Tom Kamber

For years, I’ve steered most seniors users toward PCs  since the computers run the basic internet browser software very well, and this is the most common application needed by older users.  In addition, PCs are significantly cheaper, are the most common machines used in the workplace (this helps seniors stay relevant if they are planning to keep working), and are still much more widely used than Apple machines.  This means that when an older user needs technical assistance, they’re more likely to find help from a relative or friend that uses a PC.  Conversely, I’ve recommended Apple to older adults who have more money to spend, care about the more attractive form factor of the Apples, and have a friend or family member who is also an Apple user who will help them when they get stuck.

These days, I wonder if the recently released Apple iPad might not be starting to change the equation.  The popular tablet computer is lower priced than other Apple computers ($499), is simpler to use than most PCs, and benefits from Apple’s excellent customer service.  At the same time, it’s not as versatile as a PC and isn’t a great tool for office applications.  Personally, I’m a committed PC user.  I tried a Mac for about 18 months and finally gave up and back to the PCs.  I use Microsoft software products for about 95 percent of my computing, and they just don’t work very well on the Mac. 

I would be very interested to hear from older adults who have tried Apple computers, especially the iPad.  What do you think?  Are these good machines for older users?  What are some of the advantages and trade-offs? 

During the last presidential election, a friend of mine pointed out that a huge proportion of the information that was available about candidates and campaigns was only accessible via the Web.  We shared several gripe sessions about how this might interfere with participation by older adults in public affairs.  Since most seniors are still not regular Internet users, we worried that the technology gap was undermining the ability of older individuals to make change in the world around them.

But lately I've encountered a few examples that suggest seniors may be getting more comfortable using technology for social action.  The most powerful moments came during the initial response to the Haitian earthquake.  The day after the quake, I was at the Robert Couche Senior Center in Queens doing an Internet Safety workshop with June Jee from the Verizon Foundation.  Everyone was shocked by the devastation and people were asking what they could do to help.  We demonstrated how people could text the word "Haiti" to a number on any Verizon cell phone and immediately donate $10 to the relief efforts.  I was really amazed at how receptive people were to using their phones for this sort of purpose.  I think a lot of the seniors in the room were pleased to be able to do something simple to help, and even though technology was involved, it was simple enough that anyone could do it with a little help.

A week later I was at the AARP office in Manhattan, where OATS is working on a project to help use technology to empower AARP volunteers to carry out projects in their communities, and one of the staff mentioned that AARP had raised over a million dollars for the Haiti relief effort.  Apparently, AARP set up a secure donation form on their website and marketed it to their membership, which donated over $500,000 in just a few days.  AARP matched the donations with resources from their foundation and made sure the money reached reputable charities doing quality work.

These are just two examples of how technology is being used by older adults to help those in need during a time of crisis.  I can imagine a time very soon when the majority of seniors are active users of online tools that provide support to others, shape the debate around key topics, and even influence public policy.  OATS has been working on a series of trainings to support these kinds of technology uses by older adults, and we've had a very positive response from the first groups of people in the program.  As this fantastic piece in The New York Times points out, the wave of the future may involve seniors using technology not just for connecting to friends and family or managing health information, but also helping to make the world a better place.  The sooner, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

OK, so I'm wading into some intense controversy on this one...

It seems to me that, to the extent possible, we should seek to adapt our existing social norms to new technologies, and vice versa. So when I use my cell phone in public, I try to act exactly as I would if I were actually walking along talking with a friend next to me. I remain aware of the people around me and speak at a low-to-normal volume. If I step into a store, I excuse myself momentarily from the call when it's time to pay. I make eye contact with people on the sidewalk and smile, maybe just to let them know that even if I'm chatting on the phone I'm not oblivious to their existence.

But I know a lot of people find it irritating to see others talking on cell phones, no matter how courteous they may be. Some stores have "no cell phone" signs, which seems excessive to me. Would they ban people from entering with a friend and carrying on a polite conversation while they shop?

Of course, some people are obnoxious with or without their cell phones--like people who take calls at the movie theater! But I'm not sure that has anything to do with cell phones in particular. What do people think about this? Is there any reason that we can't just use the same etiquette with cell phones that we do when we're chatting with a friend who is physically present?

