Aging In Place Directory

#67 - Hello Everyday: Connecting Seniors Without Wi-Fi

• Esther C Kane CAPS, C.D.S. • Episode 67

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Kabir Bhatia introduces Hello Everyday, a device designed to help aging loved ones maintain independence through non-invasive activity monitoring without requiring Wi-Fi or smartphone apps.

• Device was created after Kabir witnessed his father's cancer journey and his mother's adjustment to living alone
• Co-founder Mark developed the initial concept after a senior in his community passed away at home and wasn't found for days
• Hello Everyday works via cellular technology - simply plug it in and it starts monitoring
• System detects motion patterns and alerts up to five contacts when unusual activity (or lack of activity) occurs
• Privacy-focused design uses no cameras or microphones, only detecting presence in a room
• Dashboard shows hourly activity patterns, providing reassurance without constant check-in calls
• Users can customize alert preferences from minimum (alerts only) to maximum reassurance (full activity visibility)
• Temperature monitoring provides additional safety feature, alerting contacts if home becomes too hot or cold
• Stories of community building, including Steve, who received a device and immediately wanted to help others
• Approximately 90% of Americans cannot afford assisted living, making aging-in-place technology increasingly important

If you'd like to learn more or try Hello Everyday for yourself, visit hello-everyday.com to explore how this simple device can provide peace of mind for you and your loved ones.


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Speaker 1:

Hello, Mr Bhatia.

Speaker 2:

Hi Esther, how are you?

Speaker 1:

I'm fine. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me for a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. Thank you for taking the time.

Speaker 1:

Oh sure, no problem. I love the concept of your product.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Did you check out our website?

Speaker 1:

I'm looking at it right now. I mean I love the best thing that I think about it. I think about it is that it's you don't need Wi Fi, right? That's the one issue that I hear a lot of people say well, my parents don't have Wi Fi. Well then, what? You're stuck, so I love that concept. What I wanted to know about it, though, was when it sends a message and I mean I haven't looked at the video or anything, but when it sends a message, is it always a text message, or does it do phone calls as well?

Speaker 2:

No, it could be text or email, excuse me. We find that text is much more immediate and reliable. And why don't I show you what it looks like? If you have a minute? Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1:

okay, so I'm going to share my screen and also um the Lake Oswego area that you guys are in is beautiful have you been? I've been.

Speaker 2:

You're very lucky yeah, we, we enjoy it. Where are you now, esther? I'm uh northeast of Atlanta Georgia got it and have you been there long.

Speaker 1:

I've been here since, yeah, about 20 years now.

Speaker 2:

Got it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 18, 20 years. Before that, I was in South Florida. Before that I was in Brooklyn. Before that, I was in Venezuela. My parents are from Sicily.

Speaker 2:

My sister's born in London.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. We're from everywhere. I say we're from the planet Earth. You know, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

A global traveler. What brought you to Portland and Lake Oswego?

Speaker 1:

Oh, actually we went to Portland for our honeymoon. Oh, awesome, yeah, because it was the only part of the country neither of us had ever been to and we were there two and a half weeks and we traveled everywhere. We went to the coast, we went to mount hood, we went north, we went south and we, every time we came back, you know, we went to a different part of portland because you, it has those five boroughs and each one is very unique and different. It was amazing and I go back every now and then and I look for a place on Cannon Beach or I have a friend out there. It's just, it's beautiful, that's. You're very lucky to be living there. It's a beautiful state.

Speaker 2:

We've really enjoyed the diversity of landscapes and how quickly you can get from the coast to the mountain, to high desert, etc. And it's been really interesting to see all the different seasons and etc. We moved up from Southern California 10 years ago or so, and, exactly, we moved up from southern california 10 years ago or so, um, but we not we weren't strangers to the area. My in-laws have lived here since the 80s, so we were combining, sort of bringing family together, and then my parents decided to move here in 2019 as well, and so I guess we're here now, and my daughter uh is just about to go off to college.

