science+health+digital

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Recent Updates.

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I haven't been able to write as much as I usually do the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd catch you up on a few highlights. 

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, ways to contribute and important updates.

Like half of the US, I did the ALS ice bucket challenge.

A friend of mine has ALS, so whether or not you decide to do the challenge, I encourage you to donate to his film. He's an epic storyteller and I cannot wait to see his film. 

Learn more about my friend Patrick. 

Learn more about my friend Patrick. 

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT...THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT...THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT...

Secondly, Patrick uses a computer that is controlled by his eyes to communicate. This is how he talks. It is his only way of communicating. New Medicare laws won't allow computers like his to access the internet or have special software installed on them. If his current computer breaks, he will no longer have the ability to communicate with his friends and family. Please read about this and sign the petition.

You read that, right? IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Voting opened for SXSW 2015 (and I'd like your support).

The community voting period for 2015 SXSW panels has opened up. Community support is an important part in getting your panel accepted. I would LOVE your support. Please read about my panel and watch the amazing video one of my co-panelists put together.

Please vote for 'Enhancing human functionality with technology.'

Please vote for 'Enhancing human functionality with technology.'

Holly, Elliot and I need your support.

And while you're at it, I recommend voting for these worthy panels:

Done voting for everyone? Read more about my interest in the topic. 

I sang karaoke with Jeremy. 

We sang Weezer (2x) and I WAS wearing pants. They were red. 

Jeremy and I have a long history of performing in karaoke bars until we no longer have a voice. Since we haven't lived in the same city for 12+ years these karaoke reunions are noteworthy. 

I named five baby hedgehogs.

My friend Cristina Love named her hedgehog after me after I bullied her into it at our 20 year high school reunion. Well Ms Anna Virginia Picklesworth has been a busy girl and had 5 babies. 

I can probably hook you up if you're looking for a new pet. 

I can probably hook you up if you're looking for a new pet. 

I embarrassingly narrated a bear incident. 

Thanks for reading! My travel scheduled is a bit busier than usual this month (and last) but I will be posting more soon. 

Thanks for reading. All of the articles on VirginiaIngram.com are by Virginia Ingram, a freelance writer, account planner and digital strategist who is consulting in the marketing, social media and caregiving world. She writes regularly here and on Medium.com. If you would like to read something similar, choose from the tags and categories below. If you need help communicating to the people most important to you, you should hire Virginia. 

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SXSW 2015: Enhancing human functionality with technology

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The idea submission period for the panel picker for is officially closed and I'm excited to tell you about my submission for SXSW 2015. I will be building on the 2013 and 2014 conversations and have asked two wonderful panelist to join me for a discussion; Holly Stiles of Disability Rights NC and Elliot Kotek of Not Impossible. 

Enhancing human functionality with technology

As kids we long to be superheroes. We yearn for jetpacks, space travel and teleportation.

Hopes get dashed when we discover Batman's life costs $682 million.

Commoditized space travel thrills us, but then we realize we'll never go. We fund Kickstarter space travel projects and dream practically. We hope for chargerless electronics and productive commutes to work.

Our parents get sick, our peers get debilitating diseases and we take on caregiving responsibilities we didn’t foresee.

We ponder the practicality of jetpacks, realize they may never happen and realize we may be disabled at some point.

We forget about our wishes and look for things to simplify life; ways to interpret needs of someone who can't speak or how to pay for sh*t you need if you fall ill.

It doesn't have to be dismal and we don't have to settle. We can design smarter solutions to make life better for everyone.

Join us for a conversation with advocates who are actively looking at solutions to better humanity.

How are you advocates? Holly is a disability rights lawyer. She has dedicated her life to helping people with disabilities. Eliot is a maker. He works with his team to build solutions that are immediately deployable. Virginia is solving Alzheimer’s related problems and crusading to give a voice to people who are not equipped to speak for themselves.

What do you have against jetpacks? Nothing. We’d love to tool around town with one. However, we often think jetpacks don’t really solve some of our biggest problems and that’s what we’d like to do.

Do you *really* think everyone is going to be disabled? Being disabled means you have a physical or mental condition that limits you. Maybe your movements, maybe your senses or maybe you can’t do all the activity you once could do. All disabilities aren’t catastrophic or permanent, but at some point EVERYONE will have something they can’t do. We hope to shine the light on elegant solutions that work for everyone and look for ways to cost-effectively make lives better.