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that a number of states, including Arkansas, Michigan, and Iowa, have now passed legislation that imposes more severe penalties on people and companies that victimize senior citizens with financial scams. In essence, these states are levying “enhanced penalties” when the victim of a financial crime is over the age of 65. In the case of Arkansas, the penalty is double the normal fine, which strikes me as a pretty serious deterrent.

I have long felt that criminals and scam-artists who target older adults should receive more severe sentences. This goes beyond expression of concern and sympathy for elderly crime victims—there is a compelling public policy justification for treating elder-crime as a different class of infraction.

Older adults are systematically victimized by criminals, whether through violent crimes, financial scams, or even online. Many criminals hope to take advantage of the physical frailty, social isolation, or cognitive limitations of some seniors, and they disproportionately focus on elderly individuals when they commit crimes. The result? More social isolation, depression, and distrust among seniors, leading to serious declines in quality of life and physical and mental health.

The Journal article cited several sources who were opposed to the increased penalties, but I think seniors deserve extra protection, and that criminals who target older individuals on purpose should face stronger sanctions and deterrents. New York State was not mentioned among the states where these enhanced penalties are being considered.

What do we have to do to get our public officials in New York State to focus on this issue?

We’re cleaning up some records at OATS today, and I noticed some pretty great numbers from our training programs last year. In lieu of an annual report, I’ll just post some results here on the blog. These are summaries for the calendar year 2008.

Total older adults served: 1,015
Total youth served: 78
Total class sessions taught: 1,765

Sessions by Site:
High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry 32
RAIN Bailey Senior Center 40
Brooklyn Bridge Academy 52
Caring Community Center on the Square 80
Castle Hill Senior Center 160
DOROT USA 4
East-West School for International Studies 20
Frederick E. Samuel Senior Center 140
Manhattan Hunter Science High School 52
Jewish Home and Hospital Bronx 21
Jewish Home and Hospital Manhattan 46
Harlem One-Stop Alice Kornegay Senior Community Center 40
RAIN Middletown Senior Center 40
Prospect Park YMCA 121
RAIN Parkchester Senior Center 40
SAGE 81
Dr. Betty Shabazz ATTAIN Lab 80
Shore Hill Housing / Lutheran Family Services 40
Washington-Lexington Senior Center--Union Settlement 120
Davidson Senior Center 40
RAIN Eastchester 60
Glenwood Senior Center 40
Jackson Presbyterian 80
Lincoln Square 96
Linkage House 40
Phipps Opportunity Center 60
Rain Boston Road 80
SelfHelp 60

My favorite number from our surveys:

Over 85 percent of seniors who participate say the program makes them feel more connected to friends and family.

Not a bad year, all things considered!

I do some occasional woodworking as a hobby, but I never thought it would give me any insight into the world of technology until I bought a Ryobi table saw about ten years ago. My wife and I had just moved into a townhouse in Brooklyn that had been abandoned for ten years and the place needed a lot of work. I needed a cheap, reliable saw for cutting door moldings and shelves, and eventually for building some furniture for the apartment.

Ryobi sells entry-level power tools to weekend woodworkers through chain stores and over the Internet, and I had never thought of them as an attractive brand until I came across an Internet forum discussing their uniquely designed BT3000 table saw. This particular saw has a sliding miter table design which is unusual in a low-cost tool, and even though Ryobi is not known for durability or extreme precision, this internet forum positively buzzed with enthusiasm from owners who used the saw and wanted to share their tips and projects.

I felt weirdly voyeuristic as a latte-drinking Park Slope yuppie reading technical posts by midwestern guys named Don and Gene about the finer points of joinery, motor maintenance, dust collection, and how to fit a wood shop in the garage next to the Oldsmobile station wagon. But the discussions were fascinating and informative, and the photos posted by forum members provided inspiration that beautiful things could be made with limited resources and experience.

