Raising Tech

Hello there. My name is Jason Prado and I am a Tech@Home technician based in Muskego, Wisconsin. Thank you for joining me today in this presentation about Outlook email organization. I’ll be going over some tips and tricks that I hope you will find helpful when it comes to organizing your inboxes and emails.

As I mentioned in the first slide, today’s presentation will be about Microsoft Outlook. It’s possible you might be familiar with this platform already if you currently use or have used Outlook for your emails. So before we get started, here’s the agenda for today’s presentation. Outlook provides some useful features that will hopefully help keep your inboxes organized.

Some of these features include sorting and filtering, pins and flags, archives, groups. And folders in each of these sections, I will have a demo [00:01:00] so I can showcase how each of the functions work. First we’ll be going over sorting and filtering. Sorting lets you order emails based on the criteria shown here. In order to go to sorting in your inbox, you will find these little arrows, these little icons Once you press that, you will get the criteria to sort your emails. some of the criteria are date from category, size, importance and subject.

when you choose the criteria, you also have the option to change the sort order. for date, you can change the sort order based on oldest on top or newest on top. next one, we’ll go over filtering. So filtering will only show emails based on the criteria shown here in the second photo.

So in order to start filtering your emails, it’ll be right next to a sort button [00:02:00] and the button kind of looks like three little lines. Once you press on that, you’ll get the criteria to to filter your emails. So some of the options you have are all on red flagged, To me has files, mentions me and calendar invites.

So the two are pretty similar. However, the main difference between sorting and filtering is that sort will sort your emails based on their criteria. And filtering will only show the emails based on the criteria here. For example, right now our emails are filtered by all. So that means it will be showing all of our emails.

If you choose unread, then the filter will only show unread emails. So any emails that you have read will not be shown while that filter is on. And then same with the other options here. Your email will be filtered based on the you choose.

[00:03:00] All right. let’s get started with the demo.

All right. So now we’re going to be going over the demo on sorting and filtering. So we have my inbox here. Now if you go to our inbox, we have the two buttons right here. Sort and filter. So if we go to sort, press on here, then we have the options here. So we have a sort by date. So right now for date, it’s a sort.

The sort order is newest on top. So we’ll be having our most current emails at the top here. And if I choose oldest on top, then we’ll be getting my oldest emails. So if you see here now, the date is back in July 27th of 2023. Now, if we go back to newest on top. Now we’ll have our most recent emails again, and then you also have the other options here.

So you have from, so this will be sorting emails based on the sender. In this case the sender is Aldi you can change the sort order here [00:04:00] from A to Z or Z to A. And if I go to Z to A, it’ll have the, it’ll have the sender that has that’s closest to Z. And in this case, we have TLDR, and that is the closest to Z.

Then you have categories. In this case, I don’t have any set. Then you have sort by size, and this will sort your emails based on how large the emails are. So let’s say someone sends you attachments like pictures and videos. It’s possible that email will probably have the largest on top.

And then you have importance. So depending on how your emails are set up, you can have emails set by the most important or the most important. And then finally, you have the subject. You can show your emails based on the subject line. Let’s go back to date. And now we have filter here. So if we go to filter, we can see different filters we have.

So right now we’re showing all of our emails. And then if we go to [00:05:00] unread it’ll only show emails that are unread. In my case, a lot of these are unread so far. So I’m just going to read these as if I did open and read them. All right, so now these are read, and if we go to filter and go to unread.

You’ll notice that they’re not here anymore. So that means we are filtering based on unread emails. Alright, and then you have all these other options here if you want to change the filter of your emails.

Alright, now we’re gonna go over pins and flags. Outlook has features called pins and flags. So pins will allow you to move specific emails to the top of your inbox. No matter where the email is in your inbox. So this is pretty useful for important emails or emails that you want to follow up on or emails that you just want visible right away when you open up your emails.

And next one you can [00:06:00] flag your emails. And what flagging is flagging is a little different from pins in that it doesn’t put your emails at top, but it will mark your emails with a little flag and change the color of it. So that way you’re able to find it. So this is also useful for important emails or emails you want to follow up on.

So when you go into your inbox, we have an example of a email here. And if you see right here, you have the little pin. So that’s how you will pin an email. So you just press on that. And then right away, your email would be at the top of your inbox. And then you also have the little flag here, which is how you will flag an email.

And then when you press that, the flag will turn red and your email will turn to a slightly different color in my case. Mine is yellow.

All right. So now let’s get to the demo.

. So now we’re back in my inbox. So first off, let’s start with [00:07:00] pins. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to scroll down pretty far here. And I am going to find a random email in this case, let’s go to this email right here. So this is from target all the way back from looks like November 21st.

So if I pin this, you’ll notice that it disappeared. Let’s pin another one. So I’m going to pin this one back from November 16th. You notice again, it looks like it disappeared. However, if I scroll back all the way up in my inbox, You notice that the two emails that I just pinned will now be up here, and you’ll notice that the pin is now highlighted in blue and that’s how you know that the email is pinned.

And then let’s say you are finished with the emails and you no longer want them pinned. You can just go to the pin and unpin and same with this one. And now those will be sent back to the original place that they were in your inbox. And then now [00:08:00] let’s go to flagging. So for the first email, we’ll just use this as the example.

We’re going to press this. And then now you notice there’s a little red flag on there and which indicates that is now flag. And it also, if you notice here now, as as I stopped hovering over it, it is like a little tint of yellow, which means that it is flag. And. That’s just there to help you find it if you ever need to find it again.

And then, let’s find another one to flag. Let’s say, we’re gonna flag this specific Kohl’s one. Let’s flag this one right here too. And you notice, these two are both yellow now. It’ll indicate that these are flagged. However, they will not be at the top of our inbox like pins are.

All right. Now we’ll be looking at the archive feature in Outlook. So what archiving does is move your email from your inbox to your archive folder. [00:09:00] Archiving allows for you to save important emails without having them show up in your inbox. So if you ever want to find the email again, you can either search for it in the search bar, or you can go straight to the archives folder here.

So if we go into our email, so let’s say We’re selecting this specific email here. You’ll find the archive button right at the top. And if you press on that, It’ll send it directly into the archives folder right here, and the archives folder will be located in the folders section, right? And then let’s get to the demo on archiving and email.

Now we’re back in my inbox. So let’s go find an email that we want to archive. So let’s say that We found this specific email very important. We don’t want to delete it, and we want to keep it, but also keep it away from our inbox in case for some reason we accidentally [00:10:00] delete it.

So what we’re gonna do here, we’re gonna highlight the email, and then up here we have the little archive button. So we’re gonna press this button, and then if you notice that it moved the email entirely, so it’ll no longer be shown in our inbox, but it will be shown right here. In the archives folder. So if we go into here now, the email will be sitting in this area.

And then let’s go and find another email here. Let’s say we find this email important right here. Since this one is flagged, let us archive this. And let’s say we also find this flagged email here. Also important. We’ll also archive it. Now you notice they’re no longer in our inbox here.

And if we go into our archives, Now we’ll find those flagged emails in our archive folder.

All right, now next feature we’ll go over our groups. So groups can be used for collaboration and sending out mass emails. So a group allows you to add [00:11:00] multiple users into a single folder where any member of that group is able to see that folder. Some use cases for groups would be for if you have group projects, family members, friends and even neighbors.

So essentially a group will let you send emails to everyone in the group all at once without having to continually add each recipient. In the 2 spot every member of the group will have access to all the emails and files pertaining to that group itself. How do we create a group? To create a group, you will need to go to groups here.