Do you have any examples of things that were created for someone with disabilities that benefits me? Dragon Dictate was developed for individuals who could not use a keyboard or mouse. It quickly caught on with CEOs who wanted to dictate directly to their computer instead of their assistants. Today, we interact with our friend Siri while driving cars and looking for information.

Why should I care? You probably don’t. But one day you may need to care. When you do, you’ll realize most of us don’t have access to the kind of equipment or services we need to be independent and live at home. If we design for people with disabilities we may be able to find solutions that benefit us all.

Why am I interested in this?

I am the primary caregiver for a family member who has Alzheimer's. Providing care for her, on the heals of my father's death, made me realize we all will become disabled at some point. That disability may be temporary (a broken foot, recovering after having a baby) or it may be permanent (I don't need to be illustrative here). Our world is not set up for this. I want to help solve some of these problems and, in the meantime, I want to advocate for people like Holly Stiles and Elliot Kotek who are doing amazing things to help us solve these huge problems. 

About Holly

Holly Stiles is an attorney who has dedicated the last five years of her practice to advancing the civil rights of individuals with disabilities. She received her Juris Doctorate in a 2007 from New York Law School, and a B.A. in Ancient History from UNC Chapel Hill in 2003. As a person with hearing loss, Holly is keenly interested in how we use technology to include people with disabilities in the world.     

Holly is a lawyer who is looking at the practical realities of living life with disabilities. She believes having a disability doesn’t mean a life lived in the shadows.

About Elliot

Elliot Kotek is a maker who looks for cost-effective ways to solve life’s big problems; whether it’s helping a graffiti artist with ALS find his voice or children throughout the world live a better life with 3D printed limbs. A bit of an overachiever, the Australian expat has a law degree, a B.Sc. in Pharmacology & Toxicology, studied at Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York and completed UCLA's Professional Program in Screenwriting.

Elliot is the co-founder of Not Impossible and an impressive storyteller. In fact, Elliot and his team put together the amazing video about Daniel - a boy growing up in war torn Sudan who benefited from a 3D printed limb created by Not Impossible. I encourage you to watch the incredible story.


All SXSW talks are approved by the community (i.e., you!), the SXSW Advisory Board and SXSW Staff. The community is the first to vote with the voting period opening on August 11. When the time comes, I would love your vote of support. 

Thanks for reading. All of the articles on VirginiaIngram.com are by Virginia Ingram, a freelance writer, account planner and digital strategist who is consulting in the marketing, social media and caregiving world. She writes regularly here and on Medium.com. If you would like to read something similar, choose from the tags and categories below. If you need help communicating to the people most important to you, you should hire Virginia.   

The house paint that can prevent disease transmission.

This is a *fascinating* article in The Atlantic. 

Article in The Atlantic about Pilar Mateo's house paint.

Article in The Atlantic about Pilar Mateo's house paint.

There are beetles in Latin America that spread a disease called Chagas disease. If you're unfamiliar with Chagas (I'd never heard of it), it is a disease that affects your digestive system and heart. Chagas disease is scary because it lies dormant, with many not realizing they are carrying the disease. It can be fatal. And there is no vaccine. (Eeek!! Something new to worry about!!) 

Luckily a brilliant chemist, Pilar Mateo, came up with a house paint that can be used to help ward off the beetles that carry Chagas disease. Read about Pilar Mateo's test in The Atlantic. 

We were *just* talking about clothes that prevent disease transmission and now this story. It's exciting to see new approaches to disease eradication and prevention. 

Thanks for reading. All of the articles on VirginiaIngram.com are by Virginia Ingram, a freelance writer, account planner and digital strategist who is consulting in the marketing, social media and caregiving world. She writes regularly here and on Medium.com. If you would like to read something similar, choose from the tags and categories below. If you need help communicating to the people most important to you, you should hire Virginia.

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Google Glass for people with Parkinson's.

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This is a smart example of using technology in a way that makes sense, not just technology for technology sake. 

Using Google Glass, in conjunction with Smart Phones, allows individuals will Parkinson's to live with more independence. Google Glass reminds them to take their medications and gives them easy access to friends and family if they end up in a situation where they need help. 

I'm for using technology to augment our lives. 

A team from the Digital Interaction research group in Culture Lab have been working with Google Glass to see how the technology can be used to help people with Parkinson's disease. Watch the video to see how Glass is being used in the project and how participants in the studies have benefited from the work being done.

Thanks for reading. All of the articles on VirginiaIngram.com are by Virginia Ingram, a freelance writer, account planner and digital strategist who is consulting in the marketing, social media and caregiving world. She writes regularly here and on Medium.com. If you would like to read something similar, choose from the tags and categories below. If you need help communicating to the people most important to you, you should hire Virginia. 

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Thank you for attending Fringe Design: Tackling Disability and Death

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Thanks to everyone who could attend the Fringe Design conversation at SXSW on Sunday. For those who couldn't come to the session, we had an interesting discussion. 

We started the conversation by running through a deck with a few examples and revealed the design principles we feel embody designing for fringe audiences.

 

Examples of fringe design

We discussed these examples in detail. You can read more about them on our blogs. 

Fringe design principles

These are the design principles you should adhere to when designing for fringe audiences. 

  1. Focus on people; not on ability
  2. Focus on togetherness, not individuals
  3. Focus on the continuum, not on the moment

Brainstorm: how can SXSW be improved for the hearing impaired?

We started the conversation by brainstorming how SXSW could be experienced by someone who is hearing impaired. We quickly ruled out interpreters and closed captioning, because they wouldn't allow the attendee to capitalize on some of the spontaneous moments of the festival.

We thought Google Glass could be modified to help enhance the experience of someone who is hearing impaired and experiencing SXSW and had virtual tweeters join in the conversation.

We concluded that many wearables could be improved if they were designed for people with disabilities as a primary audience, but marketed to everyone. We certainly believe it would help change the notion of a Google Glasshole.

The graphic recordings that are completed at many of the keynote sessions could also be helpful. Little did we know Chris Cullmann was working on a graphic recording of our session as we made that comment. 

Courtesy of Chris Cullmann

Courtesy of Chris Cullmann

A few conversational highlights

Organizing schools by strengths. There are many types of learning styles and designing a school that caters to abilities could help anyone strengthen the areas they are stronger. We discussed how a student who is deaf might be more visual. Since there are often schools for students with disabilities, people with differences aren't getting an opportunity to learn from others (and vice versa). 

Benefits of designing for fringe audiences. No one will suffer by designing for people with disabilities. You'll never hear someone complain that something was "too easy to read," but you often hear people complain that websites and graphics are too hard to read. 

Niche audiences pay off. One of our attendees noted that companies often develop products that are embraced by consumers in a way they don't expect. She mentioned that the Ford Focus is really popular with the elderly in Europe because of it's simplicity and ease of use. The Ford Focus is one of the top selling cars in the world. 

Deception. The thought of deception was discussed two different ways during our conversation.

  1. It is cool to deceive someone with a disability if the deception ultimately benefits them? The Alzheimer's village isn't deception because, ultimately, someone with Alzheimer's wants to feel as if they are in control of their life and the changes to the village allow them to have that control. 
  2. Is it cool to deceive a client so that you can create products that are more accessible? Especially if it helps them in the end? We determined that aligning the goals of your client with accessibility or suggesting how features could be used for other purposes would be helpful. We discussed how search engines are the world's most influential bling user and SEO is one of the best things that could happen to accessibility in web design.  

Many thanks to all of the attendees for a great discussion. 

We want to thank ‏@krening for live tweeting the conversation and to @kesslerandrew, @chadvavra, @christienic, @johnwromano, @JacobShiach, @DanielGrushkin, @evrmind, @mt_Suzette, @wearascough, @hcbhealth, @switchGirl, @cullmann, @coynepr, @greaterthanone, @journalynn, @toyrobots, @Kholler, ‏@carenjla, @gsciallis, @RyannosaurusRex for contributing to the conversation on Twitter. We also want to thank @cullmann for illustrating the conversation while he participated. 

We used Everest Live to facilitate and recap the discussion. Many thanks to Arik Abel for setting that up. 

An overview of several articles related to the talk can be found here: Articles related to Fringe Design: Tackling Disability and Death.

Cameron Friedlander, @toyrobots, wrote a summary of the conversation on the iMedia Connection blog. Thanks, Cameron!

Thanks for reading. All of the articles on VirginiaIngram.com are by Virginia Ingram, a freelance writer, account planner and digital strategist who is consulting in the marketing, social media and caregiving world. She writes regularly here and on Medium.com. If you would like to read something similar, choose from the tags and categories below. If you need help communicating to the people most important to you, you should hire Virginia.