Rant on. The Times New Old Age take on this weekend's Silvers Summit at CES: "American tech companies, taking notice of the unmistakable demographic trends, have launched a surge." Is Silvers Summit a surge? Are 'major tech companies' actively and broadly engaged? What you're seeing (as described and in CES press releases) is some innovation from small start ups -- and in an unproven market area, it is probably best thought of as experimentation.
Don't get me wrong -- I love my BlackBerry. Really for no reason except that it fairly reliably buzzes wherever I am so that I can read e-mails, 80% of which are basically junk. Which makes me a true junkie, I guess. Otherwise, my PC is vastly preferable -- with its big screen, connected to the fiber that I am lucky enough to have connected to my house. My cheap cell phone is a (slightly) better phone and doesn't make me feel like I am talking on a calculator.
For those of you still staring at your computer screen in 2009, I just have one (!) more thing to say. Okay, well maybe 10 things. Here are my wishes for the tech market that has, but has not yet fully realized, the potential to better serve baby boomers and seniors in 2010.
There are multiple ways to view the technology market for aging in place -- in the 2009 Market Overview, relevance is described as matching stages of frailty, and products are categorized by role in successful aging.
It's the end of the year and time for that wrap-up of the indicators from 2009 that will drive trends for 2010 -- what it all means -- more analysis on another day.
1. Location-aware tech enables more info, greater safety. GPS became even more useful in 2009. Verizon replaced its Chaperone service with Family Locator, The Alzheimer's Association introduced its ComfortZone (powered by OmniLink), several other tracking technology vendors launched, and location-based mapping and direction technologies, 2009 was a good GPS-enabled year.
Time for an update -- more surveys, more vendors. I just updated the Aging in Place Technology Market Overview to incorporate other example vendors and links to studies about seniors and technology.
Another day, another idea from Japan on how to help seniors be and feel safe(r) -- this time from Panasonic. The aging wave or 'silver market' in Japan (22% are 65+) is the fastest growing segment and has prompted numerous corporate experiments on how to care for (or at least keep tabs on) people who have no nearby family.
It seems as though there is a seasonal cluster to everything -- conferences (spring and fall), concerts (fall through spring), and... communication about surveys and studies. During the fall of studies announcements, we've seen some interesting and sometimes ironic juxtapositions:
