Facebook’s philosophy could one day harm even the cautious. You might have skipped Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Or if you read the paper, you might have passed up an article entitled When Deepest of Secrets Get Outed on Facebook. It was purportedly about young people who joined a gay chorus that had an open Facebook group – and as a result, their parents learned they were gay. But this article reflects a much larger issue -- Facebook's default strategy is sharing information -- with companies and through groups that users believe to be private – and the CEO believes that this default strategy is acceptable and appropriate. No need to restate it when Mark Zuckerberg says it so well. In an interview about the rise of Facebook called The Facebook Effect he observes: "The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly." But did we understand this and really, do we all get the picture?
Smart phone plans: a super-sized way for carriers to make a buck. McDonald’s now has to tell you the calories in a Big Mac, but Verizon and AT&T don’t need to warn you that watching videos on your phone will suck up the monthly minutes on your data plan faster than a vacuum cleaner picks up dirt. So while only 11 percent of the 65+ have smart phones, they are part of the 50% of households that have one or some. Instead of being told upload-download speeds, storage capacity on the phone, and how to video conference the whole family in, how about giving you a WARNING sheet that shows price equivalents (like calories) of the various activities you think you want -- and how these activities fit into or drive up charges beyond your data plan? How about handing you a sheet that outlines all hidden costs? If that doesn’t make you blink, then ask what percentage of customers exceed these plans and what the average monthly bill is for customers with the type of phone you're considering? And if that data doesn’t make you blink, you obviously can afford to both buy dinner and own the phone.
Stick versus carrot: re-admission penalties emerge October 1st. This may be much ado about nothing – but October is the month that hospitals begin being 'penalized' for readmitting the same patients within 30 days of discharge. What’s that mean in dollars and cents? Well, by forcing hospitals to focus on what are euphemistically called 'transitions' -- cuts of anywhere from 0.42 percent to 1 percent in revenue loom. Or look at the flip side: CMS gets back $280 million from 2200 hospitals immediately. And who are those pesky people who have been re-admitted? Surprise, they are disproportionately comprised of seniors, initially with diseases like pneumonia, heart attack and heart failure, with more diagnoses added each year.
Wow – twice in a week, accusations of ‘commercialism’. An epiphany – occasionally I have them. The backdrop: In Incident A, a future topic I am discussing at an aging services event was (at least temporarily) classified as ‘commercial’ versus ‘educational’ because vendor executives were to be on the panel, jeopardizing the continuing education credit that attendees might get. Then, the very next day, Incident B: a proposed slide deck was critiqued by (different) organizers with the recommendation to remove slides that had many vendor logos. Why? Because it might be perceived by sponsors as commercials for those vendors – again jeopardizing continuing education credits.
Rounding up from a series of press releases over the past two months, here are some new (and very new!) technologies and/or services that may be new to you for use by or in support of older adults. All material is from vendor published information:
Care Technology Systems and Qualcomm Life Join Forces. "A cloud-based system, Qualcomm Life's 2net Platform enables companies, providers and users to capture data from any wireless medical device and deliver it to integrated portals or databases, storing it in a secure and reliable system. Information can be easily retrieved by physicians, caregivers or other critical audiences, such as designated healthcare service companies, providers, payors, pharmaceutical companies and application/device collaborators, for use in healthcare decisions. CTS utilizes the 2net Platform to provide PERS, ADL monitoring and biometrics." Learn more at Care Technology Systems.
About those ad words – can we outsmart them? Just read an approving and syndicated Times article about the latest data-driven tech that uses what we access online to present us with more of the same. Given my predilection to write e-mails about the age-related technology space, the all-knowing Google regularly presents me with ads for products based on the messages I send and receive. Some ads are for vendors who are my clients, none of them are my suppliers. As is typical, I don’t notice for a while and then – in a flash, out of the corner of my eye, I see – duh, there’s a pattern here. So I do what you all should do regularly – tell Google these not only aren’t relevant, YOU are not who they think you are, you are someone else. You can opt out – but, sigh, "Google may still show relevant ads based on the content of a web page" that you are viewing. But it will not ‘collect’ your interest-based information to show you more relevant content. Whew. By looking at your ads preference manager page, you can, however, change your demographic profile – making yourself older/younger than you actually are (or what Google thinks you are). This may be a wise move.
Is usability testing prior to release a lost art for smart phone software? This is a big month for new phone launches -- first Nokia and Microsoft, then iPhone, then Android. Wonder how well they'll all work? Here’s an arcane little item from a now-dated phone: If you accidentally or on purpose double tap the Home symbol on a Droid 2, the device thinks you want to speak and so a female voice barks at you "PLEASE say a command." (This is with the phone set on silent.) Arrgghh. The fix, after slogging around the Droid forums, is of course obvious, if you know where to look: remap the double tap on home to do something else, like launch a browser. Of course, why didn't I think of that? Thanks to the Internet, a stupid and obscure flaw that baffles the user (see those Internet posts dating back a few years) has a stupid fix. Meantime, until you find that fix, your device starts talking cheerfully and insistently from a purse or at a hushed banquet table – “PLEASE SAY A COMMAND!” while you look around embarrassed and a bit terrified, trying to turn the phone off, pull the battery, anything but the phone speaking when you called for silence. PLEASE, you just want it to shut up. This irritation has even spawned an app called HomeSmack to overcome this flaw. Perfect. And how charmingly-named.
The best consumer tech is barely out-of-the-box usable – for anyone. iPad, Schmipad. Although there is always a story here or there about one who loves the device and wants to teach others (60 days of classes!!!), apps like Family Ribbon to make it easier to use continue to pop up along with training both in store and beyond. So in the face of so much enthusiasm, it is hard for me to say this, but guess what? If you aren’t born imagining that 4 fingers would reveal the already created task row of previously used apps, that menus disappear, that the style of user interface for various apps is inconsistent, that screen-to-screen navigation varies from touching a tiny dot at the screen base to swiping a swoop to the next page, 60 days of training sounds like a pretty good idea. And as far as user interface design, this is the best of the best and it is not acceptable!
Are we at the crossroads of care? We are at an interesting and somewhat ominous crossroads in the care of those with dementia. AARP (and the media that quote them endlessly) repeat that adults want to remain in their own home as they age. Nice goal, but, not such a good fit for everybody. So combine the growing longevity of middle class adults with the beginnings of a multi-year revival in home sales and perhaps home prices, seniors may have an easier time selling and moving that will shift the average age of residents below today's age 89. To families searching for options, expensive assisted living memory units may look like good care options for those with serious functional memory loss. But are they really good care?