Speaker 1:

And so congratulations.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. So on to new adventures.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I hope not too expensive of an adventure. It is what it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she's fortunately going to a public school up in Washington, at University of Washington. So she's close by and she will, so it'll be fine. It's only we only have only have of Washington. So she's close by and she will be fine. It's only we only have the one.

Speaker 1:

So oh, okay. Well, that's not too bad. I hope she picks a major that AI will be friendly to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I hope so too. I think it's somewhere biology related, but it's not clear whether it's going to be biochemistry or it's going to be biomedical engineering. So we're figuring that out.

Speaker 1:

No well, it sounds like she's on a good path. I have a friend of mine who just her daughter is now in Boston for product design. I didn't even know that was such a thing, oh yeah, product design. So she wanted to mesh engineering and graphics.

Speaker 2:

Got it.

Speaker 1:

There you go, yeah, anyway, so show me.

Speaker 2:

Before we dive deep into the product, tell me a little bit about sort of what you do.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so I am an occupational therapist. I'm a retired occupational therapist and when I retired from OT a few years ago, I went into internet marketing because at that time with OT, I was doing a lot of training, continuing ed, and so I was using the internet a lot and I just thought it was amazing. So I retired from OT because I was getting too old. I worked in geriatric head injury. That was my specialty, and so now that I'm 67, I'm officially retired, I wanted to do something where I could combine both skills.

Speaker 1:

So I developed a blog several years ago Senior Safety Advice, and it's just, you know, information about what I know about caregiving and caring for seniors and aging in place. And I come to find out that I was getting a lot of emails, people asking me well, you know, where are all these people that you keep talking about? And I I thought that they would be easy to find and they they're not. You know there's one on Facebook, one on LinkedIn. Many of them don't have websites or any kind of presence, and I thought this is ridiculous. I mean, obviously, 10,000 plus people a day are turning 65, till forever, it seems, with our generation, you know, boomers, and then the next generation.

Speaker 1:

So I thought, well, there has to be some kind of an Angie's List for Aging in Place Not only the providers, but products, services, anything related resources. And that's how I started Aging in Place Directory. So I'm in the process of building that and getting that going, and you know, and then in the midst of all that AI and everything else that's coming along, and then in the midst of all that AI and everything else that's coming along. So so now for the members of the directory, I do weekly webinars on marketing and I use all my internet marketing skills for that, training and equipment programs and everything else. So I'm really enjoying it. It's much better than a lot of my retired friends, you know, go out to lunch and go to the book club and, you know, I think it's a little better than that At least I feel like I'm doing something I'm giving back somehow.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about how many people visit the directory every day, or what are the metrics for that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, we're getting about 150 a day so far. It's a fairly new directory so we're slowly building that up. You know I'm working on, I have articles on the directory to attract homeowners and then I'm, you know, putting articles and newsletters out almost every day on LinkedIn, trying to attract the business services to get onto the directory. So I know that I have to build up the directory before I can really market it to homeowners, although what I'm hearing now from the members of the directory is that they're getting calls from the directory. So that makes me feel good because I mean I can't track. I don't track that part of it.

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

But it's getting there. I just opened up a podcast for it and that one, I think, had 600 downloads last month, so that was pretty good, and then a YouTube channel that I'm putting the podcasts on. For that, okay, and the oh, so the the way, because I wanted to build it up for the homeowners. I can't really market it to them until I have a lot of providers, so that's why I made the first 365 days free for the providers.

Speaker 1:

Get them on board and have them and then later, you know, charge a nominal fee. I mean, I can't decide yet whether I'm going to make it 15 a month or 20 a month. I don't know, I can't decide yet. But anyway, whatever it is, it won't be very much and I'm just looking for advice from anyone, any of the members. Like what else would you like the directory to do for you? You know, besides give people a placement of where you are, because not everybody is local? You know, your product is worldwide, I would imagine yeah, at least us and canada, but yeah yeah, at least us and canada.

