Amber Bardon: Welcome to Raising Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Amber Bardon. Today, we have a special episode. We are so excited to announce the launch of a new mini series, Raising Tech Resident Exclusives. Once a month, we will feature an episode dedicated to resident technology, including education, common issues, tips and tricks, and more.
These episodes will be to educate, inform, and update residents on today's technology world. On featured episodes for resident exclusives, we will feature specific content for residents, such as cybersecurity, what streaming services to use, AI for residents and more. For those of you who are not familiar with our Tech@Home program, we are the only senior living technology company that educates residents on how to safely and properly navigate technology. At Parasol Alliance, we offer onsite support for residents with our customized Tech@Home resident technology support services and this personalized program helps residents engage and connect with the world around them through the use of technology. [00:01:00] Our resident technology program has so much to offer we have a dedicated technician for the community.
They work on things such as move in setup, technology device setup they offer drop in sessions for residents to walk in, one on one support, as well as technology classes. And I know from me being on site at multiple communities and speaking to residents, this is a service that I hear them asking for.
Not only is it a day to day support, basically a help desk for residents and a way to solve their technology problems, but I increasingly hear more and more residents ask for education. They want to know what's out there that they're not aware of. They're excited to get more engaged with technology.
And a lot of times they're just not exactly sure where to start and how to stay safe. And so we do a lot of this education and classes through our program for our clients that have that. And we really wanted to offer this to a broader audience. So that's why we're going to be doing these mini series, which is a little bit of content, a little taste of what we offer through our Tech@Home program through our resident exclusive episodes. [00:02:00] So for our first resident exclusive mini series, we're really just going to talk about the program, what it is. We're going to get a little bit into what it looks like and joining me today to talk about this topic. I have James Peck, who is our resident technology manager.
Welcome to the show, James.
James: Thank you, Amber.
Amber Bardon: So James, you've been with us for a few years and you were resident technology assistant for most of that time. So you've recently been promoted up to the manager position, which we're all so excited about. So first I want to hear a little bit more about you. How long have you been in the role?
What led you to want to do this position to work with residents and maybe tell us what your favorite part is.
James: So I've been with the Tech@Home program for about two years now. I saw an opportunity to help an audience of people that's most in need of accessing technology, training, information, and resources. It's been a pleasure working with the residents and seeing them grow over time. One of my favorite things that I get to see is the satisfaction that residents get after their issues are resolved or their questions are answered.
Amber Bardon: That's great. [00:03:00] James, can you share with me a little bit?
What does it look like day to day? So if you're at a community, what types of questions are residents coming to you with? What kind of information are they looking for? What's the most common support issues? Tell me more about your day to day in that role.
James: Some common questions that I get requests from residents pertain to email.
Usually it's things like inbox cleaning. They'll get lots of spam, so maybe we'll set up some spam filters for them, unsubscribe them from mail lists and even create folders for their family communication. And then additionally, just making sure that their email is accessible and secure. So maybe we'll set up a bookmark so they can get to their email.
Autofill login information, and then enable and help them understand what two factor authentication is, how they can use it and how it keeps their account safe. Email keeps residents connected with their community and family. That's a really important one. Another thing is printers. So usually it'd be troubleshooting a lot of printers, unable to print things is most common.
So I'll help them fix printer errors. Usually it's reconnecting devices. [00:04:00] Printers are a big deal to residents, they print off recipes, letters, event flyers, and more. And printers drive a lot of community engagement from what I can see, and also improves their quality of life.
Additionally, just replacing printer ink. Telling them what kinds of ink to buy, where to buy it in person versus online. And then if they're able to show them how to replace the cartridges themselves, otherwise I can help them with that. And lastly, a really common one is scam education and prevention.
So most commonly is responding to scareware. Usually, so it's obstructive pop ups, give you beeping or alarm sounds. So what I do is reassure the residents, there's no harm done with these pop ups and if they're comfortable with it, I'll give them instructions on how to close those pop ups in the future.
Additionally, while I'm there, maybe I'll run a short scan, install an ad blocker for them to keep these things from happening in the future. And then just thank them. Once again for reaching out to Tech@Home and this gives residents a peace of mind while they're using their devices and it brings a lot less fear of being hacked or getting [00:05:00] malware on their devices.
Amber Bardon: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Residents are in their home in these communities and these are all day to day technology items that we're all dealing with in our own homes. And I think it's so great that we could have a resource who can help them be at the ready, walk them through a lot of these common issues and really enable their use of technology day to day.
I want to talk a little bit more about the cyber security aspect, because I know that's something I hear a lot about from our clients is like the number 1 concern with just the high incidence of scams and cyber security incidents and things like that, targeting this population. Can you share a little bit more about the specific concerns that you've heard from residents?