You have the groups section here. And underneath that, you have new group. You press on new group. Once you press on new group, then you will be greeted with this window here. At the top here, you have the group name which you can choose to name your group, anything you want in this.

In my case, I’m going to name my group test group [00:12:00] just to create a test group and then underneath that you have the description and in the description, you’ll have the option to describe your group so that everyone knows what the group is about. And then once you’re done setting those, You can press create and your group will be created and then at the right side of that you have discard.

So if you accidentally press the new group button by accident, you can just discard and not create that group.

All right. So once your group is created, you’ll get this other window here where you can start to add members to your group. So to add members you’ll go up here to add members and start typing in the names or emails of the people you want to add to that group. Right away you don’t have to add members to your group immediately.

 If you don’t want to or need to at the moment, you can press not now. And your group will still be created. And you can always have people to your groups later on. And then let’s say you did add members to your group. [00:13:00] Once you’re done adding those members, you can press add, and those people will now be part of your group.

All right, so then let’s say our group is finished. Now in groups here, you’ll find your group here. So in my case, we have test group. If you press on that. Then we have this section up here that has all the settings for our group. So it’s pretty similar to a normal inbox except you have the settings up here where it’ll have your group name How many members there are?

Send email which will send an email to everyone in that group And you have a little attachment button here where you can send an attachment to everyone in the group And then you have the options button over there to change any options you want in your group. And then you have your inbox here, which will be the shared inbox with everyone in that group.

So then what’s nice about a group is once you [00:14:00] start composing emails you can just add the name of your group to the two section and it’ll populate itself and we’ll send an email to everyone. That’s part of your group. All right, let’s get to the groups demo.

All right. So now we’re back in my inbox. Once we’re here, we’re going to scroll down here and find groups, and now we’re going to press new group. All right. So now we’re greeted with this window here where we can start to create our group. So group name. We’re going to choose our group name. In my case, I’m just going to call it test group.

And then now we have the description right here where we can describe the group. So then everyone is part of it and knows what it’s about. And in my case, I’m just going to call. I’m just going to say this is a Test Group and then now we’re going to go down here and press create.[00:15:00]

Now we have this new window here where we’re able to add members to our group. So if we go in here and add members, then we can start typing out the names of the people we want to add or the email addresses. Once we’re finished with adding them here, we can press the add button down here and then we will add those new members to our group.

In my case, I’m not going to add anyone right now. So I’m just going to press not now. All right. And now our group should be created. So what I’m going to do is refresh the page.

Then if we go down here, we have our test group and press on this. And now we have the inbox for our test group. So we have test group here, which is the name of my group. And we have one member, which currently is just me. And then we have the option to send emails send attachments and [00:16:00] files and a group calendar.

And then now we have our inbox here, which everyone in that group will be able to access. And let’s say we want to add more members to our group here by pressing on test group, and then going to members right here. So if we go to members, then we have right here at members. I’m not going to add anyone just because I have no one to add at the moment, but yeah, if you wanted to add more members, you would press on this and then type in the names and email addresses of people you want to add, and then they’ll be added to your group.

But yeah, otherwise if you wanted to send an email to everyone in our group, we’d press here, send email. Press that. And if you notice up here in the two section, we have test group, which is a name burn group. Once we send out an email here, it’ll send an email to everyone in the group. And like I said earlier, this is nice for [00:17:00] collaboration and nice to send out emails to lots of people all at once.

All right. And then finally, we’ll be going over folders. So creating and using folders is a great way to organize your emails. You can use folders to organize your emails based on the sender, topic, or even keywords. For example, let’s say that we want all of our emails from our boss to go into a specific folder.

So what we could do is create a folder titled boss. And start adding emails from boss just to that folder. And then you can do that for a lot of other things. So if you have a shop, like shopping, you can have a shopping folder and add all the emails from your favorite places in that folder.

 In your inbox here, in order to view the folders, you have your folders right here, and then if you scroll all [00:18:00] the way down, you’ll have create new folder. And then from there, you can create your new folder. So if we press create new folder, then we’ll get this option here.

And if you notice that it becomes a text box, and from there you can type in the name of the folder that you want to create in my case here. In this example, I created a folder for CNN news. And then once you’re done with that, you can press the save button and then now it’ll be part of your folders. So now we have my new folder here in CNN News.

Alright, so then we’re going to get to the demo. Alright, let’s get to starting folders.

Alright, once again, we’re back in my inbox. to start creating new folders, we’re going to go over here to folders, and then it looks a little different [00:19:00] now. So create a new folder. We’re going to press the three dots right here and press create new folder. And then now we have a little text box here where we can start to create our, our folder and choose a name for it.

in my case, let’s say we want to create a folder just for Kohl’s. All right, and now we’re gonna press save. And then now we have this new folder here for calls. If we go into it, it’s currently empty, since we haven’t added anything to it yet. let’s go back to the inbox start adding to the Kohl’s folder here.

if you wanted to add it add any calls, emails to it, we’re just gonna press on the email. And then up here we have the button move to. So if we press on that. then you’ll have the option to move to any folder you want. And in this case, we’re going to want to move it to a different folder here.

[00:20:00] Since we don’t have the option of Kohl’s yet, I’ll press that. And then now if you see, we have our coals folder right here. So if you press on that, then the email that we just sent will be now in our calls folder. So if we go into the calls folder, notice now that email is in there. And then now let’s say we want to add a few more.

Let’s choose a few here. So I’m just going to press a little square here that lets you choose multiple. Since a lot of these are Kohl’s emails, we’re going to choose a few of them. All right. And then we’re going to go back to Move To up here. And then since we chose calls before it should be an option right here, right away.

So we’re going to press calls. If you notice, those emails have now moved. And now if we go to our calls folder, all those emails that we just sent will be now found here. Folders are a nice way to organize your emails [00:21:00] based on any subject, sender, or topic that you can think of.

This concludes the presentation on organizing your emails, specifically Outlook emails. I hope that you learned something today that you’re able to use these tips and tricks to organize your Outlook email. Again, thank you for watching and happy organizing.

Welcome to Raising Tech Podcast. I’m your host, Amber Barden. And today we have Matt Just. Matt Just is the founder and developer of the software behind Plan of Correction 365. Plan of Correction 365 is an AI driven platform designed to simplify and streamline the compliance process.

Welcome to the show, Matt.

Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here, Amber. appreciate the invite and the intro.

the podcast is a long time coming for a little peek behind the scenes, but we have rescheduled this recording so many times because you’ve gone through a complete rebrand and restructure and our topic compliance.

It’s not something that people get super excited about, but it’s something we all need. I’ve had a lot of clients asking about compliance tools lately. So I’m really excited to dig into this. first of all, just tell our listeners, who are you? Who is Matt?

Yeah. So, I’m Matt. I’m actually a consultant pharmacist by trade, have been in long term care space, assisted [00:01:00] living, post acute care, skilled, nursing communities for Jeepers.

It’s been about 12, 13 years I’ve been in the industry. I’ve been a software entrepreneur, developer, sort of dabbling in that type of stuff. created, a previous infection control platform and have since moved on to Plan of Correction 365, which, which you mentioned isn’t, is a AI automated compliance management platform.

we’re really focusing on. that compliance component of long term care, which, can be Very mundane at times, but extremely necessary in the industry. we’re here to help with that. we do a lot of things, leveraging AI. in the long term care space, AI is sort of this nebulous topic, that’s a very much a buzzword right now.

we really need to leverage in long term care. That’s my opinion to create efficiencies. as you know, Amber, there’s a lot of team member shortage in the long term care industry. And [00:02:00] so I think communities really need to embrace a I technology to become more efficient. Given that lack of team member capabilities sometimes we have as well as availability for for those positions.