Speaker 1:

So I want to. That's why I have different sections on their services, products and um. But then what I would like to do eventually is like, like to take the products and make like a little commercial and put that in the pages with the service providers you know and then maybe, like you know, have a monthly thing or I don't know, something like that. But what I would love to do with you, if you don't mind, I would love to do a interview, a podcast interview, which then goes on YouTube, and then we can showcase the product there.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Speaker 1:

I'd that YouTube video and I can put the shorts out on LinkedIn or wherever else. But yeah, so we can schedule that later.

Speaker 2:

But anyway, that's where I'm at, so if you have any ideas, I have lots of ideas, Esther, and I have lots of places where I need help.

Speaker 1:

So I'm more than happy to help.

Speaker 2:

Okay of places where I need help, so I'm sure more than happy to help, okay, so before I dive into the product, let's talk a little bit about why we developed this.

Speaker 2:

So I we have three co founders, including myself, fong and Mark, and I came to the space and I dragged Fong into the space. Because I came to the space and I dragged Fong into the space because, when I told you, my parents moved here in 2019 and then in 2020, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He fought cancer three times and then the third time it spread everywhere and he passed away in July of 2023. And then watching him sort of deal with illness in hospital at home and it's just remarkably different and then watching my mom figure out how to live by herself for the first time in her life made me realize that there's just not many tools to help people stay connected when they aren't aging in place, and so we started to think about what could we do to help people check in effectively. That was our, our Fong and I were thinking about before we met Mark, and around the same time, mark had been thinking about a similar space, so he has.

Speaker 2:

He had been volunteering for an organization called Village to Village which is a virtual community for older adults so people help those that can't right, so they give rides to each other, et cetera. And he had volunteered for them. So Mark is 75. He had volunteered for them to be IT support because he's an engineer, electronics engineer and a physician and one of their members here in the Lake Oswego area had a medical event passed away unexpectedly, wasn't found for a number of days in our house and Mark was like it was a very disturbing event for a lot of the members. And so Mark was like there's got disturbing event for a lot of the members and so mark was like there's got to be a better way and so he put on his old hats of being an electrical engineer, electronics engineer, and he came up with a precursor to this device.

Speaker 2:

So this is our hello everyday device, which the lighting is not great.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I apologize, but it's fine, you can see it and I, and I also see it on the website too, but I can see it now.

Speaker 2:

It's good uh he basically created a device that was looking for human presence and he started to give it to some of the village members to test out and at the time, it was just basically a proof of life device, right?

Speaker 2:

so, uh, are they up every day? Are they not up every day? Somebody should check with them. And last year he and I got introduced because we were both thinking about the same thing and Mark was like, well, I think there may be a market for this. And I said I agree, given that I've been thinking about it, and we built a company and we've beta tested this with a number of people. We found exactly what you highlighted in the beginning, which is Wi-Fi is not a winning strategy, downloading an app not a winning strategy. So we eliminated both of those and we took out a lot of the friction and said, okay, well, all you've got to do is basically take it out of the box and plug it in and it'll work via cellular and then we will send messages via text and that way, people will get notified about whether you're doing okay or not.

Speaker 2:

My mom was one of our first testers and usually I use her sensor for demos, but she's traveling, so it's not very exciting. So I'm actually going to use Mark's sensor, which is in his office. So every day, I get a series of reports from a bunch of different people. I get a notification from Mark's sensor, who is my co-founder, that he's active today, and then there are days where I get a sensor report when he's traveling and I get a report that he's away. Report when he's traveling and I get a report that he's away. And I also had a report from my mom's sensor that says and right now it says that she's away.

Speaker 2:

So let's look at Mark's sensor for a second. So this is a link that basically changes every day and it's valid for two days. So that's how we ensure that if the link falls into the wrong hands, it doesn't get used inappropriately. But if you click on that link, it takes you, it opens up a browser window and it lets you know that this is basically Mark's dashboard and it lets you know that Mark's sensor is in his office. It displays his phone number.

