My last post about senior email referenced a review from Amazon that described the value families get from hooking up their parents or grandparents digitally. For this post, I asked someone who didn’t know anything about Presto to read about it and write down what they thought the value was. This provided an “outsiders” perspective that is uncolored by actual use of the product, or from any pressure to write a review than panders to a particular audience. I found it interesting and hope you like it. Thanks to the author (who asked to remain anonymous) — Peter Radsliff, CEO, Presto Services Inc.

“In today’s internet savvy world everything is done digitally including updating family members. But what about family members who don’t want to mess with email, can't afford a computer or simply do not want one?

Postal offices are quickly fading and a phone call can only provide so much. 
It certainly can

A “gift for dad” chronicled through an Amazon.com review by S. Johnson in Dallas, Texas. This person captures the benefit of Presto’s email machine for seniors better than anything we could say.

Here is the text of the Amazon review that is depicted above:

[five stars] Christmas is coming up- Best senior gift EVER!!!, December 4, 2011
by S. Johnson "xxp00" (Dallas) 

If you are searching for a holiday gift idea for that senior citizen/baby boomer in your life...THIS IS IT!!!

My mom was always the designated tech-ie...my dad would always had her the cell phone when it rang...she managed the computer and email account...and when we gave him his own laptop to try and bring him into the communication loop....he used it for playing checkers!

Envision the setting: Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher—the high priest and priestess of technology from the Wall Street Journal—onstage at their D4 All Things Digital conference in 2006,about to see Presto revealed to them, the audience, and the world.

Photo: Wall Street Journal

A photo of them is snapped by a Palm Treo smartphone, then attached to an email message, and sent. Moments later, that photo automatically prints out of a device the world has never seen before. A device that prints out messages and photo attachments sent via email, that are beautifully formatted, at high resolution, in full color—without being connected to a computer or the Internet! And with that single sheet of paper emerging from the HP Printing Mailbox, Presto computerless email was born.

Today, hundreds of thousands of family members rely on Presto to send their parents and grandparents not only email, but also airline boarding passes, Fandango tickets, medication reminders, Facebook photos and more.  

As uninterested as I am in trying to piggyback on the misfortune of another, I feel compelled to write something about a person whom I’ve never met, yet who has fundamentally changed who I have become: Steve Jobs.

My Apple journey started in 1983. I was taking one of my final courses at San Francisco State University learning how to program in Basic. I created a program that was aimed at teaching very young children the difference between interacting with a keyboard and just mashing all of the keys. My goal was to complete this final course and graduate with my B.A. in Industrial Arts. But what resulted was a lifelong fascination with technology, its uses, and misuses.

Part of that class experience resulted in my accidentally erasing all 4,000 lines of my newly finished code by using the wrong DOS command. As painful as it was to spend three hours retyping all 4,000 lines referencing a paper printout, not graduating by failing my last class would have been worse. I counted myself lucky, but learned an important lesson the hard way about the benefits of good user interface. 

We've been thinking lately about what healthy aging is, for both the elder person and those who take care of them. Here are some articles on these topics that we find interesting. What do you think?

Title: Middle-aged women care for everyone but themselves
From: USA Today
Re: Middle-aged American women now have the lowest well-being of any age group, according to startling findings of a study by Gallup-Healthways.

Title: Lifestyle changes may cut Alzheimer's risk
From: Agence France-Presse
Re: Relatively simple lifestyle changes such as increasing physical activity and quitting smoking could have a dramatic impact on the number of Alzheimer's cases over time

Title: In old age, illness and dying can be postponed
From: NPR
Re: Research in aging shows that once people reach a certain age, rates of disease, disability and death start to decline.

There is an extremely helpful communications tool for family members who make decisions about the support and care of their aging parents and who need a simple, convenient, and cost-effective way to communicate with them.

It’s called “Presto” and it consists of a specially designed printer and online service that work together to bridge the technology gap and redefine the way families can share their lives, conversations, and information. And it does this while allowing everyone to still use the methods of communication each one prefers.

Here are the top ten reasons Presto has proven to improve the lives of parents or grandparents and all of their family members, as well.

10. Presto makes it easy to gamble on its claims. With a 60-day no-risk guarantee, you can “bet” that your parents or grandparents will love it, and if they don’t you can send it back for a full refund.

I was at my mother-in-law’s house and took note of the two Hummel figurines on her living room side table shown above. She is an avid collector of Hummel, Royal Doulton, Lladro, and Belleek figurines. Though not exactly my style, I always like to stay open-minded to what others perceive as valuable and artistic.

It got me to thinking of not only how my kids would remember their grandparents, but how I would want to be remembered by their kids when that time comes (I’ve got quite a few years yet before that). Will my “style” look as outdated and quaint to them as the frock coat, shawl and apron on the Hummel figurines look to my eyes?

Moreover, do my kids see their grandparents as “cool” in their own right? Or are they just nice “old” people who spoil them whenever they can? Are these questions even pertinent considering they are probably perennial?

Grandfathers! What describes yours best? I wish I knew the original author of the venn diagram above, because I think it is one of the funniest and most accurate expressions of what makes grandfathers special that I have ever seen. Put another way, what if I asked, “What do fedora hats, epic tales of adventure and body odor have in common?” Would you have said, “My grandfather!”?

This example illustrates how useful venn diagrams can be in helping you look at a topic from multiple vantage points. It also may just possibly help you better understand your elder loved ones.

What might you have put as the three disparate big ideas that ultimately overlap at “your grandfather”? How about: gravelly voice, questionably accurate stories, pencil-thin moustache, hard of hearing, yellow teeth, members-only jacket, technophobes, people with hearts of gold, freely given hugs…the list goes on.

If you are lucky enough to have a grandparent who is still living, what would their venn diagram be? Or what would you choose for the grandparents of your own children (i.e. your own parents). Moreover, what would your kids say about your parents?

Here are some of the articles we found interesting this week. What are you reading?

Title: A New Credential for Home Care Aides
From: the New York Times
Re: Finding competent home care aides just got a little easier

Title: The Silver Tsunami
From: The Economist
Re: Businesses will have to learn how to manage an ageing workforce.

Title: Helping Seniors Grow Old at Home, Safely
From: NPR
Re: New technologies and services make it possible for seniors to age in their own homes.

Title: Vast Gene Study Yields Insights on Alzheimer's
From: the New York Times
Re: Five new genes have been identified that provide clues to why the disease strikes and how it progresses.

Title: The Best Walking Partner: Man vs. Dog
From: The New York Times
Re: People who walk dogs are more consistent in their exercise and show greater improvements in fitness.

— Here I am with enchanting author, Guy Kawasaki —

I am constantly amazed at how so many people I come in contact with in business are rude, pushy and self-centered, as if those are the only tools for achieving success. Obviously they have not read Guy Kawasaki’s new book, “Enchantment” but they should. In it, he teaches “the art of changing hearts, minds and actions” — something many business leaders and product developers would do well to learn. At Presto, we try hard to not only be enchanting in our business dealings, but to make our product and service enchanting to use. This is a bottoms-up philosophy that is embodied by all of the people who work at Presto. We endeavor to make product design decisions that provide surprise and delight to the users of Presto as they experience it.

I’m certain that we at Presto don’t always achieve our desired level enchanting experience in everything that we do, but we aspire to

I know, I know…you aren’t a “caregiver.” A caregiver is someone you hire. You are family and are just “helping” your Mom or Dad as any good child would do. You are also in denial.

You ARE a caregiver—albeit a family caregiver—and you DO need help so that you don’t experience declining health, or worse, because of the strain of caregiving. Help is available from a large number of companies, many of whom got started because their founders were just like you: family caregivers who struggled with keeping it together and they thought, “There has to be a better way.” Here are some examples of products and services that eased the burden of caregiving while providing a better quality of life for Mom and Dad.

GrandCare Systems (www.grandcare.com) - an integrated system that allows an elder loved one to stay in their own home safely while being connected digitally to the extended family. It does this through a number of sensors and other devices connected to a computer with simplified and specialized touchscreen interface. Mom or Dad can stay in touch to the extended family without needing to learn anything about a computer while you can monitor their activities of daily living to ensure they aren't declining in health or activity level.

[ This is a reissue of a blog post I wrote August 13, 2009 to comment on the death of the inventor of the electric guitar, multi-track recording and many other innovations, Les Paul. I am reissuing it today because Google put an interactive guitar as today's Google Doodle to commemorate Les Paul's birthday. Happy Birthday Les. ]

There are two legendary guitars: the Gibson Les Paul, and the Fender Stratocaster. I own them both. They are both incredible instruments, with highly unique tones that make them stand out of the crowd of many other instruments that are wonderful in their own right. And with a high degree of accuracy, I can listen to a recording and tell you which artist is playing a Les Paul, and which is playing a Strat; their tones are that distinct. But the fact that these legendary instruments exist at all — the fact that rock and roll exists as we know it

A friend of mine and I were talking today about how seemingly random events have made radical changes in our lives. 
He related the story of how he was chosen for a program where high-achieving students from around the U.S. were selected to participate in an event with famous and influential motivational speakers. He said that although he was a good student, he was not very motivated and was planning to attend a community college and see where life would take him.