So leveraging those AI tools can be really important to create efficiency over time within long term care. tell me a little bit about this shift to compliance. you originally started out in pharmacy and then you made this change. Did you identify a gap in the marketplace or tell me a little bit about that evolution?

Yeah. we launched the business about, 12 months ago and launched the platform. Functionality and capability about, two months ago and have had much success with the platform my transition focused on long term care and main pain points Talking to my consultant clients I kept hearing the term compliance come up, I saw the frustration and panic that happens not only during the survey process for everyone involved, but even after.

the survey [00:03:00] process. this frustration and panic lingered throughout the post survey process. that’s when a lot of the work really occurs in terms of providing that plan of correction to the state. What are we going to do with our team members to become compliant?

What kind of education and policy reviews need to happen? I thought, why not leverage AI for that? we have so many open source tools that can help Create efficiencies in that post survey process and reduce that survey anxiety that people can experience with that survey process after the surveyors leave the building.

And that’s where I really identified that gap. I thought, there could be something to improve efficiency within that post survey process. And that’s Planet Correction 365. tell me a little bit more about that. is your tool specifically focused on survey or do you also do incident reporting or what is included in that compliance component?

Right. we take that 2567 or that assisted living survey [00:04:00] document extract data from it and leverage our AI tool to automate the process of writing your plan of correction we take what usually has taken hours to days to weeks to do and reduce the time to create a plan of correction specific to what you were cited on, within minutes.

we leverage our technology to create audit templates and tools for you. when you get surveyed and get a deficiency, we grab that information and create every tool you need around that post survey process to become compliant. including audit tools, audit calendars, policy and procedure.

we leverage our automation to create PowerPoints for you for educational purposes and really how is everything in that post survey process in our system. In addition to that, you know, not only do we focus on being compliant in [00:05:00] the moment, but also what can we do for the future to ensure that we really minimize our risk for obtaining potential deficiencies.

we have a proactive Insight tool within Planet Correction 365 that allows you to see regionally what deficiencies communities are getting in your area How do I prevent that deficiency from occurring in my community? What can I look at for policy and procedure?

What kind of audits can I create around that we have created the ability for mock survey templates to be uploaded to our system, creating plans of correction, finding those deficiencies, and putting proactive tools and processes in place to prevent survey tags from occurring.

Okay. Interesting. Is there anything else like this on the marketplace? No, we’re really only the, we’re the only company that’s really leveraging automation and AI to, to create plans of correction for people. So, yes. Yeah. I haven’t heard of that before. I know that there is a [00:06:00] big need for, um, more automated and streamlined incident reporting.

Is that something you’re going to be spotting in the future? Yeah. So the evolution of our platform really is driven by our clients. And so, you know, we have a large number of clients on board that are providing feedback for us that are providing guidance. And we’re really letting them be in the driver’s seat for future development and functionality.

We’ve already had some great suggestions on adding um, A couple of fields for survey process, survey dates, and those type of things really create the reporting capabilities needed on the back end to, to really leverage what, what long term care is needing in those reports and whatnot. we’re really letting our clients sit in the driver’s seat and tell us, what do you need?

And I think that’s unique about our company. We’re really. We’re really focused on client satisfaction and, and getting feedback from them to create a platform that really is a robust platform. So, [00:07:00] um, I don’t know if incident reporting is on our roadmap at this point in time, but we’re letting our clients sit in the driver’s seat and, and, and tell us what they need in the post compliance space.

Makes sense. Do you have any advice for communities on navigating the survey process or anything that you’ve learned or tips or tricks that you could share? Yeah, well, you know, as, as a lot of individuals know, time is of the essence when it comes to the post survey process, um, uh, citations and fines can accumulate very rapidly on a day by day basis if you’re out of compliance in, in certain areas.

Um, You know, our platform is really focused on saving that time and getting you a compliant as fast as possible. And that’s what I would focus on. So, once the surveyors leave the building, you need to have the ability to respond quickly to their, their recommendations and their, their actions as well as when you get that 2567, that document.

You have a [00:08:00] certain amount of time to respond. And so, you know, time is of the essence in that regard. So my advice is to be timely, um, get that response back, get the survey process behind you in that respect and look towards the future to really prevent those tags. AI is super cool. We can really leverage it to slice and dice data however we really want to in the snap of a finger.

And I think in addition to being timely, we also need to be proactive in a lot of respects with that survey process. So timeliness and proactiveness are essential and leveraging AI to create efficiency for you. Why not? Why not do that? So do you have? Sorry, we’ll start that over. When we think about AI, I think there’s a lot of opportunity and excitement people have with what it can do.

But I know there’s also concerns on the privacy side. So can you talk a little bit about how can you [00:09:00] ensure that this data that’s going into a survey process utilizing AI is safe? How is it safeguarded and how does it remain private? Right? Yeah. So we take privacy very, very seriously here at Planet Correction 365.

And we know that You know, a lot of communities don’t want their data out in the open air within the AI realm. We only hand AI what is needed to create a plan of correction, and we’ve really created our own little in house AI component and functionality that really keeps things in that tight knit circle.

So we don’t hand AI any more information that it needs, no community information, nothing about that. Here’s the survey tag, we’ve trained you on the process of the, of the survey deficiencies. Create a plan of correction that is accurate for this specific deficiency, and let’s move on in that survey process.

So, but you’re right, there is a lot of concern on the industry within the AI realm about that privacy. [00:10:00] And, you know, I think In some respects, Amber, I think we need to sort of get over that privacy. Um, you know, I think that, uh, there is a concern, but when you talk about holding a cell phone in your hand, all your private information is already out there anyway.

So, my focus is really how can we leverage it to create efficiency within that long term care space. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like it is a little bit defeatist, but yeah. Yeah. Understand that people also have concerns about that. And that’s something I hear, I hear frequently and I don’t always know what the answer is to that either.

It does feel like a lot of it is just out of our control and we have to give up a lot of privacy to get some of this automation and efficiency. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. Absolutely. And another thing is like, I feel like when long term care, you know, I’ve been at conferences and they, they, they think about AI and this really, uh, uh, what am I trying to say?

You’re thinking about [00:11:00] AI in this very broad space and this very, all encompassing component of AI. With long term care, you don’t have to adopt a robot that hands your, uh, your residents meals. Like that’s, start small, I guess is my point with AI. What can you use right now to create exponential efficiency in your community, reduce operational disruptions, And that really is a lot around the post survey process in the survey process in general.

So, you know, I always encourage long term care communities. You don’t need to think of AI in this all encompassing fashion. How am I going to adopt? something that, you know, passes meals to my residents, um, and has very, a big expense tag behind that. You can leverage AI very, uh, inexpensively to create exponential efficiency.

And that’s what we’re here to do at Planet Correction 365. Yeah, I agree completely. I mean, AI [00:12:00] is such a buzzword. Like you said at the beginning of the meeting, you know, you go to a conference and people are just like, Throwing AI out there all over the place, but not a lot of people are talking about the practical application of it.

And what does it actually mean? And like you said, it can be in so many different ways. So AI could be, you know, taking notes of our call that we’re on right now, or it could be writing policies for us to chat GPT. Um, or it could be something more advanced with like data analytics and things like that.

But I think it’s just such a case by case use. Um, scenario that you have to look at specifically what it is you’re looking for and asking about than just the sort of general AI. And so I think we’re going to, you know, actually, actually think, um, we’ve talked about doing a podcast series where we talk about practical application of AI and how can you actually use it?

