’ve always been fascinated with biomedical applications of engineering, even starting back in grad school. When I was working on my PhD, I started working on designing an autonomous wheelchair for handicapped people, and that really sparked an interest in working with the aging population and people with disabilities. As you know, technology can benefit both. I landed at the University of Virginia as an assistant professor, and was hired to lead their Robotics and Eldercare Technologies Program. Then in early 2002 I attended the inaugural meeting that led to the creation of CAST. I’ve been involved in CAST from its early days.

Q: You’ve been part of the aging and technology industry for some time. What is going well, and what do you think could be better?

A: While we were developing our portfolios of hands-on technology application planning and selection tools, we recognized that while many provider organizations are engaged in strategic planning, many of the plans are shallow, on technology especially. They don’t dig deep enough into their goals, or look at what technologies are out there that could be key to achieving or facilitating those goals, or accelerating them, or reaching them more cost effectively or efficiently. We realized that organizations are adopting technologies but approaching them in a siloed manner. That’s a problem. So the next logical step is strategic IT planning, to identify what’s needed in the IT infrastructure, then layer technology applications on it.

So last year we launched a strategic IT planning portfolio. It makes sense for providers to take the opportunity of their next major investment, for example campus expansion, a new building, upgrades to facilities, etc. and use that project as an opportunity to look at the required IT infrastructure and invest in it first, and then invest in the applications. If you want to implement telehealth, if you haven’t planned ahead, you may discover your IT infrastructure can’t support it, maybe your network can’t handle the bandwidth for video conferencing with the hospital.

Q: How would you say that CAST is helping to change the way we provide aging services?

A: We start with trying to create vision, helping providers overcome the imagination barrier, by envisioning how technology can change the way they deliver services. We created a video for the 2005 White House Conference on Aging to show what we thought the future could be.

We also encourage technology companies to pursue the idea of living laboratories, to pilot technologies in provider settings as opposed to research study labs, or hypothetical environments. And we encourage the use of “user-centric” design, engaging caregivers and older adults in early stages of development, and raising the awareness of providers of developing technologies.

Then we realized that, although this was necessary, it wasn’t sufficient. So in 2011 (at that point I was leading CAST) we realized there was a need for more hands-on tools, and hand-holding guidance to help providers with technology adoption. So we did a scenario planning exercise of future business models that are technology-enabled, and at the same time likely to become mainstream over the next few years. We identified key enabling technologies that are foundational for these models, and then started portfolios of tools to help providers plan for, select, and implement these technologies.

Our first portfolio was on electronic health records (EHRs), and later ones featured remote monitoring, medication management, functional assessment and activity monitoring. This year we tackled the issue of shared care planning and care coordination across different settings, including the entire extended care team. The portfolios provide both a process, and also selection matrices that provide a lot of information about commercially available products, as well as easy-to-use interactive online selection tools that let providers objectively select solutions that are right for their care model or setting, and their must-have functionality and features.

Q: What’s coming up next?

A: The field of aging services is luckily very broad and rich, so we started with electronic health records, and are expanding. Once you create a monster, you have to keep feeding it and taking care of it. So we have to update the tools we created annually. Product offerings change as startups go belly up and their products disappear. Some firms are acquired and products are always enhanced, phased out, or launched. So we’ll continue to enrich our existing portfolio tools, and every year we add a new one. Next year is Care Coordination.

We’re expanding our EHR portfolio to add a 7-stage adoption model. You can measure the adoption of EHR by whether a firm has it or not, but we don’t have a good handle on what functionalities are used. So, with this model in place, we’ll get a perspective from EHR vendors on where their clients are, and later we plan to survey providers to see where they think they are.

And every year we add a new area. On the docket of potential tools are technologies for fall detection and prevention, emergency nurse call and response systems. And social connectedness is another big and exciting area.

We are advocates for technology, and we really examined technology policy priorities this year, and released an issue brief focusing on a few potential bills and initiatives, encouraging members to help us advocate for these things, including the expansion of access to the Internet, both for older adults and for aging service providers, advocating for the expansion of telehealth and telemedicine and removing restrictions on reimbursement. And we advocate for long-term post-acute care providers in EHR incentives. We’d like to see them actively participate in the health information exchange, and to be financially rewarded for adopting and using the new technologies.