However, after the intensive three-day program that was populated with 500 high school students from the nation’s top schools—most of which were planning on attending Ivy-League universities—he questioned his tepid approach to personal achievement and realized that it was up to him to take charge of his future like those in the program around him. Subsequently, he started at that community college, but then transferred to Stanford, achieved his degree in engineering, and found his soulmate and future wife while at school. He now has been married for over 15 years, has two beautiful children, a fabulous home in Palo Alto, and is considered a

In 2011, what does an organization do to raise awareness for an important societal issue? They organize a flash mob! Today a group of Dancing Grandmas invaded Times Square in New York to bring awareness to planning for long term health needs. On behalf of a non-profit named 3in4 Need More, the group hopes their efforts with jumpstart a campaign to raise awareness for the majority of people who are ill-prepared for the crushing costs of long term health care.

I noticed that the non-profit is supported by a number of long term insurance carriers and brokers (no surprise there), but this doesn’t lessen the real need for people to take charge of their future by planning ahead instead of taking a “come what may” attitude. The way I see it, it’s like a number of floss and toothpaste companies raising awareness for proper dental hygiene—it doesn

Interesting concept in this video about a study from the Center from Connected Health that found health benefits directly attributable to using text messaging (see video here). No, this doesn't validate what your kids have been trying to tell you for years now. It means that treatments for certain conditions can be made more effective through the application of new communication technologies such as text messaging.

Whether you are trying to remember to take medications on time, or need to be alerted to some negative condition going on in your own body that requires quick treatment, having an automatic feedback loop could save your life. Imagine… arrhythmia > wearable monitor > connected health monitoring service > patient smartphone—it’s a feedback loop that could change the face of medicine. Now, if we could only get our primary care physician's to read and answer email!

How about you? Would you be interested in adopting technology that forced you stay in closer touch with what was going on in your own body? Please comment below.

Email for seniors has long been a troublesome issue for families. Many have tried to get mom or dad to adopt a computer, and have failed. This effectively cut them off from most of the interpersonal communications that goes on between family members these days.

In a major step towards solving this problem for many families, today we are announcing that Presto has signed an agreement with Minnesota-based Ecumen, the leading innovator in senior housing and services, to make Presto Mail service available to Ecumen-at-home customers [click here to read press release].

Ecumen had been looking for a solution to connect various family members with their customers who didn’t use computers, and they found it in Presto. Ecumen’s Chief Information Officer, Larry Jorgensen said, “The absence of complexity is what caused us to choose Presto.” and “Presto provides an elegant way to link our customers to their friends and family all over the world without anyone needing to learn anything new.

The way we are used to finding and buying products could be described like this:

Make > See > Like > Pay > Get.

This model of getting products to market is very efficient for companies who want to sell a lot of something in a short amount of time. But that model pre-supposes they know what people will buy and it requires them to take the financial risk of designing, manufacturing and advertising a product hoping it will sell and make a profit.

A growing number of entrepreneurs are turning this model on its head to:

See > Like > Pay > Make > Get.

In this new world, products are envisioned and shown to interested people first, and only if enough of them "buy" the product ahead of time is the product then made. The first one I came across was from a design firm that created two versions of a watchband than turned an Apple iPod Nano into a very cool

Although my blog mainly centers around family communication, one of the things you will often see are discussions of inspirational, iconic or transformative moments and the leaps of faith that sometimes accompany them. I came across one such moment when I watched a video of a speech given by Dr. Bill Stone at a TED conference. I came away from watching this with the following thoughts…

• Dr. Stone is either a kook, or a tremendously inspirational adventurer and leader of whom I am envious, and would support wholeheartedly.

• There are still people of courage in the world who are interested in advancing our understanding of the universe at no small risk to themselves.

• Inspiration comes from when we think outside of ourselves, whether from a work of art, or a scientific endeavor

• And that the world could use a bit more inspiration these days

My three kids never experienced the magic of Mercury, Gemini or waking in the middle of the night to watch Apollo's Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the moon a mere 8-1/2 years after John F. Kennedy challenged a nation to do so. They never marveled at Skylab, Hubble, the early Shuttle missions or experienced the horror of when the Challenger seven slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God. They grew up in a world where having a permanently orbiting space station crewed by Americans, Russians and others was the norm of the day and the grounding of the Shuttle fleet with no replacement on the horizon is nothing of which to be particularly aware.

As I wrote about in my blog post on May 2, Presto is creating a “virtual community” around the topic of family communications and how families are redefining the way they share their lives, conversations and information. In my dual roles as CEO of Presto Services, and Chairman of the Aging Technology Alliance, I come across a lot of great articles that have to do with families and how they are evolving in the ways that they interact and consume information. Occasionally, I will list the best of those articles and post them in this series. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Title:   Wired Homes Keep Tabs On Aging Parents
From:  NPR's Morning Edition by Jennifer Ludden
Re:     Baby boomers are now using remote monitoring systems to help take care of their aging parents.

Title:   Betty White To Host New NBC Reality Show