I bought the saw and enjoyed several years of reliable service from it before our family expanded and we took over the basement wood shop for storage space. In the meantime, I continued to be amazed by the passion and dedication from the Ryobi forum members. My favorite thread involved one gentleman from Illinois who built half of a cutting jig to make a piece of furniture but couldn’t figure out how finish the project. He ended up shipping it to another forum member in Australia, who finished it for him and shipped it back. They posted a photo of the completed project on the forum.

I haven’t been back to the forum in several years, but I checked this morning and they have over 100,000 posts on various topics, including 19,000 posts about the power saw itself. You can take a look by following this link here. This is obviously considerably more information than any one individual needs to know, but it gives a little window into the information-rich environment that surrounds commerce in the Internet age. Ryobi did a smart thing by sponsoring the forum, even through not all the posts were favorable, because it ultimately led to the creation of a passionate community of loyal customers. From what I understand, the feedback on the forum also helped Ryobi redesign later versions of their saw for increased reliability.

There was a great article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal this weekend on how technology can be used to curb the excesses of corporate behavior. Apparently, Monster Cable, the company that makes high-end audio-video cables, has a longstanding practice of suing anyone who uses the word “monster” in any sort of business, including t-shirt makers, theme parks, and baseball stadiums (think Red Sox, “Green…).

The article tells the story of how one couple, sued for using the name “Monster Mini Golf” for their business, decided to fight back by creating a web-based campaign to spread the word about Monster Cable’s overly aggressive trademark protection. Websites and bloggers picked up the story and hundreds of angry consumers contacted Monster Cable about the lawsuit. The company dropped the lawsuit and reimbursed the couple’s legal fees.

I’ll take some time in my next post to explore what this means from a larger perspective, but for now, it’s great to see how technology can be used to hold companies accountable to basic standards of corporate responsibility.

I've been away from the blog for awhile, so I'm going to jump back in with a few "thank you's" that are long overdue. There are a lot of people who have helped so much in the past few months, and it’s really important to take a minute and recognize some of them.

- Garrison Phillips, who has been an amazing blogger on Senior Planet and whose encouraging emails always seem to come just when I’m having a really frustrating day.
- Abby Stokes, Neil Harrison, David Dring, and Julie Pfeffer, our new board members who are already making an enormous difference for us in countless ways.
- Renee Martinez, Rob Finkenthal, Barbara Tawil, and the rest of the OATS staff and consultant crew who have worked so hard and so well to advance our mission.
- Julio Urbina and Lauren Weisenfeld at the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels foundation, Kathryn O’Neal Dunham and Juanita Ayala at United Way of NYC, Len McNally at New York Community Trust, Ben Esner at Independence Community Foundation, and Walter Shay at ConEdison—these philanthropic supporters have kept OATS alive this year after our budget was cut 90 percent in the City Council last June.
- Speaking of City Council, we still receive critical support from Christine Quinn, Gale Brewer, Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Annabel Palma, Bill de Blasio, Vincent Gentile, Melissa Mark Viverito, Inez Dickens, and Rosie Mendez. Individual discretionary allocations from these councilmembers make up about a third of the OATS budget.
- Bridget Gallagher at Jewish Home Lifecare, Sean Andrews at the Prospect Park Y, Michael Adams at SAGE, Plinio Ayala at Per Scholas, Maria Alejandro at Union Settlement, Leo Asen at Self-Help, Ben Sherman at the East-West School—all of these partners supported our work and helped us reach more seniors and youth in more communities around the city.
- Jen McGarrity, Arturo O’Farrill, Andrew MacDowell, Yalda Nikoomanesh, Matthew Viragh, Kami Griffiths—all donated time or music or services at a fraction of what they were worth.
- OATS activists Ida Harris, Marie Tomao, Lester Johnson, Art Matarazzo, Shirley Fickling, Areatha Bryant, Charlotte Rogers, and Estelle Owusu.
- Rae Linefsky, Susan Stamler, Eric Brettschneider, Ruth Finkelstein, Caryn Resnick, and Jennifer Weiss, Rob Salkowitz and the rest of the OATS board, who have all given me invaluable advice, support, and encouragement when it really mattered.