Q: So, with all your experience in this space, do you have any advice to offer a new entrepreneur?

A: Sometimes entrepreneurs get too enamored with their own inventions. As an engineer, and as a former entrepreneur who has dabbled in startups, and from my research, I’d say you should talk to your potential clients and users, engage them from the early stages. Have a user-centered design approach. Treat them as co-development partners, and not just as a pilot site or test subjects. They have a lot to contribute, to help ensure that your product has a higher likelihood of being embraced and implemented. Engage with providers who understand the regulatory environment and the business environment. That’s important, for a company to make it through the long and scary Valley of Death from initial investment to making it in the real world as a sustainable business.

Blog

If you had to choose a cartoon character to represent your brand…who would it be?

So you’ve done all the things that businesses do. You have a great business plan, marketing strategy, a fantastic website and you’ve even set up a great social media presence. What more could you need?

What If I asked you to pick a fictional character that best represented your company? Who would it be?

Would it be Daffy Duck? Mickey Mouse? Maybe it’s Punky Brewster or Ward Cleaver. I’m not asking you to leave anything to Beaver here. Nope. I’m trying to encourage you to humanize your company.

People don’t just buy a product anymore, they buy a personality and they buy the emotions they feel while interacting with your brand. While a website is a great way to share information about an organization’s product or mission, it lacks a certain human element. It is your clean storefront, but it may not fully get across your brand “personality.” This is where your social media can be a wonderful tool to be silly, emotional, inspirational, to stand on your soap box and make it clear that there are actual human beings behind your operations, customer support, technical support, sales and marketing. This is your brand personification.

Maybe there are no set rules for social media, but I think we can come up with some rough and ready guidelines.

Don’t do things to others that you wouldn’t want done to you. In other words, embrace the golden rule of social media.
Generate real value for your listener. Make sure you always answer the “what’s in it for me” question with every single post.
Make mistakes! It’s a new frontier out there, so make up your own rules as you go along. Don’t be tied down to perfection. This will stop you at every turn and you will end up going nowhere fast. Make mistakes, embrace them, learn from them and own them. Pivot and move along.

People aren’t perfect, and your digital presence won’t be either. Try new things, have fun, and take risks. If a post isn’t working the way that you intended it to, be agile and adapt quickly. This is what growth hacking and agile marketing is all about. Be human, and you will find your audience understands and respects this.

At Laura Mitchell Consulting, we carefully craft and maintain digital brand identities. We stand out because we go against the grain of traditional marketing rules to create fun, cutting-edge and entertaining social media presences that customers want to engage with.

To learn more about Laura Mitchell Consulting, please email us at info@lmcllc.us or visit us at lmcllc.us.

Blog, Meet the Innovators

Meet the Innovators: Jill Gilbert, Producer of the Digital Health Summit

We recently sat down with Jill Gilbert, an expert on products in the Aging and Technology space, a longtime entrepreneur, and the producer of the Digital Health Summit of CES.

Q: Hi Jill. Thanks for talking with us today. Can you tell us a little about yourself?

A: Glad to be here. I’m Jill Gilbert. I’m the producer of the Digital Health Summit, which is part of the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) put on by Living in Digital Times. Living in Digital Times is a production company behind a number of different summits. They brought me in seven years ago to help build the Digital Health Summit at CES. And it’s been a ride ever since.

Q: How did you get into this industry?

A: I started interning in the film industry when I was in college, and got a job with Disney when I graduated. I was in the film industry for 15 years. After 15 years, I was ready to get out of LA, so I moved up to San Francisco, not knowing exactly what I’d be doing.

Around that same time, my dad, as part of his business, was getting interested in resources for seniors and for their families, so I started researching that concept. I started out by looking for resource books. That’s something I used to have in the film industry, with contact numbers for every single thing you’d need for a show. I wanted something like that for senior care, but everything was so scattered. Listings for assisted living were mixed with listings for nursing homes. Everything was a mess. To make sense of it, I started the Gilbert Guide, a local guide to help you find places that would fit your needs best. In it, I tried to set levels of quality which hadn’t been done before, which was an interesting and complicated thing to do.

