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The Malta Independent | Thursday 8 January 2015
Training elderly in social media improves well-being and combats isolation
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raining older people in the use of social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and wellbeing, according to a landmark study carried out in the UK. The two-year project gave a group of vulnerable older adults a specially-designed computer, broadband connection and training in how to use them. It was funded by the European Union and led by the University of Exeter in partnership with Somerset Care Ltd and Torbay & Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust. Those who received training became more positive about computers over time, with the participants particularly enjoying connecting with friends and relatives via Skype and email. The ageing population is one of the major challenges facing our society. It is expected that between 2010 and 2060, the number of people aged 65 and over across Europe will grow from 17.4% to 29.5% of the total population. The project, called Ages 2.0, aimed to assess the extent to which the internet and social media offer a tool for promoting active ageing and addressing the social isolation that is too often a feature of older age. It found that those trained had heightened feelings of self-competence, engaged more in social activity, had a stronger sense of personal identity and showed improved cognitive capacity. These factors indirectly led to overall better mental health and well-being. Dr Thomas Morton of Psychology at the University of Exeter, who led the project in the UK said,
“Human beings are social animals, and it’s no surprise that we tend to do better when we have the capacity to connect with others. But what can be surprising is just how important social connections are to cognitive and physical health. People who are socially isolated or who experience loneliness are more vulnerable to disease and decline. For these reasons finding ways to support people’s social connections is a really important goal. This study shows how technology can be a useful tool for enabling social connections, and that supporting older people in our community to use technology effectively can have important benefits for their health and well-being.”Participants in the study were all vulnerable older adults between the ages of 60 and 95 years of age who were receiving support from Somerset Care Ltd. The 76 volunteers were drawn both from those receiving care in the community and those living in any of the not-for-profit organisation’s 31 residential care homes. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive training and the other half to a control group who received care as usual. The training involved the installation of an ‘Easy PC package’ consisting of a touch screen computer and keyboard, and a broadband internet connection. They were able to keep the computer for 12 months, including a three-month training period. One of the study’s participants, Margaret Keohone, said, “Having this training changes people’s lives and opens up their worlds, invigorates their minds and for lots of us gives us a completely different way of recognising our worth as we
age. I was just slipping away into a slower way of life.” Emma Green, the Care Technologist from Somerset Care who delivered training to Margaret and others in the study, said: “As the training programme developed with my participants their confidence grew and they were keen to tell me how family members had emailed back, Skyped or ‘liked’ a comment or a picture on Facebook. Seeing the smiles on my participant’s faces when they Skyped a family member in the UK or abroad was such a special moment. “One of the best Skype calls was during a visit to my caravan in Cornwall when I Skyped a client who used to enjoy camping. We were around the camp fire and he was able to be a part of our group from the laptop, looking at the fire
and joining in. They all know that I am only an email or Skype call away and it has been fabulous being a part of the Ages 2.0 project.” Those behind the Ages 2.0 study hope its findings will help inform future policy on digital inclusion and the delivery of tele-health and tele-care strategies. Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust (TSDHCT) was selected to participate in Ages 2.0 due to its forwardingthinking and innovative way of working. TSDHCT pioneered the integrated approach to providing health and social care. In order to provide the best care possible for local people, particularly the area’s high population of older residents, the trust developed health and social services which worked far
more closely together and were able to respond to the whole care needs of an individual, rather than operating in isolation. The project team sought the trust’s views on how the project could work in practice in the community. Mandy Seymour, Chief Executive at Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care NHS Trust, said: “As a nationally acclaimed pioneer, Torbay has a long history of innovation and of the successful integration of health and social care. The Trust firmly believes that by bringing services together, and through participation in innovative projects, the needs of individuals who require care and support are better met. “We’re always keen to build upon and ensure continuity of our integration success and Ages 2.0 has provided the perfect research mechanism to help promote discussions around future models of care. “The challenges of supporting an aging population in the community are well documented – we encourage active aging with our local population by giving people opportunities to be independent and to enable them to be living well at home for longer. “The positive results of the project are interesting and the healthcare community will look at how this could help to influence strategies for supporting the increasing number of vulnerable and ageing people in local communities.” The researchers were interested in comparing results across different cultural contexts; therefore a parallel study took place in Italy. For more information visit, www.ages2.eu/en
