senior living

Senior Living organizations are eager to try new technology.  Over the years, consider the pilots of Rendever (virtual reality) at Brookdale, Benchmark’s pilot of Google Home and Samsung tablets, or  CarePredict in LifeWell facilities – just a few of the many. Some pilots are even documented in the form of case studies – about what worked – or what might not have worked.  Pilots are typically newsworthy at their start. And they may produce a list of lessons learned upon completion – or a set of considerations for future pilots. So where does Voice First technology fit into the senior living equation?

Search for the word ‘pilot’ on this site. That is an interesting search – pages and pages of Start Me Up pilots in tech, programs, initiatives large and small, all linked, no doubt to corresponding media spend and press releases.  Think back on the cycles of tech deployment.  Remember the Alpha test, when the product barely worked at all.  After those bugs were uncovered by testers who had scripts designed for successful outcomes, it is time for the Beta test – where selected prospective users are identified, put the offering through its paces, under an assumption that the pilot will be converted to permanent deployment. 

The irony, the irony – everyone saw Europe’s data privacy initiatives.  Why has this taken so long here? In a word – lobbying. The congressional hearing droned on, and Mark Zuckerberg tried so hard not to sound condescending towards his techno-light questioners about the so-called ‘Facebook Scandal.’ Which could have been the Google scandal, the Twitter scandal, or eve Amazon -- consolidation of industry players and using the data to sell them (or make ads ‘more effective’) or as with Amazon, sell them more stuff. The real scandal? Not the Cambridge Analytica role, which didn’t exactly sneak around in the long-time and paid analysis of Facebook data. The real scandal might be last year's $30 million of lobbying spent to avoid controls (and user protection) actions like those considered and in process in Europe.