And I know you mentioned a couple of specific things we can do, but can you just touch on maybe some just high level tips and tricks?
James: Absolutely. So one thing to mention is we do offer a class on scam prevention and awareness where we cover these sorts of tips, but some specific things that I get into are being cautious of phone [00:06:00] numbers that get flashed on the screen, telling you that you need to call them for various reasons.
Closing those pop ups or avoiding those phone numbers is by far the easiest way to avoid getting scammed. Another thing too, is just being aware of who is sending you emails. I also help residents identify where the emails are coming from and then how to verify who they're receiving emails from is actually who they think it is.
Amber Bardon: we are going to be doing another in depth episode about cybersecurity in the future. So watch for that. James, from your perspective, from having done this role for a while, how does Tech@Home improve the day to day for residents.
James: The thing that we all have to keep in mind is that Residents do all the same things that we all do in our own lives, whether that be shopping, banking, scheduling appointments, watching TV.
So Tech@Home can help residents stay productive with these things and it definitely increases their satisfaction with technology in general. Additionally, a more specific example is helping our low vision residents with training and interfacing with their devices that can be through screen [00:07:00] magnifiers or shortcuts.
And this also allows them to continue using their devices in the same capability that they used to.
Amber Bardon: James, I know that the technology culture amongst residents really varies site to site at all of our different locations so at some locations, there's a resident steering committee for technology or resident education committee. I know some have coffee hours.
Some have drop in sessions. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience? How do residents typically engage with you? Do they like to start tickets? They like to call? Do they like to walk up? Do you do drop ins? Tell me about how that works
James: Usually residents will do a combination of all those things.
So most commonly residents will reach out to the front desk, and they will assist them with the ticket creation process. Otherwise, I host twice monthly Tech@Home classes, and I encourage all residents to bring in their devices that they're having problems with or if they have questions about.
Additionally, I offer some drop in hours in my office, and if I catch any residents in the hallway who ask me some questions, I can help them [00:08:00] there on the spot.
Amber Bardon: Let's talk a little bit more about the classes and the education. What are some of the topics that we do presentations and classes on?
James: Our class topics vary. Many of them are inspired by news or current events. Like right now, AI is a hot topic. So we have a class on that. In other classes, we cover popular software that residents may be using, like Microsoft Word just generally navigating their email or web browsers and using Google.
And additionally, we do live demonstrations. Usually it's computer navigation, how to get through certain menus, and all that is shared live for residents to view in class, and they can also follow along on their own devices.
Amber Bardon: James, tell me a little bit about how do you educate residents when there can be a really wide variety and not only technology knowledge, but also age ranges.
James: When I'm helping a resident with training devices, I typically assess how the resident is describing their situation and their problem to me. And I like to meet them at their skill level. And there's a big variety. Some residents [00:09:00] like things as simple as possible and are very hands off in the process.
And others like to know exactly what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So they can replicate it in the future. I like to keep my classes at a very general audience level, and keep things very simple, and then sprinkle in some more technical aspects, and I can gauge how the class is going just based on facial expressions and the questions that residents ask and the feedback that they give after classes.
Amber Bardon: I know that can definitely be a challenge just in speaking to some of our other resident technology technicians that there can be such a wide range of technology adoption just based on age or willingness or enthusiasm and a lot of different factors.
So I know we have a lot of great ways to tailor that content to different levels of where the residents are at. So James, I am really wanting to hear from you a story about a resident that you have worked with or helped out with. Is there something memorable that you can share with us?
James: Absolutely.
Very recently, I was helping a resident who was compiling information on her family [00:10:00] history about her homestead in Montana. So she had gone through the process of reaching out to local archives, pulling a lot of information and records that the state had.
And what I was doing was helping her compile this into a digital format and then sending it to a publisher. And it's been a very long process, but my role has been acting as a translator for the resident and the publisher. Thank you. Because the publisher understands and will speak way more technically than the resident is comfortable with.
Just helping with very basic things like installing Microsoft Word, typing everything up, getting scanned images and documents Into a digital format so we can send it off.
Amber Bardon: I love that story. And I think that shows the value of Tech@Home as more than just that support of how does my printer work?
Because you're doing so much more to enable residents to use technology, to preserve these memories, preserve these stories. And I think that's just so amazing. James, thank you so much for [00:11:00] joining me today. It was really great to have you on the show, and I really look forward to hearing more content from you in the future.
James: Yes. And thanks
for having me, Amber. It's been a pleasure.
Amber Bardon: And stay tuned for more resident exclusive content coming.
Thank you for listening.
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