Out of that we created a national directory of senior care. I remember when we were googling “adult day cares in Mississippi,” building the directory piece by piece. Eventually I moved my focus to products, and specifically how to match seniors and caregivers with products that are coming out of this telehealth space. I started doing videos, called The Daily Wrinkle, where we would test products. I still remember there was a blanket designed for putting out fires. You know how heavy, hard and cumbersome it can be to use a fire extinguisher. For a senior, it’s almost impossible. So we tested this product. We went into my kitchen where (under the watchful gaze of a San Francisco firefighter) we purposely lit a grease fire, and then put it out with this blanket.[pullquote align=”right” cite=”Jill Gilbert, Producer of Digital Health Summit” link=”” color=”#69AE22″]”We want to help companies lower the cost for healthcare, and to bring better healthcare to consumers.“[/pullquote]

My real interest was in products, so we sold that company, and I was brought into my current position at Living in Digital Times to build the Digital Health Summit.

Q: Have you seen any connection with your film background?

A: Interestingly enough, film production lends itself to what I do now, helping to “sexify” the products, helping to bring more appeal to healthcare, so that it attracts the interest of a broader audience, so the press will write about it, and consumers will learn about it.

Q: So, what is the Digital Health Summit? Can you tell me about it?

A: It’s a conference and exhibition where we bring together cutting edge technologies, to try to move the conversation forward. We want to help companies lower the cost for healthcare, and to bring better healthcare to consumers. Our show shines a big spotlight on the industry. CES is an enormous show, and if you’re not in context on show floor, you get lost. So we help package and verticalize certain topics there. If we can put a brand on it, then when people attend the show, they’ll know what to find there, and where to find it.

It has since expanded into baby technology, which was a natural progression from healthcare, because so many devices and products are developed for new moms. Last year we expanded into beauty tech as well. A significant amount of beauty technology comes out of the healthcare world, for example lasers that might help with hair removal or skin discoloration.

Q: What about the Summer Summit? It’s a little different, isn’t it?

A: Yes. The Summer Digital Health Summit has a slightly different focus. It’s about helping companies know how to do better, how to build, scale, grow, and really to succeed. It’s for entrepreneurs, companies in digital health, caregivers, carriers, and investors. It’s a nice mix of people that have to work together to perfect the system, and to move the industry forward, and hopefully in turn move their own businesses forward. We bring a number of elements together, including education, through robust panels, speakers, and case studies. And we bring companies together that can learn from each other or work with each other. And unlike CES, which is unwieldy, we keep this one more intimate, so people can get down to business.

Q: Have you seen changes to the summits over the years?

A: In the beginning, seven years ago, I was practically begging people to come to CES. When that show started, there was one company signed on. Now it’s the largest exhibit at CES. The biggest names in healthcare come to CES. People do real business there. It’s an immense opportunity for companies to be there.

This June will be the fifth Summer Summit. In that time, the biggest change I’ve seen is that the topics and the audience have gotten much more knowledgeable. When we started out, the topics were like “Telehealth 101” or “What is remote monitoring?” It was much more introductory. Now we’re diving deep. The topics are much more focused, and the audience is much more sophisticated. Plus, when we started, we were talking more futuristically, but now we’re talking about real solutions, real results, and real data. Now we’re telling patients’ stories on how digital health saved or changed their lives.

Q: You’ve seen a lot of what goes on in the industry. What do you think are the biggest challenges right now?

A: The technology is right. We have it. It’s here. We’ll continue to see developments, obviously. But how it’s how it’s packaged and delivered, the business models and how to monetize it, that’s a big challenge. We struggle with reimbursements and with adoption. So I think one of the biggest challenges is how to get the technology into the hands of people who could use it, or the physicians who could recommend or prescribe its use. The challenge is engagement, adoption, and long-term use. Many companies have gone by the wayside, and it’s not about the quality of their technology. It’s the other factors. Did they use their money wisely? Did they partner with right people? It’s easy to run out of money, to focus on wrong market, to not meet the regulations. It’s hard to be CEO of a digital health company, very, very hard. I don’t want the job, but I hope that I can help those who do have the job, those companies, to elevate their companies and help them succeed. We are pro entrepreneur.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: We’re starting a new site called Discover Baby Tech. We have a couple of new moms here, which is how we got the idea. I searched high and low for all the latest products and technology when I was preparing for my son, but I couldn’t find a consolidated site for all these technologies. So we’re launching one. This will be a fun blog to write. We’ll be featuring all the products in the space, showcasing them, and letting dads and moms in on what we find. We discovered so many cool things when we were building it out, so it’s fun for us too.