Because that’s the question everybody has. Yeah, I think, I think you’re right. I think that can be a tough spot to sort of start. Like people think about where do I start with AI? And I think you’re right. The practical applications can be difficult to extract in terms of what can I [00:13:00] use it for. And, you know, my advice would be to start small.

You don’t need to adopt this all encompassing AI technology all at one time. Start in small bites and move forward. What can you leverage right now that’s out there in the market to create exponential efficiency? So sorry, I couldn’t find you. Uh, Matt, can you give us an example of a specific client you’ve worked with or a use case or a success story you can share?

Oh, right. Yeah. Uh, many different ones I could choose from, but I, I always revert back to, you know, a couple of, you know, surveys that didn’t go great. They had a lot of citations, the coordination that it’s going to take to manually create a plan of correction for each different citation. This one community had 47 different citations and 160 page PDF documents.

So you can imagine the, [00:14:00] the, uh, burden that that might occur, uh, that might, um, Yeah, be on that community’s plate for that process. And we were able to turn around a plan of correction for them utilizing our software within 10 minutes. We had a fully complete plan of correction that was written. They were able to become compliant very quickly and, and move on from that process.

We also had the same client, uh, unfortunately get an IJ tag. Um, that needed a plan of correction that day, like within hours, and so, you know, they were really struggling to come up with that on their own, but leveraging our tool, we were able to create a plan of correction for them that the surveyors looked at, accepted very quickly, and moved on in their survey process.

Well, Matt, I think you really created a product is really necessary, and there’s a gap in the marketplace. So I really appreciate you coming on and telling our listeners about it. Is [00:15:00] there anything we haven’t talked about that you want to let our listeners know? Yeah, I would like to let you know about our, um, Uh, our partnership with the Institute for Post Acute Care and Ayesha Kallur, um, very excited for that, uh, for, for Planet Correction 365, um, partnering with them and, and, and getting their knowledge in the industry has been extremely beneficial.

They’ve really provided guidance on the functionality of the website and really leveraged that clinical, uh, uh, aspect in terms of the plan of correction that we’re looking to, to generate and write. And, you know, I’m very excited and, and, and wanted to just give them a shout out for what they, uh, for what that, what they do on an everyday basis.

Excellent. Where can our listeners learn more? you can visit our website at plan of correction, three 65. com. that’s where you can get all the information about the platform. Uh, we really you know, [00:16:00] the simplicity of the signup process, simplicity of the pricing structure. You know, we’re here to help long term care and create efficiencies.

And that’s what we’re focused on is assisting in that post compliance process. that’s where you can find more information, PlanetCorrection365. com. Thanks Matt. Thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks

Matt Reiners: Welcome back. Today we meet with Checked In Care, a SaaS company based out of Australia who’s changing the landscape of customer and staff experience in the care industry We’ll meet with founder and CEO of Checked In Care, John Perkins from Australia today.

And we also have on this interview, John Bosen, the president of their first USA customer advantage home care, based out of St. Louis. we’ll explore many of the benefits that this Australian company is bringing to U. S. based companies in the aged care and senior living industry.

thanks for joining me today, both Johns. first question I have for you, John Perkins is, can you just tell me the why behind Checked In Care?

John Perkins: Yeah, thanks, Matt. And thanks for having us on your podcast today. I’ve been working in the care sector since 1994,

My great aunt, who was heavily involved [00:01:00] in raising us, went into a senior living facility, And I remember walking in to see her and thinking, wow, you live a meaningful life and this is how it ends. And that really sparked a deep question inside me because the dignity of the end of life wasn’t there.

So that sort of lit that spark and led to me starting to work for not for profit care providers. I then started my first technology company in 1995. After selling that company,In 2001, I co founded another company called Ethan Group, which became Australia’s largest privately owned IT company, which delivered broad services to the care sector.

But what I noticed during that time was how self service capabilities, such as what you saw in the care retail industry, hospitality industry, even financial services industry, Where people could access what they wanted, when they wanted it, anywhere, anytime. you could go online at 10:30 at night and find out what you needed to know.

That was not happening in the care [00:02:00] industry. when you add the fact that in the care industry, it’s quite often families that are calling in and they’re anxious about knowing how their loved ones being looked after. That was the core reason behind starting Checked In Care. It was very much around bringing to the care industry the same self service capabilities that was happening in every other industry.

So that if a family member, or even the client, wanted to know what was happening with their care, they could access that information 24/7. What we’ve done is, we’ve actually Connect to a broad range of back end systems and bring all that information into a single screen, whether it’s an app or your desktop, so that whatever you need to know or you as a family member need to know about the care of an individual is available through that one app.

But also that’s extended now to staff, where there is so much app fatigue in the care industry. We bring all that information now into one single screen, one [00:03:00] window for staff to access the five, six, eight, 10 systems that they need to do their daily job.

Matt Reiners: Yeah, it’s such a smart idea. I went and spoke to a group late last year, and someone mentioned they had 15 different apps on their phone, all required to do their job, all at different logins, it was a pain in the butt, right?

Like it’s just not a way, in a industry that prides ourselves in the care that we provide to have all of this. in one stop shop I love that. I know we’ll get to John Bosen here talking from the client experience, but I’m wondering John Perkins, if you can share some of the business outcomes, your clients are experiencing today.

John Perkins: Yeah. So Matt, the global issue that everyone’s having is staff availability and retention. And globally, as we talk to our customers, the number one issue they’re having with staff and when they do exit interviews with staff, the key issue that staff continually raise is they just don’t know what’s going on in the organization.

There’s not [00:04:00] enough communication. A lot of care workers who are mobile. They actually don’t access email, and the standard way that organisations communicate with their staff today is by email. And when our global partners have been looking at the reason why staff are leaving and it’s hard to retain staff, it’s because staff are saying, we don’t know what’s going on, there’s no communication, and there’s too much paperwork.

Even though these organisations have the systems in place, it’s too hard to access those 15 systems at the back end. we solve that problem, we connect to those 14 or 15 systems, we bring all that information into one single screen, and we enable that full communication channel.

everything the organization wishes to communicate with their staff is accessed through that one screen, that one app. solving the communication issue and access to those corporate systems. from a HIPAA compliance point of [00:05:00] view, staff are only allowed to see the information they’re allowed to see based on their role.

if you’re not supposed to see clinical information, if you’re a cleaner, you’re do not have access to that, our system solves that problem by only giving you access to the information you need based on your role.we have both the staff and the client app from a client point of view.

whether it’s the client or family members, you’re in a high stress scenario. You wish to know how your loved one’s going. And today, 70, 70, 70 percent of all calls into long term care facilities go either unanswered or someone says, I’ll get back to you, but they’re just so busy.

We help address that issue because those calls get dramatically reduced because the client or the family have access to the information they want when they want it. Reducing complaints, increasing transparency of that information to individuals and therefore substantially reducing staff effort because the [00:06:00] client or family members can find out the information they want when they want it.

Matt Reiners: I love that. I think where we’re going in terms of a working force, That transparency is key, And making sure you’re keeping that front and center. as we navigate the next five to ten years, I do see transparency continue to playing even that much larger of a role.

And I’m curious, this is for John Bosen, who hopefully gets an award for being the first U. S. based client of your guys. But John, I’m, John Bosen, I’m curious, what is the business problem that Checked In Care is helping you solve? And how’d you learn about Checked In Care?

John Bosen: great questions, Thanks for bringing him up. I met john accidentally as most relationships go, it’s right place and right time. I’ve been on the same software for about 20 years and we’re looking to switch we call it E. M. R. S, which is a electronic medical record.