Speaker 2:

So if I wanted to call him, and I was on my phone, I could press that button and it would open up the phone app. It lets me know that there's no alerts right now. His last activity was today at noon, between noon and one, and the temperature in his house is a comfortable 75. Excuse me, I can click on the daily chart and I can see sort of I can walk in Mark's shoes. So Mark came into his office between seven and eight and he's been in his office at least once every hour for since this morning, and that seems like it's a consistent pattern for Mark, right. And there are some days where he's in his office till pretty late. And that seems like it's a consistent pattern for Mark, right. And there are some days where he's in his office till pretty late.

Speaker 2:

And I know he's working really hard because he's trying to solve a problem, and then there are other days where he's out and about for a couple of hours, but, as Mark says, his office is his happy place, so I'm not surprised that he's in his office a lot right. So this allows someone like me who is invested in Mark to get a really good idea. Even though the sensor is only in one place in a person's home, get a really good idea of what their activity levels are, et cetera. But if I suddenly saw Mark having activity in the middle of the night, or if I saw Mark's activity being sporadic, that would be an alert that wait a second, there's something has changed and I should check in with him. Or if I saw no activity and I did expect to see activity, that would also be an data point for us to follow up on. And that's the whole idea.

Speaker 2:

So you can have up to five people get these messages and you can tailor those messages If you want highest privacy. Then all they would get is a message if there was something wrong. And there are three conditions that could prompt a message. It could be either that the sensor is unplugged and it's not receiving information. It could be that the temperature in the home is too high, it's above 90, or it's low 50, or that they didn't detect activity throughout the day, so any of those would prompt a message, but otherwise they wouldn't get a message.

Speaker 2:

Two, what we're seeing here, which is the maximum reassurance where you're actually able to see the hourly charts, and what we find is daughters tend to go in more and check in on their parents, not surprisingly, compared to sons. So sons tend to be very happy with just getting a texting everything's okay, whereas daughters will often go in and check multiple times a day, and what we're finding is that this substantially changes the relationship that you have. This is a nonverbal communication tool that allows people to get reassured that they're doing okay without having to actively engage. So when you are engaging live, you're actually engaging about them rather than are you okay, engaging about them rather than are you okay, and so that reassurance can be a really important element that people don't always know they're missing. If they're, if they're using an active engagement model like a text or a phone call to check in on each other.

Speaker 1:

It's non-invasive, you're not a person person right correct.

Speaker 2:

We can't tell one person from the next. There are no cameras, there are no microphones, we can't record it, uh, etc. So, uh, in fact, one of the things we were talking about today on the from on our team call was I was in. I was asking mark to figure out a way that we could show my sensors activity on our website to show that there isn't a whole lot of invasiveness. Right Like this allows people to see that we are walking the walk, as it were.

Speaker 1:

You mean like a live feed? Yeah, yeah, that would be very cool. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that would be very cool. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that would be very cool. I love that idea. You know I do. I live alone. My husband passed away years ago. So what I do is every day I text something fun to a group of friends. You know, know, I used to do like the crazy holiday, you know today's National Pancake Day or whatever. I did that for a few years, and now what I'm doing are idioms. You know a crazy idiom and the history of it. So it's just something to say I'm here, I'm up and if they don't hear from me by noon, then to check in on me. But I think the check-in process is so very important. I mean, if you want to incorporate those fun ideas into another product, go ahead, it's all yours. But I love the idea that one. It's not invasive. I love now when someone gets a message. They just get that message once, right, and then they can check in throughout the day.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

The phone is constantly buzzing all the time.

Speaker 1:

No right, not buzzing all the time, so it's just one. And then they have the dashboard to go to to check, and I love that. You're right. You notice that the person is getting up in the middle of the night now and they weren't before. Or you notice they're not in the office, you know, by 9 am, and they normally are something's off. I I think it's an excellent product and, like I said, the fact that it doesn't need wi-fi is, I think, the best. I don't know how you guys did it, but how did you do that without wi-Fi?

Speaker 2:

It's my experience there's actually a cellular modem built in. Let me see if I can show you a picture of that.

Speaker 1:

What is your background?

Speaker 2:

I'm an engineer, esther, I'm a mechanical engineer, and then I've gone around the block a few times.

Speaker 1:

I've gone around the block a few times.

Speaker 2:

I've been an investment banker, I've been in corporate finance, et cetera, and so it has allowed me to be on the cusp of where multiple disciplines intersect. I've always believed that that's where value is created, rather than being super specialized in one thing. So this is what the inside of the device looks like. So what you're looking at so right here is the cellular modem that basically connects via cellular to the cloud, and then here is the ESP32. That's a processor inside the sensor and that's what gives us the ability to provide intelligence so that we can disregard pets or we can set up so that if somebody has blinds in the background that wave around, we can ignore those blinds, et cetera. So that intelligence is really important to prevent false positives or false negatives. So it gives us the ability to calibrate, because everyone's room is different and everyone's home is different, et cetera, of course, so we can ignore. That is what makes it much more helpful from a and that's from the perspective, yeah, Okay, does it matter?

Speaker 1:

Does it have to be plugged in at a certain height?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question. So there are two ways to do this. I'm going to unplug this, so this is what it looks like. If you had a stand and if the wall plug was behind a furniture, this is what you would do, but you also have the ability to plug it in directly into a wall outlet, so you can disregard the wire and the stand completely, and then that's. This little plug goes directly at the back of this.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And you can plug this in directly into the wall outlet. So then all it all, it's sitting there, is doing this and it acts as a nightlight, so it glows white during the night, so it becomes even better.

Speaker 1:

So it does have to be at a certain height, I mean you don't want it on the ground no, you can.

Speaker 2:

You could have it on the ground, uh, the only the only downside of having it on the ground is if you have a dog, for example. Uh, you would want to have it on a cover height. Uh, if you have cats, we can. Basically. If you have cats, we can basically disregard the. We can make sure that the there, that it disregards any activity right next to the sensor, which is where cats like to go to and, and so that will not trigger the the sensor would it work behind glass?

Speaker 2:

it would. Yeah, it works okay, but we had a blast yep wow, that's great.

Speaker 1:

It's great. Well, I I hope we can do a podcast. What I'm going to do is I'm going to send you a link to schedule for that and then we can do the podcast and I, in the meantime, I'm going to if it's okay, I'm going to do an article on it oh, I'd love that yeah, and send that out not only to the websites but to linkedin.

Speaker 1:

I'll do it on both websites senior safety and aging in place and send that out, and I would love for you to go ahead and join the directory. I'll send you a link to that too. We'd love that get your product on there and I see that you have, um, that partnership program, that you have two of the people there are on the directory and do. Is that an affiliate program or what is the okay?

Speaker 2:

And we can add you to that as well, Esther.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I actually sent in my info already. I signed up. So when I saw that, because I was looking for an affiliate, because I think it's so important in this niche for senior care, I think it's so important in this niche for senior care, I think it's so important to work in a team effort and what I find, as I'm talking to so many aging in place specialists now across the country, is that you're my fourth call today. So as I'm talking to everyone, I noticed that so many people aren't working together. Many people aren't working together. You know the declutter person should be working with the contractor, with the. You know not only just the homeowner, not the client and the family, but all the other people. There's so many, sir, as you saw with your father, there's so many services involved in caring and in in in adapting a home and you know, I'm sure your mother now is your work looking at all of those factors for her and I hope that she's doing well.

Speaker 2:

You know, after the, advice I gave her was you have two choices. When my dad passed um and I said you can either you can either think of this as an adventure or you can withdraw. Yeah, and I highly recommend thinking of it as an adventure and, to her credit, she has leaned in as if it's an adventure and she's throwing herself. She went to Prague. She's been teaching at the local community college and she actually went to Prague with them as a part of their program and she had a great time. She's in India right now and it's it's still hard. Loneliness is hard and and grief is hard and it comes in waves as, as you know, and it's been a.

Speaker 2:

It's been a, it's built a lot of empathy and understanding and it's it removed a lot of the judgment that that seeps in if you don't really know things up close and personal. Uh, and it's taught me just how the differences and how people cope with all of that.

Speaker 1:

So it's true, I mean, everyone does cope with it differently. You know, some people just stay stuck in that grief and and wallowness or whatever I don't know. Then they eventually they end up becoming a victim of it really, and they don't know how to get out of it, which I can imagine. I mean, I, I know that it's hard to get out of that, but you're right, you either have to live in that or you take life as an adventure. What comes next? Um, and I'm sure you know your grief also. You know, obviously it's different from hers because you know when, when you're in a relationship, you just you know that's your plan, that's your, your. Your plan is to be with that person and then all of a sudden, when that breaks, and even if you know it's coming, um, it's still very difficult. It's so hard to change everything. And yeah, I, I know, but I'm glad that she is taking that adventure. You are very lucky to have you I.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad. I'm glad my parents had the foresight to think of it as an adventure in the first place to move to lake oswego from india, which is a big leap, uh, but they've done. I'm glad we got to build memories here with my dad, which I'm very, very grateful for.

Speaker 1:

And good yeah, um you've turned out a very good life for yourself, bucky I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

I would love for you to try our product. Would you want to? Would you want me to ship a demo unit to you, and would you want to Sure?

Speaker 1:

I would love that. I'll put my address in the email. And then what's a good email for you?

Speaker 2:

It's Kabir at hello dash everydaycom.

Speaker 1:

Oh, okay, well, I got that, hello dash, I got it so good, I will go ahead and get that at helloeverydaycom. Right.

Speaker 2:

Hello, Dash Every Day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, dash Every Day, I will go ahead and get that. Yeah, I would love to go ahead and test it Then, that way I can do an unboxing and then I can do. I don't know why people are so fascinated with unboxing, but you know, whatever, um, you go with what the crowd needs or wants, right, um, yeah, so I will go ahead and do that and send that out to you, and I so look forward to talking to you again. I I am always so amazed at how people can take a problem and then create a thing or a service or whatever in order to accommodate that problem. I, I, just, I love the creativity that people have, and I think this niche this, with 10 000 plus people a day, turning 65, it just seems like it's a no-brainer, you know, to go for products and services in that niche our thesis is that 90 of the people in the United States are not going to be able to afford independent or assisted living.

Speaker 2:

It's true, we find all the time. In fact, that was at a. We donated one of our devices. So a couple of stories, Esther, if you don't mind.

Speaker 1:

No, I don't mind at all, no, no.

Speaker 2:

So a couple of stories. One when we started this company, one of the first people that were testing this device that Mark had been testing the device with her name is Joan. She's on our website. She approached us and she said this has been such a huge value to my life because she's's an orphan, she's never been married, never had kids, and she was dealing with some health issues. And she was like that this just provides a lot of reassurance to me that if something happens to me, someone would know. And she's like I would love to pay this forward. And we said and I remember clearly we were visiting colleges for my daughter in California and we got on the call and I was scratching my head and saying, okay, well, how is this going to work?

Speaker 2:

Like we're not a nonprofit and this is not. And so we wrote something up and we thought, okay, well, if you want to give us like $5,000, we can support 10 units or whatever. And she's like, okay, okay, this is helpful, but I'm going to give you 50 000 and I want to buy 170 sensors for about a third of the village members that are in the portland metro region that she thought lived alone. And so we are in the process of fulfilling that gift and by the end of the year we'll have 250 sensors out in the market I love it so it's been so rewarding, uh and uh, just reassuring to have that someone have that kind of confidence in a young startup.

Speaker 2:

So that's one story. The second story was, uh, we donated a couple of our early beta units that we took back because they are not, they had not been certified whatever. Um, and we donated a couple of our early beta units that we took back because they had not been certified whatever, and we donated a couple of them to an organization here in Lake Oswego called ReFit. Refit does basically what you used to do, which is they help retrofit people's homes with grab bars, ramps, etc. So that they can age in place, and one of the people that they nominated to get that first device was a guy named Steve Goldman.

Speaker 2:

Steve is a former physical therapist. He had a number of seizures that happened since April of this year. Suddenly he finds himself he's not able to drive. They haven't figured out why the seizures are happening. It may be related to diabetes. Himself he's not able to drive, he's he's. They haven't figured out why the seizures are happening. It may be related to diabetes, it's not really clear and so I went to visit him and I installed a device for him, etc. And he was just so not only grateful, but he was like I want a purpose, I want I want to be helpful for people, because people are helping me, so tell me how I can help you. And so we get people all the time who are like I would love to buy this device, but I don't have someone on the other side that could actually receive a message so that they would invest in my well-being.

Speaker 2:

And we're like well, steve, would you be willing to be that person? And he's like I would love that. So it's one of our visions, for this device is to build both community and purpose.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

It's the purpose that you are creating with your friends of checking in on each other. That is immeasurable in value in creating that engagement, and that's what we want to do at a bigger scale. So I wanted to share those two stories with you because they're so important to what we do.

Speaker 1:

They are. I love that idea of people who don't have anyone else. You know, my mom-in-law lived until 102. And she said one of the worst things about growing older for her was that everyone else that she grew up with was gone. Yeah, you know, she outlived everyone, so she didn't have anyone else to send to, except, you know well, the children. But if she didn't have children she would have no one. So I love that idea. I love that idea of of steve now. Now are you going to be actively looking for people to? I mean, otherwise, what he's going to get? 50 or 100 or 1000?

Speaker 2:

no, no, we, we don't intend that to be, but I think what was interesting was how quickly steve went from I love the idea, I want this in my house to how can I help? Yeah, everybody has that capacity. Yeah, right, and and what we're hoping to do is, as we, as we find new customers, can we connect them with people that might be of interest, similar interests, etc. So we're that, that's. We're still early days, but that, though, that's how we're thinking about it right, that's another thing on the on the whiteboard for sure.

Speaker 1:

Our whiteboard is unfortunately very full already I know I know it's like you need three or four or five whiteboards. I know I understand that very well. Oh, thank you so much, Kabir. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me and geek out with me a little bit. I enjoy it.

Speaker 2:

You're in the right company if you want to geek out.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I love geeking out. None of my friends. Their eyes roll in the back of their head, so I enjoy it. I love it. Oh, one question I do have to ask how do you see AI affecting you, if at all?

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of noise right now about.

Speaker 1:

AI, that's for sure. Sure One of our four pieces is that humans need?

Speaker 2:

we are social animals and we need connectivity. Mm, hmm and and I know there is a lot of chatter, pardon the pun of can we use AI to to artificially provide stimulus or connectivity with people? To artificially provide stimulus or connectivity with people, but I think that's a. I've tried a couple of them. I think it's a band-aid, but people need like what we're doing is a good facsimile, but they need more in-person, they need a sense of belonging, they need to feel like they're seen, and farming that out to a machine is not, in my opinion, an answer.

Speaker 1:

I agree. I agree, I mean we need tactile touch at some point. I agree, I keep thinking of that movie, her with Joaquin Phoenix, where he falls in love with the little thing with Joaquin Phoenix, where he falls in love with the little thing. And you're right, it can't possibly replace but the technology that AI is bringing about. It's going to be interesting to see how that evolves. And you're right at this point it's a lot of noise, it's a lot of. Everything is being thrown like spaghetti on the wall and who knows what ends up, you know lasting.

Speaker 2:

I have to also say, though, Esther, we are huge beneficiaries of AI, right? So when we run into a problem, we rely on AI to say hey, we've run into this problem. Give us leads Some of them are wildly wrong, but many of them are good leads into how to think about sort of solutions, and so the way I describe AI it's a great way to lift all bolts if you're willing to sort of engage with it, but it isn't necessarily the right answer when you're looking for true creativity or innovation, right.

Speaker 1:

Correct.

Speaker 2:

It's a great way to. It's effectively a library resource, but you still have to do something with it.

Speaker 1:

Exactly exactly. It's just another tool in the arsenal of tools and if you can see it that way, you're right. You're absolutely right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing, right? Your daughter is going to grow up in another world.

Speaker 2:

Oh, what I've said in the past and I continue to say is the job she's likely to do hasn't even been invented yet. It's changing so quickly, and so figuring out how to add value and how to learn in a new environment is so important.

Speaker 1:

I know it's going to be. I think, for the future, for the young people, it's going to be skills, all about skills. What skills can you contribute? It's amazing. I wish I was 20 again, but only if I know, only if I knew what I know now what do you do for fun, sir?

Speaker 1:

oh, I love. I love movies, I love to read. I live in a walking community, you know. I have shops and restaurants and parks within walking distance here, so, and I have a slew of friends that come and drag me out of my office most every day I'm in the process of renovating my home for aging in place, so just today also, I had the contractor and everybody here. There's festivals at the park right up here all the time, so I do that, so it's mostly local.

Speaker 1:

I've traveled a lot in my life, so, um, I've lived in. This is my 29th house that I've lived in. Oh, my goodness my life. So I'm, um, I'm ready to, just you know, have a nice easy life. My goal for my 67th year is to make life easy, and so I'm ready to, just you know, have a nice easy life. My goal for my 67th year is to make life easy, and so I'm looking for systems, for programs, anything at all to make my life easy.

Speaker 1:

But I need to keep learning. I love learning and I don't think learning without teaching is beneficial. I have some friends who go to those free college courses, but then that's it. They go to the course, they learn about ancient history or whatever, and then that's it. They never visit it or do anything with it. Write a book, write an article, do something with it, but they don't. They just go on to the next thing. And that's why I do web and I like the webinars that I do for the direct, for the directory members, because it keeps me, it forces me to keep learning about all of these new programs that are coming out, and I just finished a course on agentic ai and um. It's going to be. It's just amazing what's happening.

Speaker 2:

It's mind boggling but I love it.

Speaker 1:

And I love learning from other people, because who am I to think that I know everything? I don't know everything and I don't want to know everything you know. I want to surround myself with people who know everything, learn from all of them, as long as they can honor the other person's knowledge base as well. I think that is so important.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a very portland kind of thing to do yeah, I, there's a lot to unpack there, um, and I think, I think, but I think you're you're right on the application of that knowledge is so important to retain and process it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so important. What's the point of learning it if you're not going to do it? You could read a thousand self-help books, but if you don't do it, right.

Speaker 2:

Plus that knowledge fades right like if you don't apply it, it's gone.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I mean it was just a waste of time, but but it was entertaining, but you know yeah, yeah, but I love it and I think the group of people that are all in this niche they're so, they're fascinating. So many different things that they're doing and everybody's coming from so many different backgrounds. You know, as an ot, you never get rid of that ot mentality. You you're constantly looking at your environment and how can you modify the environment to the person? And I mean that is just ingrained in me. I can't get rid of it. And since my experience was head injury, I'm always looking at, you know, at at that aspect of it and analyzing it.

Speaker 1:

And my husband was a psychologist and he then became a PA. So you know I have all that. I mean we were together 25 years, so I have all of that. You know experience from him. He used to come home from work as a PA and he would say people aren't coming in to see me for this, they're coming in to see me for this. So of course he would know that because of all his history of psychology. But you know it, it's, it's just fascinating. People fascinate me, they are the most interesting group. The brain fascinates me. It's um, I don't know, it's crazy, but I love your product and I think you guys are on a really good path. I love how you brought all three people together, um with all your experiences, and you you can't not do well I mean, that's the word of confidence.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can't like that, but I appreciate it would have come for sure you can't.

Speaker 1:

I don't think you can not do well, I mean, either you continue the company or it ends up being bought by a bigger company or merging or whatever. And you know, you never know, you never know. But yeah, all right, so I'm gonna send you that info. Thank you for your time and enjoy beautiful lake asuego, you lucky dog have a great day, esther.

Speaker 2:

Thank you ciao.

Contributor

Esther C. Kane, CAPS, C.D.S.

Host