And right now I’m really getting focused on the Digital Health Summer Summit. I’m planning content and building out the show floor. And I’ve already started developing themes and content for CES, which is next January. We’re working on finalizing space for Beauty Tech and Baby Tech for next year. Lots of companies are coming back. We’re taking the shows to the next level, thinking about how best to raise the bar. Those are our big goals.

Blog, Conference

Laura Mitchell to Coach AARP LivePitch Competition

MirchellL_130923_8988a (1) Laura Mitchell will be attending AARP LivePitch as a coaching mentor for two of the competing startups in the quick pitch competition. The fifth annual AARP Health Innovation@50+ LivePitch will take place Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, CA. An experienced mentor to entrepreneurs, Laura will be returning to LivePitch for the second time. She has also served as a coach and mentor at the Louisville Innovation Summit, AgeTech West, LeadingAge Shark Tank and more.

Laura has over a decade of experience as an entrepreneur. She is a founder of GrandCare Systems, and a founder of the AgeTek Alliance. Her latest firm, Laura Mitchell Consulting (LMC), specializes in guerilla marketing and growth hacking. A thought leader in the aging technology space, she looks forward to sharing her insights with the brightest, most innovative minds in the industry.

The 2016 event will happen in the technology capital of the world. This one-day pitch competition, now its fifth year, is for startups focused on caregiving in the aging and technology space. Contestants have three minutes to pitch to expert judges, including venture capitalists and angel investors, as well as intended end users, consumers whose feedback is gathered and shared in real-time. Startup companies in the aging technology space will benefit from the guidance and oversight of brilliant minds from across the country.

Watch a recap of last year’s event here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk-EoH4F9N0

Laura Mitchell is the founder of Laura Mitchell Consulting, a strike team of marketing and growth strategy experts in the aging and technology industry. To find out more, contact us at info@lmcllc.us.

Blog, Meet the Innovators

Meet the Innovators: Peter Radsliff, CEO Presto Services

Q&A With Leaders in Technology and Aging

We recently had the pleasure of talking with Peter Radsliff, CEO of Presto Services. We’re featuring highlights from that conversation today in our ongoing blog series on innovators in the Technology and Aging industry. FOTO Peter Radsliff

Q: Hello, and thanks for talking with us. To start off, can you tell us a little about yourself?

A: My name is Peter Radsliff and I’m CEO of Presto Services. I’m a longtime consumer tech marketing and product guy. I’ve developed and launched a lot of new products in my career. I’ve worked for a well-known consumer electronics brand, a Fortune 100 company, and have been an executive at five venture-backed tech startups. Presto is my latest startup and I’ve been there the past 8 years.

Q: How did you get into the aging industry?

A: It’s funny, while I was working for a Fortune 100 company, I got a call from a recruiter. They identified me as a person who might be a good candidate for the first VP of Marketing hire at Presto when the company was being formed. After about 15 interviews, I ended up not taking the job because it didn’t make financial sense to leave some stock option value I had at my current company.

Two years later when I was looking for my next career move, one of Presto’s board members whom I knew, from a well-known venture capital firm, called me and asked whether I wanted, “my old job back.” Apparently the VP of Marketing Presto had hired was leaving and I now had my second chance at the job. By that time Presto had a new CEO and when I met him he asked whether I wanted the job. I said, “Aren’t you going to interview me? He replied, “Everyone else already has, I’m just the new guy, so why start over from scratch?” So I accepted the job in 2007 and that started my history in the aging/wellness/digital health space. Who knew that a mere year-and-a-half later, I would replace that man as Presto’s CEO. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”Peter Radsliff, CEO Presto Services” link=”” color=”#69AE22″]”From a marketing standpoint, the minute you brand something as being for old people, you make it less marketable as a product.“[/pullquote]

Q: What’s the history of Presto? How did the product come about?