We’re looking to switch softwares and the salesman of the new platform Introduced me to John he happened to be coming to the States for an event and we met up the clouds [00:07:00] aligned and here we are today

apprehensive because I don’t want to share the good magic that John’s done with the rest of the states. And so I understand that all that stuff that John said is true and great, but I’m biased and that I want to keep a secret for myself. And again, I’m being cheeky. So I hope you can see that.

 in all honesty John’s company solves a huge problem that I have in the home care industry it’s very segmented. A lot of stuff is still on paper. As John talked about, communicating with your team is a challenge in itself.

And I’ll just frame this for you so that you can see for yourself and your audience can see for themselves. here in St. Louis, we have a pediatric hospital called children’s hospital. They have about 150 beds. I have 4, 000 clients throughout Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, and Tennessee, administered through 50 office locations out of those locations, about 4, workers.

They don’t come in and so they don’t have access. You go [00:08:00] to the hospital every seven to 11, those shifts change, There’s healthcare workers leaving, there’s healthcare workers coming. They have support, they have policies, they have training, and if somebody doesn’t do what they need to do, all you gotta do is wait outside the doors and you can intercept ’em and train ’em

Home care is very segmented and it’s done like business was done 30 or 40 years ago. COVID for example. Prior to COVID, there was nothing electronic, no employment applications, or any of that stuff you order an HVAC guy to come out to your house, you get a picture of himhis likes, dislikes, his favorite color, you get all these things that tell you when to expect them, what he looks like and all these things, you order a home care worker, you Something that’s pretty intrusive.

You don’t know who you’re getting. You don’t know when they’re coming. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t. And the lack of communication is missing. John plugged that void by supplying an easy platform that allows them to get the service that they need when they need [00:09:00] it, Imagine somebody interacting with your mom or dad that has dementia. And you trying to maintain a full job

And so nothing like my mom or my wife managing my mom’s needs. And John made that all doable as easy as with an app, as easy as typing in the phone number from my mom’s instance, without even involving me and giving her designated responsible party access to whatever information at their fingertips.

So they can make better decisions so that they can give quality care or partner with us to make sure they get the quality of care they need in the comfort of their home.

Matt Reiners: Wow. Love that. Talk about a testimonial. that’s so awesome to hear John Bosen.

I appreciate you sharing that with us. And I can understand being the first you don’t want the word to get out for everybody else, but hopefully John Perkins can take care of you in one way or another for doing that. John Bosen, another question I have for you, and you hit on it a little bit, but I always see this probably [00:10:00] more so a hesitation to work with some companies from outside the U.

S. market, bringing in solutions and services into the U. S. have there been any challenges that they’re based in Australia?

John Bosen: Noquite the contrary. I’ve been in this home care industry for 20 years.

I’ve been talking about an employee application since cell phones have come out, I’m only 45, but this is the first job I’ve ever really had. we’ve been talking about an employee app for literally 20 years. The man delivered that easily and It’s a breath of fresh air because what I like about John is he came here without any preconceived notions of what I wanted and in a typical salesman fashion, he listened, okay, but didn’t put me on what he wanted to put me on.

He put on, put me on a problem and trying to solve something and that goes a long way. he didn’t try to sell me something out of the box. He came to. solve my problem. in all honesty, that’s how the conversation started.

It’s not this is what we think [00:11:00] it’s tell me what you need. And he’ll tell you anything’s possible. It’s just how much it’s going to cost you. if he’s committed to it, He’s committed to making it work,

The hardest part is he’s on a different schedule but he’ll get up and have conversations with me And so I think that’s a, he can tell you how that converts in Australian time, but I sure don’t have a problem.

Matt Reiners: No that’s awesome to hear. And I know right now I just had to Google it.

It’s 6 20 AM in Sydney. So John Perkins waking up early to take part in this. And it’s so refreshing to hear. And I think John Bosen and you kinda, you mentioned like a typical salesperson my problem is I see typical salespeople are not like that. John actually coming in and listening and building a solution that makes sense versus forcing something upon you.

That’s where I’ve seen the most successful. Partnerships, not just a vendorship release is when you can work off the direct client feedback of what works well, what’s not working well and create a best solution for that. And then John boasted another question back to you. When you think about the [00:12:00] future with your partnership with Checked In Care, what do you hope as it evolves over time?

And would you recommend them to other us based providers that are not your competitors?

John Bosen: Yes, absolutely. You said it right there.

We are here in Missouri. we started with the caregiver side of it. The future is both a client side and a caregiver side of the app. in all honesty, more and more. Five years from now, it’ll be 22, five years from there it’ll be 44.

the answer is as fast as he can develop, we’ll continue to bring. More and more functionality to the table. And really it’s just as fast as what problems come up and how can John solve them? What I have now is a virtual mailbox. in front of every client and every caregiver that travels with them.

I’ve been waiting for that for 20 years. So I’m excited about our future.

Matt Reiners: I love that. question for you, John Perkins. It sounds like you’ve got a raving client and the St. Louis, Missouri area, but what are some of your other future plans for North America?

John Perkins: thanks, Matt. We’ve hired people in [00:13:00] North America now, and it’s a matter of building the team and scaling our capabilities into the market.

What we see in this part of the world, in Australia, New Zealand is we are consistently allowing or achieving a 40 percent reduction in inbound and outbound calls. Why? Because clients families and staff have access to what they need when they need it so they don’t need to call.

Substantially reducing complaints and we typically see an increase in revenue per client of 1, 000 per annum. because the family and the client can see the whole range of other services that they can access through, through that one provider. So really it’s about bringing that same capability and business outcomes to North America.

And to do that, we’re building the team, we’re scaling the team in North America. It’s really a matter of our growth and the great work thatwe love working with John Bosen and his team. And it’s a matter of [00:14:00] replicating that across many more customers. very excited to be in the States.

Very excited to see our growth and keen to bring the same outcomes that we’re consistently saying to providers in the U S market.

Matt Reiners: Awesome. Super exciting. And I’m always excited when I see new companies breaking into the North American market. at times we think we’ve got all the solutions here, which is just not the case at all.

I’m always looking for other people to bring innovative ideas into it. last question, either John can take it. Any final thoughts you want to share that you haven’t had the chance to share quite yet?

John Bosen: Matt, we call him internally. We call him me the States, John, and that’s Aussie, John. And so there’s the first two things you didn’t know about our names. And so we’ll give you that. But then for me and all honesty, I think the takeaway here Is that John brings flexibility

He’s not bolted onto any platform. He’s going to solve your problems and address your needs and bring his solution and try best to go after your specific problems. For me, I think that’s the takeaway [00:15:00] here. It’s not a it’s not a specific solution, but it’s a solution that has the right back end and the right customer service to streamline any kind of software you need.

Matt Reiners: And then Aussie John, anything else?

John Perkins: Our mission as a company is a world where all people live their best lives with choice and dignity. it’s about putting that choice into the hands of the consumer and staff what

excites us about the North American market is it’s very heavily privately paid. Where the choice is much more in the hands of consumer. Whereas in our part of the world, it’s very much government funded. we’re seeing enormous amount of excitement for our solution in North America because the, the nature of a more properly paid system.

We’re very excited to be there and watch our growth as we go forward. The customer and potential customer we’ve met so far in North America have been awesome. John Bosen, certainly the top of the tree, butwe love working in the North American [00:16:00] market.

Matt Reiners: Awesome. Thank you, Aussie John andUS John, this was a great episode and really grateful to hear the success that US John you’re having with Aussie John’s service. Awesome job, guys. Thanks, man.

John Bosen: Nice talking to you, man. Thank you,

John Perkins: Thanks for having us.