OK, so that’s a really long list and I know I left a lot of people out. But it’s also a testament to just how many people believe in what we do at OATS, and how many people refuse to stand on the sidelines when there is important work to be done. Next time I’m feeling empty and frustrated that we’re not making faster progress, I think I’ll look over this list and remind myself just how many people have had our back when we needed it most. Thanks to all of you!

I’m having one of those days when I feel just great about technology, so I thought I’d share before my phone or computer goes on the glitch and my goodwill evaporates!

The first reason it’s “Technology Appreciation Day” for me has to do with my recently ended vacation, which I spent sailing my creaky thirty-year-old sailboat around Long Island Sound. I typically sail alone, and am not a particularly experienced or talented sailor, but the trip was lovely, largely due to several extremely useful technology devices that made things safer, more fun, and less stressful.

I use a cheap Garmin GPS for navigation, depth readings, tides and currents, and even as a fish-finder that tells me when to drop a hook in the water for dinner. I get weather and news on my iPhone, including real-time radar maps that show the movement of thunderstorms in my area. I have a VHF radio for emergencies, and of course use the cell phone as a back-up. When my wife and kids came to spend a few days on the boat, we watched movies on my laptop before bedtime.

All of these devices have limitations and occasional glitches, but together they enable me to spend weeks at a time out on the water, with a much higher level of safety and comfort than would have been possible even ten years ago. They’re not luxury items (my boat is a lot closer to a vintage floating RV than a racing yacht), and for less than the cost of a plane ticket to Florida I can feel reasonable well equipped for cruising around Long Island waters.

Incidentally, I’m meeting quite a lot of older sailors out on the water, and it occurs to me that emerging technologies are making sailing much more accessible for older individuals than it used to be. With all the mechanical winches, electronics, and automated furling systems that come on most boats today, it’s a hobby that is increasingly an option for people with limited strength and agility. And if you use the Internet to search for used boats, you can get some pretty good deals out there!

Secondly, I just found this excellent video of Brooklyn-based author Clay Shirky explaining how many people who used to be couch-potato television addicts are now putting their time into more cognitively stimulating Web-based activities, like editing Wikipedia pages.

I’m already reading Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody, and I haven’t had a TV in my house for many years, so maybe he’s preaching to the converted in my case. But I suspect he’s right that the Web is more engaging and interactive than traditional TV, and I have read some research that suggests cognitive stimulation can help older individuals keep their minds sharp and reduce late-life memory loss.

If Shirky is right, then the Web might be a tremendous boon to older computer users, especially if it leads to less TV watching and more engagement with online collaborations like Wikipedia and blogs.

Guess what I spent seven hours doing yesterday? Installing a wireless router and back-up device for my two computers! The machine--called the Time Capsule--is produced by Apple and is supposed to be a cinch to install. Apparently not. It took the entire day, plus four calls to Apple, one call to Canon, two calls to Vonage, and dozens of Web searches before I got the whole thing figured out.

My data are now backed up, which is the important thing, but I did learn a few lessons:

• Even Apple machines can be a pain to configure at times. Apple has a reputation for simplicity (the Time Machine doesn't even bother with an on-off switch--they assume if you have it plugged in, you want it on), but in my case, things were not so simple. I was linking a MacBook Air laptop to an HP desktop (two different companies and technology platforms), and wanted to link in a Canon printer and Vonage telephone to boot. I seem to have everything working now, except I finally just gave up on the Vonage phone and cancelled the account. I use my cell phone 24/7 anyway.
• Apple tech support really is better quality. The difference in professionalism between the Apple tech people and the ones that picked up the phone at Canon and Vonage was night-and-day.
• Whenever you do anything to set up or configure a computer, printer, backup device, etc., assume a whole day on the phone. This seemed like a simple job but took three times longer than I expected--I can only imagine some of my senior friends dealing with all the troubleshooting and technical problems!

In the end, it was worth it. All my data backed up just fine once I got everything set up, and my wireless signal is stronger with the new device as well.

I hear about problems like this from the seniors at OATS all the time, and I always tell them just to expect hours and hours on the phone with tech support, but that things usually get working fine in the tend. For those of you going through similar aggravation, feel free to call us at the office. We might not be able to solve your specific computer problem, but we can definitely sympathize with how it feels to be on the phone with tech support all day!