EHX Home Health Tech Pavilion – GREAT SUCCESS!!

Just returned from 5 days in Sunny Orlando (at least they tell us it was sunny) – wouldn’t know, we spent the entire time at the Electronic House Expo at the Orange County Convention Center! And wow – what a great show for the home health technology industry!

Overall, the show attendance was down. We had heard this and wondered what the show would have in store for us! We really couldn’t have been busier, so it really said a LOT about the shift towards home health for the dealers in this industry.

We arrived on Tuesday morning and spent the entire day in the Peabody, revamping GrandCare dealer training for the next day.

Wednesday, we arrived at 8am for GrandCare Authorized dealer training! The room was abuzz as 30 NEW GrandCare dealers loaded in ready to SPEED train as we powered through about 15 hours of material in 7.5….

Great session, the session went great and the dealers were very interactive and seemed to gain a lot of information!!

ON Thursday at 10am, the EHX show floor opened. It appeared to be about less than half of what it was about 2 years ago. A sign of a bad economy, that’s clear. The silver lining is that the people that DO come are the decision makers AND the ones TRULY interested. We had many dealers that came up and said home health tech is the ONLY reason they attended EHX. A truly positive sign for this industry!

GrandCare was pounded ALL day Thursday by interested dealers – we had an extra large booth with 5 GC reps(represented by a few GC staff and Home Controls (Strategic Dist Partner) and Elder-Watch (Master dealer)).

The first panel session moderated by Laurie Orlov was a huge success. It was standing room only as the 4 panelists from GrandCare Systems, Celery, LogicMark and Halo Monitoring explained their products as Laurie Orlov moderated (recap here: http://www.ageinplacetech.com/blog/aarp-and-those-boomers-recareerers-and-home-related-professionals)

Later Thursday afternoon, GrandCare hosted the weekly agetech call LIVE FROM THE EHX FLOOR!!! Using a mic and webcam, GrandCare’s Laura Mitchell (host of the agetech call and VP Chair of the AgeTek Alliance board) hosted the weekly call from the GrandCare booth and interviewed other aging and technology vendors as well as some of the interested dealers.
Recording (including video) http://my.dimdim.com/view2/all/grandcare/default/138cae63-c640-42c4-9748-2888bdf11e5e

End of Day One – GREAT SUCCESS & Many Many Leads to show from it. 17 of us from the Aging and technology pavilion went out to celebrate with dinner and drinks at a local watering hole!!

Friday – Day Two…to be continued…

4-1-10 AgeTech Call Topic: Emotional Selling/Customer Support – Neil from Celery speaks

Tomorrow! Thursday April 1st, 2010
AgeTech Webinar/Conference Call

When: Thursday, April 1, 2010 2pm EDT – – 1pm CDT
Where: my.dimdim.com/grandcare
Optional Dial In listed there!

TOPIC: Technology and home automation gurus entering the aging field will find this is a whole new “sell” and very different than a standard custom integration scenario. Dealers must have passion, patience and great customer support! Neil discusses the emotional connection of aging and technology products!

Neil Grabowsky, is the CEO and founder of Celery, LLC, a cross-generational email service that connects Internet users to their non-computer-using loved ones using a simple fax machine. Grabowsky created “Celery” while away at college so that he could keep in touch with his own father, who was not using email. Today, Celery is used by clients throughout the United States and Canada, and is popular among the elderly and the Amish. Grabowsky graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2004 with a degree in Product Design and Innovation. He lives in upstate NY with his wife, Mary Beth, and teenage miniature poodle, Josie, who they rescued from the streets of Troy, NY. http://mycelery.com

ASA/ Boomer Summit wrap-up

Got back late Friday night from the ASA and Boomer Summit In Chicago! It was an exciting, exhausting and fun-filled, action-packed 3 days.

Thursday morning was an AgeTek board meeting – getting ready for the big launch later that day. Thursday afternoon was when the boomer summit boot camp sessions began.

I spoke on a panel about social media and how to best use it for business. It was a 3 hour panel. After that, I rushed to the AgeTek launch down the hall.

It was our official AgeTek Industry Alliance meeting! Standing room only – it was an enormous success! Everyone was enthusiastic and ready to work together – a truly historic step for our industry! We all left with tshirts and directly after this had to head to the speaker reception put on by Mary Furlong & Associates.

After a full day and evening of networking, great conversations and new friends, we turned in.