You can find us online at RaisingTechPodcast. com where you can see all of our episodes and contact us to provide feedback or submit an episode idea. We are on social media everywhere at Raising Tech Podcast. If you enjoy Raising Tech, please leave us a review and share with a friend. Music is an original production by Tim Riesig, one of our very own Parasol Alliance employees.

As always, thank you for listening.

Hey everyone, my name is Alex Reckard. I am a resident IT technician for Parasol Alliance, and I’m currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. I will be your presenter for this month’s Tech at Home resident exclusive miniseries, and the topic is going to be all about artificial intelligence. Now, I’m sure plenty of you have heard of artificial intelligence before, so this will be a great refresher for a lot of you.

And if you haven’t, hopefully you’ll learn quite a bit with this presentation. With this presentation, we’ll explore how machines mimic human thinking and discover practical applications for everyday life. Now going over the overview, which will be the structure for the presentation.

We’re going to first go over understanding AI, also known as Artificial Intelligence, the benefits of AI, risks and concerns, practical applications, AI tools, and [00:01:00] Followed by demonstrations.

Alright, so I wanted to do a pop quiz at the beginning of the presentation. And as we go through each image, can you distinguish whether it was generated by AI?

I’ll zoom in for you so that you can get a better look at each of the image,

alright? I’ll give you a few seconds. You can feel free to pause the video if it makes it that much easier for you to get a better look at each of the image. And then, you can resume the video if you are paused, and then I’ll let you know the answers.

 Alright, what do you think? Do you think you got all of them correct? Alright, so let’s go on to the first one. So we can see that this image looks really great. He looks really cozy. He has a nice knitted sweater. And if you actually guessed if this was captured by a human being, unfortunately, it is not.

It’s AI generated. And then going on to this image looks like it could be a great LinkedIn profile [00:02:00] photo. But if you mentioned that it was captured by a photographer, unfortunately it’s not. It’s AI generated as well. And you guys can probably catch on and see that there’s a pattern going on and if you did, in fact, think that this was captured by a human being, unfortunately this photo is generated by AI as well.

All these photos were generated by artificial intelligence. And now you’re probably thinking, how is this even possible? And I have to say, yes, it’s quite Interesting how someone even came up with technology that can do this it’s almost like magic to say the least, but the AI tool that I used to be able to make these images is a AI tool called mid journey.

And so mid journey allows for the generation of images. And it’s really come a long way and these are some of the images that I came up for this pop quiz that I wanted to add a little bit of interactivity [00:03:00] to the presentation. With that being said, let’s actually move on to the contents in the presentation as well.

Alright, now We will be understanding artificial intelligence, and with this slide we’ll go over a lot of the origins and history of AI and how it became to be what it is now. Alright what AI does is that it mimics human logic and reasoning, and its origin was actually from Dartmouth in 1956 by John McCarthy.

And he coined the term of Artificial Intelligence. And so what Artificial Intelligence does is that it’s actually a combination of various different subjects, such as Computer Science, also known as CS. Mathematics and Neuroscience. So it’s a mix of math, computers, and even a bit of psychology and neuroscience.

And then AI is all about data driven, adaptive systems. [00:04:00] AI thrives on using data, and the more data that it gets, the better that it can learn. And so the better that it can learn can improve automation, as well as optimization. This helps influence globally and also it continuously evolves each and every day.

Now going on to the benefits of artificial intelligence. And so some of the benefits that it allows us to have is automation saves individuals time and effort. And a lot of repetitive tasks end up becoming a lot easier and more convenient for us and if you ever use YouTube you can understand that a lot of videos end up getting recommended to you.

That’s actually artificial intelligence behind the scenes creating algorithms to better tailor your experiences for which video to watch and which video to recommend you watch next. This helps individuals gain access to more information as [00:05:00] well. It helps to foster innovation and enables further development, as well as optimize resource usage for environmental conservation.

Now, where there are benefits, there’s always going to be risks with everything. Automation may actually lead to a bunch of job losses as well, because a lot of repetitive tasks end up being automated, and machines are being used for those repetitive tasks and then a lot of human workers unfortunately will lose their jobs due to artificial intelligence.

Another risk is privacy concerns via personal data collection. And whenever you’re using an AI tool, you’ll have to make sure not to use any sensitive information or privacy that you wouldn’t want to share with a stranger. That’s something that you would have to keep in mind. false information from prompt hallucinations as well.

And so what I mean about prompt hallucinations is [00:06:00] that sometimes in these AI tools is that it might give back information that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And it could come off as, false information at times. Another risk is reliance on tech also has a chance of reducing critical thinking.

The potential misuse in AI development can also be a major risk. It could be unfortunately used for spam or malicious purposes, and that’s something that we have to be aware of. And then also a risk would be energy consumption. E waste and carbon emissions.

Alright, now going on to practical applications. There are a lot of virtual assistants that help perform tasks. If you’re ever aware of Siri, Siri is a very popular Apple virtual assistant. That helps you with a lot of day to day tasks, such as being able to call people much [00:07:00] easier, or be able to send text messages, or search things on the web for you much quicker.

And if you’re not familiar with Siri maybe you might be more familiar with Amazon’s Alexa as well, and that allows you to do a lot of similar tasks. Another practical application is that algorithms personalize recommendations. AI can actually translate text and speech in real time. For example, if you’re ever on a trip in a foreign country and you use an AI tool that allows one of the native speakers there that speaks in a different language, what you can do with the AI tool is get the input of their language and then whatever the output set as is your native language, it can allow you to translate

whatever that person is trying to speak to you about. Another practical application is autonomous vehicles help enhance safety measures as well. A very popular [00:08:00] autonomous vehicle or uses self driving is Tesla. And then smart home optimizes energy usage. So if you use a lot of smart devices for your home, you can be able to control the heating or cooling of your home as well as the lights.

If you ever need to turn off the lights whenever you’re away from the home it just allows you to be able to optimize energy usage as well. And then another practical application is monitoring both your fitness and health metrics.

Alright, now moving on to artificial intelligence tools. So in this slide, we’ll have different types of categories for each AI tool, with the first one being all about text. So text, AI tools and one that you might be very familiar of will be ChatGPT, and then followed by Gemini and Copilot. And a really popular imaging tool, and one that I’ve used in this presentation, [00:09:00] was called MidJourney.

And then another is DALL-E, and also Leonardo. And then going on to video AI tools, we have Sora, which is also another open AI tool, which is from ChatGPT and also Runway Machine Learning. Now, going on to voice AI tools, there’s Speechify. natural readers, and AI covers that you can find on YouTube.

Image recognition AI tools are Google Lens, Apple Face ID, as well as Tesla. And, what Tesla does for image recognition, for example, is that their vehicles are able to identify what obstacles are on the road, so that if it ever needs to make a maneuver, It can be able to do a safe maneuver around that obstacle.

And then procedurally generated games such as Minecraft, Terrari, and Valheim, all use AI related technology to be able to achieve these procedurally [00:10:00] generated games. Alright, now going on to the demonstration of the video. So the demonstration will highlight examples from the AI Tool Chat GPT, including crafting delicious Thanksgiving recipes.

Designing festive and creative Christmas decorations and also tips for hosting holiday parties. And so the reason behind a lot of these examples that I listed is because the holidays are coming up and I just wanted to come up with some pretty practical examples that we can use in ChatGPT. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna click on this link and we’re gonna go straight to ChatGPT.

And so the first, the first example was all gonna be about

crafting Thanksgiving recipes. So What we can do with ChatGPT, and so this is an open AI tool, and so in order to use it, all you’d have to do is go to ChatGPT. com, and then it’ll ask you to make an [00:11:00] account, sign in. And then you can go right ahead and start chatting with the AI tool. And so you can really give it any sort of prompt.