Video intelligence gives retailers new business insights
Mary Gorges It’s getting harder to go anywhere where there’s not a mounted camera (even in people’s homes). They’re becoming so ubiquitous that shoppers hardly notice them …especially during busy times. But businesses are starting to take great notice, and realising there’s more value from a security or surveillance camera than just a live view of shoppers. It’s the intelligence in the video that’s helping companies stay competitive. Decisions Based on Data “In the past, merchandising decisions typically have been made based on a merchant’s gut feeling. There’s now a way to make them based on data,” says Steve Russell, CEO and founder of Prism Skylabs, a San Francisco-based video analytics company. Russell adds that, “Retail is very much an in-person business. Many store employees make decisions based on what they see. They de-
velop incredible intuitions. With data, retailers can validate those intuitions and make smarter decisions.” Prism combines security camera video with software to build ‘path maps’ of people’s movements (where they first go when entering a store) and ‘heat maps’ that use hot colours (like red and orange) to denote how long a customer has stood in front of an item, or how many times the item has been handled. Prism says it uses privacy protection that ‘removes’ people from video before it’s viewed. Russell says that video also allows companies to ‘peek’ into a store anytime, anywhere to see if the ‘brand concept’ (how the store looks) is being followed consistently. Video cameras have been creeping into commerce for years, telling us where people are walking, pausing, if the lines are too long at a checkout counter, and if people are walking away. But it would take an army of staffers to view hours of recorded data, and only sophisticated algorithms can derive real intelligence from video. Real-Time Business Insights MachineShop is a next-generation middleware company based in Boston and Denver that helps companies bridge the gap between actual operational technology and
information systems. CTO Greg Jones says real-time data from security cameras is often synched with other systems like a point of sale system. For example, if lower sales or missing receipts coincide when cameras weren’t functioning, were they turned off intentionally? The next time the camera turns off, a message goes out to the security team. Jones says customers want the bigger picture, and to pull in information and connect services from many devices. Jones says one of its customers, Diebold Inc., an Ohiobased electronic security systems company (that also makes ATM cash machines) wanted to create one, integrated view of their security environment for their financial and commercial customers. Jones says that, “Our job was to extract the complexity of communications from all their devices – including video, alarms and card readers – and turn
it into a language they could understand (APIs).” Jeremy Brecher is Diebold’s VP of Technology, Electronic Security. “You can install devices or cameras on the network but you want to drive additional value out of those investments.” He says Diebold’s SecureStat security management portal gives its customers an integrated view of device status and event history, while bringing in external data such as local weather alerts. “Think about weather. If we have retail locations experiencing frequent power outages, and overlay that information with weather data, we can figure out what’s happening, and what may be coming next. Then we can actively monitor these locations, notify our customers, and help them manage the situation,” added Brecher. He adds that, business-wise, video data can tell you an extraordinary amount about how efficiently a location runs, and why one location may be doing better than another. “Every day, someone comes in and opens and closes a bank location. Every day, there’s movement recorded on video – people going in and out of doors. Video is stored and we’re looking for that anomaly. Hmm, a branch closed late. Why?” And what about all of those Diebold ATMs? How is video used to protect all that money?
“A fair amount of crime is high tech or malware based, but there’s still a lot of low tech crime that takes place, like a pickup truck pulling an ATM machine out of the ground and dragging it away,” says Brecher. He says in high crime areas, some of Diebold’s customers use active GPS trackers on ATMs that can notify a monitoring centre and let police know the location of a stolen ATM. “Of course, there are also criminals who try to blow up an ATM. Even in these situations, traditional alarm devices and cameras are still very effective.” Blowing stuff up seems pretty old fashioned these days. But how businesses are using real-time, intelligent data from video is today’s new business model. “It’s a winwin,” says Prism’s Russell. “Retailers can ensure their stores are well stocked, well staffed, and always on brand. And customers get to enjoy a better shopping experience.” Used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com Mary Gorges has been a reporter and staff writer for both TV and print. After a move to high tech, she worked in PR for Intel, and led communications for five SVPs at Cisco. Now founder of TheSeasonedStartup, she works with small companies and entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay area.