Friday was the Boomer Summit – GrandCare had an exhibit table, but we also had to work the speaker rooms, helping moderators get started and set up in the beginning of each session.
Lunch with the experts was wonderful & after the last sessions ended at 5p, we all headed to the summit wrap and networking session.

All in all, very glad to have gone! We caught up with industry folks like, Laurie Orlov, Donna Cusano, Susan Ayers Walker, Karen Klein – fellow tech colleagues & agetek members: halo, mygait, presto, wellcore, verizon, jnl technologies, home instead…

and of course my fellow AgeTek board members: Peter Radsliffe, Michele Ahlman, Jill Gilbert, Bud Myers

A great ending to a great week! Now on to this week – we will be reporting live from Orlando – the Electronic House Expo will be going on and GrandCare will play a significant role in the home health tech pavilion.

Wednesday, we are hosting 25 new GC dealers for GC dealer training. Authorized dealers may attend as a refresher for a small fee, learn all about our new multi-resident features.
Still have a few seats available, email gcsales@homecontrols.com to sign up.

Many educational presentations by GrandCare, please check ehxweb.com for schedules.

Thanks,
Laura Mitchell
Dir of Business Relations
GrandCare Systems

Using Social Media to Build Your Boomer

Using Social Media to Build Your Boomer Business. A bootcamp session at ASA. GrandCare Speaks on the panel. http://ow.ly/1jqSb

Thurs 3-18-10 AGE/Tech topic: SENIOR CYB

Thurs 3-18-10 AGE/Tech topic: SENIOR CYBORG: The Rise of the Machines. Charlie Hillman from GrandCare Systems speaks. http://wp.me/pyOLA-40

Complimentary passes to EHX & ASA

GrandCare has a 5 passes for EHX for give-away! March 25-27 (www.ehxweb.com first come, first served! Email: info@GrandCare.com

GrandCare still has a few seats available for GC Auth Dealer Refresher training Wed March 24th. Authorized dealers only. To ensure a seat- email gcsales@homecontrols.com

Going to ASA in Chicago this week? Laura Mitchell will be speaking during the social media panel on Thursday 130-430 and then Laura and Gaytha Traynor (cofounder of GC) are helping to launch the AgeTek Alliance Thursday (3-18) 430-6p.

Stop and introduce yourself! Hope to see you!

3-18-10 AgeTech Topic: Senior Cyborg: THE RISE OF THE MACHINES!

3-18-10 SENIOR CYBORG: The Rise of the Machines. Charlie Hillman from GrandCare Systems speaks
When: Thursday, March 18th, 2010
2pm EST – 1pm CST – 12n MST – 11a PST

Where: http://my.dimdim.com/grandcare
DIAL IN IS OPTIONAL AND WILL BE LISTED ON THE WEBINAR

WHY: These aging and technology industry calls are open to the entire industry and meant to enhance awareness of this growing industry, educate each other and network!

Charlie Hillman has spent most of his career as an entrepreneur involved with disruptive technologies. His latest, GrandCare Systems, is designed to allow the aged to live longer at home with greater security and less social isolation. Using a combination of Smart Home technologies, ADL monitoring, Internet communications, and Tele-Wellness features, the system is intended to support an entire network of caregivers.

Ironically, the system uses cutting-edge technology to go back in time and empower families to remotely care for aging relatives. This innovative approach resulted in GrandCare being chosen as one of 30 organizations nationwide to participate in the once-a-decade, 2005 White House Conference on Aging Technology Pavilion.

Mr. Hillman is a professional engineer with a BS from MIT and a Masters in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is a commissioner of CAST (Center for Aging Technologies) and a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.

Hope to see you there!

REMEMBER: the aging tsunami will float ALL boats!

Remote Monitoring That Will Assist Careg

Remote Monitoring That Will Assist Caregivers. GrandCare has 3 levels: social interface, tele-health, ADL monitoring. http://ow.ly/1lgYe

Official Launch of AgeTek Thurs 3-18-10,

Official Launch of AgeTek Thurs 3-18-10, 430-6p CST @ ASA in CHI. http://ow.ly/1jqM4

Tomorrow AgeTech Call: Remote Monitoring

Tomorrow AgeTech Call: Remote Monitoring, what is it? why should we care? Card Access, Inc (CloseBy Network) speaks. http://wp.me/pyOLA-3M