A: Like a lot of products in this industry, a well-known entrepreneur was having trouble communicating with his father who didn’t use a computer, and he said to himself, “You know, there’s got to be a better way.” What was different and interesting about Presto’s founding story is that the company was incubated inside one of the world’s largest venture capital firms. Presto actually started within their office complex and spent a year and half researching how to address this perceived communications gap, whether a new device for interaction with non-PC users could succeed, and what form it should take.

At first, the thought was that they should develop a simple-to-use 2-way electronic communication device. They were, in essence, trying to design an iPad-like device in 2004, long before Apple’s introduction of the iPad in 2010. In hindsight, this was a pretty ambitious project for a startup. It turned out, the senior subjects in the research study didn’t want an electronic device. At the time, there were a lot of additional costs with digital communications, setting up broadband to the home, or cellular services. And bottom line, this type of gadget just wasn’t wanted by the test subjects. So the team went back to the drawing board to ask, what else could Presto be?

Then someone had the idea of using plain-old 8 ½ x 11 inch paper. Working models were made, and more research done, sending email and photos over standard telephone lines that would automatically print out in high resolution and full color. Neither a computer, nor broadband Internet service was necessary for the system. One big worry was the complex user experience and cost of developing hardware with a built-in scanner to enable handwritten scan-and-email replies, but what the research subjects resoundingly stated was that they knew how to reply to an electronic letter, they picked up the phone and called back! So Presto decided to partner with HP to develop the Presto Printing Mailbox. Presto developed the cloud service with many other features for family caregivers, and HP developed the hardware. FOTO PPM

Q: Does that change the way we provide aging services?

A: When a family caregiver has only in-person visits or phone calls to communicate with their mom or dad, that’s a pretty frustrating and limited set of options. Since few people write letters anymore and the speed of life is way faster than the mail carrier, there needs to be some other way to create a visual way to communicate and provide a persistent record of delivered information. Can you even imagine a world without email or text messaging today? Without visual communication and a persistent record, you lose a huge amount of efficacy in the dialogue. Bottom line, Presto provides almost instant written communication between people in the digital world and those who don’t participate, or who struggle with it.

A while ago I received a note from a Presto end-user, a grandmother. The note was on purple, flowery stationery and handwritten in cursive. I’ll never forget it. She wrote to tell me how much Presto had helped her life. How her son lived in another state, but she’d just that morning received a picture of a sonogram of her grandchild about to be born. She ended her note saying, “Thank you, from all the mothers.” As CEO of a technology firm, that’s the reason why I get out of bed every morning.

Q: So, what would you change about this industry?

A: I’d like to see us stop defining people by age. Age really has nothing to do with this industry, we’re ALL aging! One way to look at it is to think about the healthcare industry. The vast majority of healthcare dollars spent in America are spent in the patient’s last few years of life. It’s actually shocking when you look at the healthcare system as a whole. That could have defined the healthcare industry as primarily an ‘age-related’ set of activities. But of course, healthcare is healthcare; people get sick at all ages, and receive treatment at all ages. What if we applied the same reasoning to our industry? Just like healthcare, our products are used proportionately by one age group, seniors, but we should look at them as people first, not by their age.

Belief sets arise and create a divide between those who think of themselves as old and those who don’t. From a marketing standpoint, the minute you brand something as being for ‘old’ people, you make it less marketable as a product, less interesting to news outlets, and investors, less likely to be developed and used where it can do the most good. It’s part and parcel of our youth-obsessed society. I’d like to see us reframe the discussion so it’s not always an age thing, and that would be big step forward.

Q: I hear you’re making some changes. So, what’s next for you?

A: What’s next for me? I’m going back to my product design and development roots. I did my undergraduate and graduate work at San Francisco State University’s Design and Industry department where I later joined the faculty. I have recently been advising students there who have made it to the finals of the ‘Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge’ which is being judged April 4, 2016. I am also taking on some strategic marketing and product advising work at my consulting firm, Product Alchemy (www.prodalchemy.com), where we help our client’s products and services realize their full potential.

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