So you type in to the text field and send it as if you were sending a message to a family, friend. And so it works very similar to that as well. So what we can do is we can type in ChatGPT and mention, ” list me some popular Thanksgiving recipes, and ensure to include the ingredients and measurements.”

Alright, and so now it’s gonna start generating a lot of what we gave the prompt, and we can then see exactly what popular Thanksgiving recipes, there are, and also include the ingredients and measurements as well. So a classic roast turkey is very common for Thanksgiving. We can see [00:12:00] all the ingredients that it gives us.

such as a whole turkey and then all the remaining other types of ingredients, different herbs, different seasonings. And then we can then go down to the creamy mashed potatoes ingredients as well. We can see all the ingredients for there. And then classic stuffing ingredients. And then green bean casserole.

Jeez, this is making me super hungry. It’s just in time for lunch coming up here soon. And so if you ever find that any of those recipes look great, you can actually ask it would you like the cooking steps for any of these? So let’s say, give me the steps for a green bean casserole.

Alright, and now it will start generating us the steps for the green bean casserole, as well as give us a recap of the ingredients that we need for the recipe. Hope it’s first given us each step by step of what to do, such as [00:13:00] preheating the oven, preparing the green beans, cooking the onions and garlic, making the sauce, etc.

And so this allows you to really follow it follow the recipe just how you typically would make a green bean casserole. So this is a great way for you if you’re ever needing assistance with being able to make food in the future. So this is just one of the examples that you can do with it.

Let’s see what another one of our, what was another one of our it was Designing Festive and Creative Christmas Decorations. We can say, give me some examples of Christmas decorations.

Alright, so here are some popular Christmas decoration ideas to bring festive cheer to your home. And it’s going to give us a list of Christmas tree decorations that we can do, various different ornaments lights, tree topper, even like a tree skirt to add. Some indoor decorations that [00:14:00] we can use such as wreaths, table centerpieces, Christmas villages, outdoor decorations, what you could do with windows DIY decorations that you can do as well, and then theme decorations.

Then it later provides us would you like tips on creating a specific type of decoration. So this just allows you to go further in depth on some of the decorations that you’d like to do. Alright, now going on to our last. example, it’s going to be tips for hosting holiday parties. So now we can ask GPT, “please give me some tips on hosting holiday parties.”

Alright, and so it says hosting a holiday party can be a joyful yet challenging task. Here are some tips to help make your event successful, festive, and stress free. So it just mentions to plan ahead, decorate thoughtfully, set the mood with music, being able to prepare a holiday playlist a mix of [00:15:00] classic and modern songs as well, various different types of food and drinks that match the the event.

Entertainment activities, organization tips, and then create a welcoming atmosphere. And then it also mentions to don’t overdo it. Alright, and then it, like I said, at the end it wants to give even more types of suggestions. Here’s a bonus one. We can say list me five popular 2024 gifts

 For nephews or niece.

All right, so now it’s going to list me five popular 2024 gifts for nephew or niece. So now we can see that a Nintendo Switch Lite is, one of the things that it mentions an instant camera, a name puzzle STEM related kits. DIY comic book kit. And these gifts cater to a range of interests and ages, making them thoughtful and engaging choices for your niece or nephew.

Like I said, you [00:16:00] can really put in whatever information that you want with this but just Keep in mind you can go as in depth as you want, but you have to make sure not to share any sensitive information that you wouldn’t want to say to any strangers. That’s just a disclaimer that I want to make for anyone that’s using this in the future.

All right. I want to say thank you for letting me do this presentation. Like I said, my name is Alex Reckard. I am the resident I. T. Technician for Parasol Alliance. I’m currently based in Madison, Wisconsin, and it’s been a great pleasure of being able to do this presentation. And I hope you have a great day. Bye.

Amber Bardon: [00:00:00] Welcome to raising tech podcast. I’m your host, Amber Bardon. And today’s episode features Suzanne Allen, who’s the managing partner at Blue Fingerprint. So almost every single time I go on site to a client, I’m always telling them about Blue Fingerprint. I think it’s such a great product and I think it has such an impact on improving processes for sites.

So I’m so excited to talk to you today to Suzanne, learn more about Blue Fingerprint. So welcome to the show.

Suzanne Allen: Hey, thank you so much, Amber, for having me. And I’m excited to talk about a topic that rarely gets much attention, but it’s so critical when it comes to either an operating campus or new development.

So I’m excited to be here today. Thank you.

Amber Bardon: Yeah, definitely. You’ve definitely got this niche on solving a very specific problem and making it a lot more seamless and easy for senior living organizations. So tell us what it is. Tell us about it. First of all, a little bit more about [00:01:00] yourself and your journey.

And then tell us more about Blue Fingerprint.

Suzanne Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. So

I’m Suzanne Allen.

I a managing partner here at Blue Fingerprint have been working in senior living since 2005. So really my experience began on the construction side, working for a national general contractor who at the time in early 2000s, they were focused on building a lot of greenfield.

what we called CCRC’s life plan communities back in the day. And really what that organization developed was an in house tool to manage options and upgrades. So anytime a resident was Provided the choice to choose cabinetry, countertops or flooring. They took a very manual spreadsheet model and developed a platform.

So I joined that group in 2005 to really help project manage some of [00:02:00] those clients that were utilizing the tool. Since that time, we had the opportunity to purchase the intellectual property and create a standalone organization where today we work with providers, contractors, architects, developers across the country still very focused in senior living.

We’re passionate about helping our clients. We like the industry and we feel like we have a good understanding of all parties involved in the and really the development building process as well as in managing options and upgrades.

Amber Bardon: So tell me a little bit more about the specific problem that Blue Fingerprint helps solve. And can you walk us through a little bit more about the functionality of the system?

Suzanne Allen: When we think about new construction in particular, and for a new community, a new campus, for example, that is offering options and upgrades are what we term as personalizations [00:03:00] today. I think about managing multiple units, having to manage multiple items in a very specific amount of time.

Contractor is on board and they say we need all of the selections for the first floor by X date. So it’s really documenting and then tracking that information and data through its life cycle and the life cycle really is similar to conduit right between sales marketing and the resident and then it flows that communication to the builder and the subcontractor.

Moving coordinator, for example, meets with a future resident and presents a menu of selection offerings. That moving coordinator documents within the Blue Fingerprint platform. All of those choices also identifies any custom requests or items not on the menu. And then that information is [00:04:00] stored really in real time.

Available 24 7 for the team to access, right? So it’s hosted in the cloud. So everybody can look at that information once that unit is complete. Then again, notifications are sent off to the builder so that they know that complete inventory list of everything that they need to procure for the finishes in that unit.

Amber Bardon: So just to compare, how would that work without something like Blue Fingerprint? So what is the time saving and what’s the efficiency here?

This

Suzanne Allen: method, truly our biggest competition today is truly Excel because a lot of folks will manage this manually on paper. That process truly is only as organized as the person who owns it.

I’m sure if you gave me your spreadsheet, one of your spreadsheets that you use, Amber, I would be like, blown up. What does this all mean? So what we see in the industry is sometimes there’s staff turnover. So I have to relearn [00:05:00] this process all over again in order to pick up the ball and continue with them.

With the process of meeting with these residents and selecting so really it’s. It’s an organizational tool designed to keep everybody on the same page, right? The other challenge with a manual process is version control, right? Did I remember to send that latest version off to my project manager?

Did I document what unit 101 wanted in their sunroom? It’s the place everybody can look to really see the information. It’s also a product that provides documentation to the resident so that they can sign off on. And new construction in particular, they don’t move in for sometimes 18, 24, 36 months from when the process begins.

So they’re going to hang on to that documentation and what we call a personalization summary up until the day they move in. And they’re going to check their list on. [00:06:00] Okay, these are the cabinets. These are the countertops. This is the flooring I selected.

Amber Bardon: Yeah, I’m also thinking it’s a better look for the people meeting with the residents to be able to do this all electronically. I think every time I go to a doctor’s office and I still have to sign things on paper, I’m always thinking like, why are they not more technically advanced?

I think that there’s an advantage there to be able to do things right on the spot and right in the moment without having to go back and check on things. I’m sure that can add time into the process by being more efficient upfront that way.

Suzanne Allen: Even our clients have came back to us and said, you know what it does, Suzanne, is it helps build confidence with our residents, right?

They’re seeing us documented there. We’re capturing that information rather than maybe taking a clipboard and a sheet of paper or a notebook, or even a Word document to capture it all. It does help build that confidence. Not just that they made the right choice to make that decision, Move into the community, but the right choice and interesting their future with that organization.

Amber Bardon: Yeah, absolutely. [00:07:00] And in today’s world, where this industry is just growing and growing, and there’s so many options to choose from, and a lot of the community websites look the same that personalization is so important. And we’re starting to see a lot more of our clients want to be able to offer that as differentiator.

So can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing in the industry in terms of trends and personalization and why that’s important?

Suzanne Allen: Oh, sure. We all want the ability to personalize and companies like Amazon, stitch fix, blue apron. They’re all feeding off of that, right? We identify what our personal shopping preferences are and how often do we look on Amazon?

But that says, Hey, we think you’ll like this product. So what we know about today’s precedent and we’re talking about baby boomers coming into the mix now, right? They’re influenced a lot of by what they experienced their tech savvy. They’re using Amazon Prime. They’re ordering their products [00:08:00] digitally, but also we’re seeing shows like HGTV and other design type shows that are very popular in today’s market.

So when you’re seeing all of these trends and styles and renovating your home or designing your future home and space. That’s really the expectation today. I think what organizations need to evaluate is. Is how much do you offer? Because we get to a place where it’s that paradox of choice.

We all want choice, but when we’re presented with too much choice, it’s overwhelming, right? Go Google faucet and Amazon and you’ll get 375 different options of a faucet. If we can help companies narrow down that menu to make it the right fit for them, 80 percent of their clients will choose off that menu.

I can almost bet. 20 percent is truly those that want what they want and they will customize. But if we can help manage the [00:09:00] majority I think it, it makes it operationally even easier for the ops team to support and provide maintenance to those products as well.

Amber Bardon: Are you seeing anything really unique or different when it comes to personalization or customization?

Any tips or trends happening? I’ve heard about, and we all know about the common ones about paint and cabinets and things like that, but I’ve heard about moving walls. And is there anything like that you can share with us?

Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think when we look at trends and evaluate, we’ve been around for almost 23 years now.

So when we do a look back and say, what’s important to seniors, right? A functionality is still really important because they want to envision doing what they love in this next home that they’re gonna occupy. But what a trend that we are seeing is more and more people are choosing to consult or do some type of work once they move into a retirement community.

So technology is extremely important as you guys [00:10:00] know, right? So having the ability to even add extra outlets, ensuring that the connection or the connectivity to their den, which is not going to be their office has appropriate bandwidth so that they can, use still different programs or streaming, different things like that.

But also items still like adding lighting or creating unique space for what’s important for them, whether that be in a wine fridge or extra storage.

Amber Bardon: What do you see are some of the challenges with More communities trying to do more with customization and personalization. Is there ever a point where it goes too far?

Suzanne Allen: Yeah, I think it sets a precedence, right? So in about 2010 when the recession hit, communities had to offer whatever they could to get people to move in, right?

So there were all kinds of incentives and one incentive was truly Customize the space and it’s on us, right? [00:11:00] So here, fast forward almost 15 years. We’re in a place where the buzzword and senior living is how do we standardize? How do we maximize and create efficiency? And so trying to reign that back in is a challenge, right?

But I think the first step in doing it is to actually take their current process. Here’s what I would invite any community to do and communities that we work with. One thing is we’ll invite them to a process mapping session, right? This is specific for a renovation or a unit turn, walk me through every step every person has to take in order from sales, right?

We sell the unit, we have someone who wants to move in to the time they move in, whether that be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 120, walk me through all of those steps. And then from there, we can identify here’s a big gap of time where, we’re waiting for this.

What if we [00:12:00] try this approach? So we identify those inefficiencies and then try and introduce whether it be a Blue Fingerprint or some other method or process to improve it.

Amber Bardon: Yeah,

that makes

sense. What would a community need to know or do to prepare for implementing something like blue finger print?

What does that process look like for onboarding?

Suzanne Allen: Oh, I think the

1st step is communication. So our leaders today and senior living understand the importance of how we need to maximize how we have better buying power. We only have 4 carpets to choose from versus 40 right? Our suppliers may give us a better price if we can maximize some of that.

Purchasing on scale but, really, I think it’s the communication from leadership to the actual boots on the ground to say why is this important? Because I think what we find here at Blue Fingerprint is leadership understands that [00:13:00] boots on the ground are just so busy trying to get through each day.

With the task they’re responsible to perform. So to stop pause. Hey, we have a new implementation. We all know it’s some work to get that set up. So I think if the communication is still up front, we provide a nice demonstration for the entire team so that everybody understands what we’re into and then clear established goals, right?

What are we trying to achieve here? Is it reducing the number of days it takes for a renovation from 90 to 70, right? So it’s determining that path, I think first through a communication plan to the entire team.

Amber Bardon: Yeah, I think that’s good advice for any implementation for sure.

Yeah. Suzanne, is there anything we haven’t talked about yet that you want to share and make sure our audience is aware of?

Suzanne Allen: I think the biggest thingIs listen to your resident, some communities who are approaching a new development we work with a lot [00:14:00] of development teams and marketing teams and your residents are your best source of information. During those early sales conversations, or even events where communities might sponsor a coffee top or a cocktail hour to come in and look at what the future might look like.

Community or expansion may look like they’re your best source of information on what they might expect in their homes and units, right? If it’s a clientele that when I started 15 years ago it oftentimes when folks move to a new senior living community, it was almost a step up, right?

Because they hadn’t really renovated their homes yet. Back in that time. They were moving into something fresh and new. Today’s residents have either moved, downsized, Renovated their homes. So they have some expectations like they don’t expect plastic laminate countertops anymore, right? They expect solid surface.

Many of them have quartz in their [00:15:00] home. They manage to expect that. Listen to those residents find out what they’re passionate about, what’s important for them in their home. And then, if it can be accommodated, then talk to your development team, talk to your contractor about how can we provide this within the construction schedule.

Amber Bardon: Suzanne, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s really great to chat with you again. And I am excited for all of our listeners to learn more about Blue Fingerprint because I think it is such a great product.

So where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more? Yeah, thanks so much, Amber. You can find us by visiting our website at bluefingerprint. com. You can connect with me, Suzanne Allen, on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

You can find us online at RaisingTechPodcast. com where you can see all of our episodes and contact us to provide feedback or submit an episode idea. We are on social media everywhere at Raising Tech Podcast. If you enjoy Raising Tech, please leave us a review and share with a friend. [00:16:00] Music is an original production by Tim Riesig, one of our very own Parasol Alliance employees.

As always, thank you for listening.