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 8 January 2015
Roderick Spiteri
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
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e usually associate social media with young people. However, this is changing and a study by the University of Exeter has found that when elderly people use social media, it improves their cognitive capacity, their well-being and it also helps them by making them feel less lonely. Everywhere we go, we can easily spot CCTV cameras – they
have found their way in public places, in shops, theatres and sometimes also in private residences. Video cameras provide a lot of data but more often than not we only look at the visuals from a security point of view. What if the same video can provide us with more sophisticated data? Businesses can now derive real intelligence from video and learn more about the customer flow within their shop-floor, which
displays are stopping people, create heat maps, and much more. A new study found that the best brands on social media that manage to win customers over are those that consistently post diverse engaging, thoughtful and genuine content. The study by Engagement Labs takes into consideration the ‘evalue scores’ of multiple companies and provides information about the retailers that manage to create social en-
gagement, impact and responsiveness. All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature
Diversity is the only consistency for brands killing it on social media
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houghtful, genuine, sharable and consistently engaging content truly differentiates a brand from its competitors on social media - no matter the industry. This was found in Engagement Labs annual study “Retail Index”. The company specialises in databased communications and is the creator of an independent global benchmark for social scoring called ‘evalue’. The top evalue scores for the world’s leading retailers in 2014 were Champs Sports (96), GameStop (95) and Tiffany & Co. (89). These retailers were top-of-the-class in social engagement, impact and responsiveness – three key actionable components of the more than 300 conventional social media metrics in the evalue score. The index includes evalue scores from more than 80 different major retail brands. The diversity of offerings from the top scorers including Champs Sports, GameStop and Tiffany & Co., have significantly outscored many notable fashion retailers such as J.Crew (55), H&M (54), Forever 21 (54), Old Navy (54), Banana Republic (52), Zara (46), American Eagle (45), Gap (42), Levi’s (40), Urban Outfitters (38) and Guess (23), all of which fell well below the retail industry average of 64. “From sporting goods and videogames, to luxury goods and jewellery, it’s great to see such a wide variety of companies that were able to use social to differentiate their brands,” said Eli Singer, CSO of Engagement Labs. “The secret to their success is the ability to generate significant engagement by being thematically consistent, timely and relevant with their content. For Tiffany, by delivering interactive, animated content and integrating live streaming of Google Hangouts that include clever hashtags, the brand has seized the opportunity to connect on social with people in a way that differentiates its business during the holiday shopping season.”
below the industry average.
Social media is a place where effort, thoughtfulness and being genuine can pay big dividends for brands. To stay relevant, major retailers need to focus on creating content that has a uniform look and feel, is relevant to their target audience and is not afraid to push the boundaries. Tiffany does well with using their signature blue colour throughout all of its efforts, which is a great way to immerse customers in their brand and drive organic engagement. “Champs Sports’ evalue score is a clear indicator of how thematically aligned, consistent content differentiates specialty-sporting goods and shoe retailers from larger multinationals on social media,” said Bryan Segal, CEO of Engagement Labs. “For instance, Champs Sports’ ‘#TheDrop’ series, offers fun and interesting facts about top athletes and professional sports teams. It’s a great way to drive engagement and jump into mainstream, pop culture moments that build trust with consumers using relatable content.” Outside of Champs Sports, the majority of sporting retailers scored above average on the Index, including the likes of Foot Locker (85), Finish Line (76) and Dick’s Sporting Goods (68). Sports Authority (43) was the lone outlier that finished well
Other evalue Retail Index findings include: • Levi’s, Gap (42) and Coach (35) also offer littleto-no seasonally specific content, missing out on an important moments to connect with their audience in a timely, interesting and relevant way • Coach (35) and Guess’ (23) customer service numbers were extremely low, and were a key factor in their being ranked very low on the Index. Guess was also ineffective in their use of hashtags, and lacked a strong and consistent theme to their content • Big box retailers populated the middle tier of the Index: Costco (68), Sam’s Club (65), Sears (65), Kmart (59), Walmart (50), Target (44) • Home improvement companies in general scored in the middle-to-upper tier: The Home Depot (81), Ace Hardware (75), Sherwin-Williams (62) and Lowe’s (57) How is a brand’s evalue calculated? Brands are ranked by their evalue score, which is an overall measure of performance and effectiveness on a given social media channel. The ranking is based on the evalue scoring system, which is backed by a patented algorithm and benchmarked against a database of 50,000 verified brand accounts. The evalue score itself is an aggregate of the ideal social media KPIs – the three sub-scores of engagement, impact, and responsiveness. Unlike most tools, evalue analyses all Facebook Page custom targeting options simultaneously. For the purpose of this Index, Engagement Labs looks at standard pages, global/local pages and geo-targeted content facing the United States. For more information about evalue, visit: