CARDI Convention NOT Lost In Translation

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Networks, Research | Posted on 27-07-2011

Rights 4 Seniors attended a conference that highlighted how delegates could communicate most effectively with non-academics rather than have their words “Lost in Translation”.

The event was organized by the Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (CARDI) in partnership with KT-Equal, a consortium of researchers dedicated to improving the quality of life of older people. From the delegate list, which included IT experts, doctoral students, Age Sector professionals and researchers, it was apparent that Rights 4 Seniors would gain a lot from the day. 

Interestingly, even though this was an academic pitch, each and every seminar was animated and highly accessible. Come to think of it, it would have been ironic, I suppose, if this was not communicated most effectively.      

Dr. Roger O’ Sullivan (CARDI) and Professor Trevor Cox (KT-Equal) introduced the day and encouraged the delegates “to tweet” during the event which was being streamed online for the world to see. This showed delegates immediately how old and new media could interact to ensure effective communication.

Where did Speed Dating Come Into It?

Robin Webster, the Chief Executive Officer of Age Action Ireland, set the tone for the day. Technology can be used to the greater benefit of us all but, when dealing with dementia sufferers especially and fellow humans in general, never forget the human touch – smile! This proved to be a useful reminder straight away as the first workshop of the day was… Speed Dating! Well, communication speed dating as this was not that type of conference.

This exercise taught us to cut out the waffle, get straight to the point and learn to listen. As it happened, it set us up rightly for the coffee break.

Professor Gail Mountain (KT-Equal and University of Sheffield) then took to the stand to tell us the secrets of successful bid writing. Again clarity and succinctness was the key although Professor Mountain said it better: “Don’t over-egg the pudding”.

James McEldowney, Deputy Principal, Office First Minister and Deputy First Minister, took us into lunch with a passionate seminar about how our words, carefully weighted, could affect policy and policy-makers.

The KT-Equal team introduced the next seminar and workshop which allowed us all to test our new-found skills in headline, blog, and tweet-writing. 

It was apt too that Professor Alan Newell, University of Dundee, closed the day. Not only was Rights 4 Seniors aware of his work in engaging older people in research and IT, but we were lucky enough to meet with him too. Indeed, we will look forward to his next publication which is due to hit the book-shops soon: Design and the Digital Divide.

Access these presentations via the CARDI website.

Unltd Workshop: Sustainability of Social Economy Projects

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Research | Posted on 01-06-2011

Unltd Workshop: Sustainability of Social Economy Projects

Wed, 01/06/2011 – 09:17 — admin

Rights 4 Seniors took part in a knowledge sharing workshop with co-delegates and award-winners of the Unltd fund. Sustainability was at the heart of the discussions.

Unltd, the charity that exists to promote social entrepreneurship in our community, ran the workshop for attendees to share knowledge and skills that may help the sustainability of their own projects.

Lesley Johnston, Development Manager at Unltd for Northern Ireland, said that the workshop was to examine the successful sustainability models chosen by some of her award winners over the age of 50.

We are focusing on two sectors specifically – Health Care and Intergenerational work. Nevertheless, their models for success can be transferred into other third sector or public sector projects

Delegates ranged from representatives of the Trusts and the Social Economy Network to Invest NI and Arts Council for Northern Ireland. The projects and organisations of the award-winners had much more colourful and imaginative names. The Cabbage Patchers kept everybody enthralled after Belfast Flags took to the podium. Amongst the other fine introductions, the DJ Workshop told us about their cross-community work before The Art of Forage emerged from the forest to tell us about their back-to-nature approach to engaging the community.

Rather than tell you about all of these now, Rights 4 Seniors has offered to showcase each project for the award-winners so you will just have to wait to hear about these great ideas.

In the meantime, if you have an idea that will help your community but need help to get it off the ground, email Lesley or visit the Unltd website for further details.

The BIG Political Breakfast

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Research | Posted on 09-05-2011

There were bacon butties and croissants in abundance when Rights 4 Seniors attended the Big Election Breakfast event in the Europa this morning.

The event, organized to discuss the results of the Assembly Election, was hosted by Northern Ireland lobbying group, Stratagem, and the renowned political bloggers, Slugger O’ Toole. Speakers for the discussion included well known media personalities, political analysts and politicians. They have one thing in common – their belief in social media as a political tool for today and tomorrow (I have linked each name below to their social media websites so you can join them in conversation). As well as the ubiquitous, Mick Fealty, of Slugger O’ Toole blogging fame, and Quintin Oliver, the boss of Stratagem, the speakers included:

Obviously, the results of the election formed the backdrop to the morning. Central to the discussion, though, was a review of each party’s success at communicating their message and their effective use of social media as a political tool.

Of all the great discussions begun by the speakers, Lee Reynolds, DUP strategist, was particularly succinct and compelling. His road map to a successful election could serve as a blueprint for any charity campaign or simple communication. Aside from predestination, his signposts to reaching an audience include:

  1. The narrative: the human brain reacts better to stories so create your own narrative and and associate it to your brand
  2. Values: should be positively aligned to those values the target audience holds dear
  3. Credibility: based on the integrity of your message especially in comparison with the communications of the competition
  4. Organisation and discipline: your consistency and industry will be the key

The SDLP’s Conall McDevitt, a well-known member of the political “Twitterati” or “Tweet Élite”, also gave cursory lessons for us all to learn. Twitter is an invaluable communication tool. Even if you experience “Twitter Trolls” (or “Twrolls”), people who follow your online conversations to insult you or make controversial comments, social media is an experience you can utilize, control and, most importantly, enjoy. Conall warns users to be honest, though, as your audience will see through any personal agenda with ease. Maybe he was directing this specifically at the politicians in the audience :)

Healthy Ageing Consortium

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Networks | Posted on 28-04-2011

Rights 4 Seniors attended the North and West Belfast Healthy Ageing Consortium yesterday and, as always, the meeting was very informative.

A keyboard button with the word "blog" upon it.Geralyn Ainsworth of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust chaired the meeting and she was ably assisted by Frank Johnston of the Volunteer Now team. Amongst those represented were the Healthy Ageing Strategic Partnership (HASP), the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, North Belfast Senior Citizens Forum and, of course, Advice NI.

Aside from giving me the opportunity to discuss the success of the Rights 4 Seniors’ launch, the agenda ranged from shopping services for older people to the emergency planning of Northern Ireland Water. Throughout, the indomitable Meg Holmes of the North Belfast Senior Citizens Forum injected a much needed dose of realism into the proceedings. What she says carries much weight, not only because she is an older person herself but also because of her distinguished advocacy of age-related issues. Meg has a trade union background and this has prepared her well for tackling community issues from the ground right up to the tables of policy-makers.

Interestingly, following on from discussions at a recent conference which we attended (see our blog, Seniors Volunteer Now), a time-banking pilot is due to be rolled out in Tiger’s Bay, North Belfast. Time-banking is an innovative means of service exchange between two or more people. What happens is that you offer your time and skills within a group. You can then prevail of the skills of other people within the group. For example, if you were a carpenter and had worked for 5 hours on a number of jobs, you could “draw down” 5 hours worth of jobs from the other members of the group, depending on their particular skill-set.

We will keep you posted on its success.

Rights 4 Seniors: A Work in Progress

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Research | Posted on 23-03-2011

Although we have still to migrate half of the content and are styling what we have online at the moment, you can visit Rights 4 Seniors now and tell what you think about our work in progress.

Information regarding Pensions and Benefits has still to be added, but you can peruse modules on Helath, Community Care and Housing at www.rights4seniors.net. As I say, we will be styling this content and adding links over the coming weeks but we would still love your feedback on the design, look and feel of the website that you are helping to create.

In fact, Rights 4 Seniors is fully functional so you can sign up with email details (free of charge, of course) and leave comments, questions and feedback on the forums and blog.

Othertwise, connect with us on Twitter and Facebook. Oh what a wonderful world the internet is!

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All Aboard!

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Networks | Posted on 22-03-2011

We have confirmed the honourable speakers for the Rights 4 Seniors website launch.

The indomitable Dame Joan Harbison, our Older Person’s Advocate, will be helping us. Basil Davidson, the Digital Inclusion Manager in Government’s Delivery and Innovation Division, will be lending his expertise on the day too.

We have confirmed the Belfast Barge as a venue for the launch. They are going a bit mad in here with the river boat/nautical theme so it looks like we may have to buy a blow-up bottle to help “launch” the website. As long as they don’t have me in a sailor suit, dancing a horn pipe :)

All aboard!

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Volunteer Now Exhibition

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Design, Networks | Posted on 21-03-2011

I will be presenting the Rights 4 Seniors website to the visitors of the Volunteer Now exhibition, Surfing the Silver Wave, this Thursday 24th March at the Park Avenue Hotel.

The Rights 4 Seniors website will only be half complete (Benefits and Pension modules need added yet) but I will be able to get useful feedback on the website as it stands. I hasten to add though that I will post the details of the site here first and foremost as you have been helping me all along.

I’ll also be able to give you details of our Twitter and Facebook websites. If you are not already signed up to the social networks, then now is the time to get with the programme!

So on Wednesday 23rd March, I’ll post the web addresses here and look forward to hearing what you think. All feedback will be appreciated as I can feed this information back into the final website before its official release on April 13th. You may be able to help me smooth over any design faults that we have missed over the past month.

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Volunteering in the Third Age (VITA)

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Research | Posted on 02-03-2011

I am carrying out a further piece of research for a potential project that we may kick-start soon – Volunteering in the Third Age (VITA).

The 5 minute questionnaire is about volunteering opportunities in two of our projects.

- Rights 4 Seniors’ website (soon to be released), an essential rights reference for people in later life
- Advantage, a course for people who wish to specialize in older people’s issues and entitlements (in areas such as Health, Pensions and Benefits)

We are keen to engage with older people who can help us develop and deliver these services so that as many older people as possible can benefit from them.

As part of this work, we are carrying out a survey of older people who are 55 years of age and above. We would like to get a sense of your attitudes towards volunteering in later life. You may be able to tell us about any experience of volunteering you have had. Also, we would like to know if there are areas or training within our projects that would be of interest to you – you may be able to help us with challenging and rewarding volunteering opportunities in the near future.

Access the questionnaire

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What is a Soft Launch?

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Design, News, Research | Posted on 09-02-2011

We were gearing up to release the rights 4 seniors website in totality at the end of March but instead we may be releasing sections for debugging and quality testing by you! Welcome to “soft launching”.

Soft launching, for those of you who haven’t come across the phrase before, means we will make the rights 4 seniors website active for a select few to see:

  • What you think of it
  • Whether there are any bugs or errors
  • How you interact with it

Then, when you have given us feedback, we can make the required changes before we go live to the wider (before, in other words, I embarrass myself). Then we can prepare for the BIG LAUNCH! I might just get a chance to dust off a nifty shirt-and-tie-combo yet. Champagne reception, perhaps? Finger buffet anyone?

I’ll post the web address for rights 4 seniors very, very soon… Just don’t tell anyone else :)

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Silver Surfing at A2B

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Posted by Ciarán | Posted in Research | Posted on 04-02-2011

I was lucky enough to see the professionals in action yesterday as I attended a class of eager-beaver seniors who were learning all about emailing under the watchful eye of Kate and Amanda from Access to Benefits.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly we learn although getting over that first hurdle and making the leap into learning will always be the most difficult step. It does not matter whether it is mathematics, a new language or the brave, new world wide web. Does that first step get more difficult with age?

The computer class was jam-packed-full of willing and able students. Encouragingly, many of them had their own laptops with them too. Statistically (as we all know) seniors are more likely to be within the poorest and most vulnerable group in society. Therefore the actual cost of new technology, never mind learning how to use it, is another massive barrier to access. This is yet another reason why the closure of so many public libraries hits seniors the hardest.

Usability Study

NICVA hosted the class and, as per usual, laid on a great spread. Unfortunately, though, the students had to work for their supper. After their class and a mighty feed, I piggy-backed on to their day and had them test the development Rights4Seniors website. Yet again the seniors have cast up many, many suggestions that I, and not necessarily the designers, need to attend to now that I have access to the content management system. The look and feel of the sight was praised although I could pick out elements of the content that would make the user experience more enjoyable. You live and learn (and I’d better get back to it so “Adieu!”).

Many thanks to Kate, Amanda and all the surfers for the lovely welcome.

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