Much of the talk covered ground that I’ve been stomping for a few years now (e.g., here and here). Mainly the lack of any decent technology for older people or rather, the problem that emerges when we start to invent new stuff for older people that fails to sit on top of already existing technologies or, more precisely, platforms. I threw stones at easy targets, like the AAL but also tried to suggest the direction forward.

One idea I recommended was using empty retail space, of which there is no shortage in the UK, to showcase what exists, help people explore it, coach people on its use and to create hubs through which designers, developers and service providers can explore how the services they provide already can be given greater value or prominence sitting on platforms that are already out there. I have recommended this idea before but this recent post, advising tech companies how (not) to do developer days, made me think this idea does have some legs.

I invoked Peter Drucker’s wonderful 1954 essay on The Purpose and Objectives of a Business to frame the talk and used his great quote distinguishing innovation from invention to encourage us to stop inventing new things but build on what we have, hence the title of this blog post:

“A salesman who succeeds in selling refrigerators to Eskimos to prevent food from freezing would be as much of an innovator as if he had developed brand new processes or invented a new product”

Ageing Well Learning Lab

Two ‘vision videos’ – one from Microsoft in 2011 and the other from Apple circa 1987 and the ensuing debate between two high profile bloggers.

I’m interested in the discussion about whether this very specific genre of coprorate film is useful or not.

In their favour, they can be seen as a beacons directing a company, and a wider industry, towards a ‘promised land’. At the same time, as John Gruber argues in this post, they can also be a mighty distraction – what if the resources, energy and creativity that were piled into them were instead focused on real product?

What do I think? I think these videos are most useful as ways of understanding how technology companies see human relations and cultural context today – science fiction as a genre has always been, first and foremost, about today not tomorrow. What social relationships, concerns and imaginaries do such videos portray?

Here’s the Microsoft video from ‘today’

And here’s the one for the Apple Knowledge Navigator from 1987.

Albert Borgmann in Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology – (2003: 31)