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Today, I'm talking to Aimee Franco.-Aimee is currently a Product Design Manager at OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service company. If you've ever tried to reserve a restaurant, you've probably heard of this company before.-She started out her career as an industrial designer, later transitioned into UX, and worked at companies such as Caremerge, CDW, and now at OpenTable. In our conversation, what really stood out to me was the vulnerability that Aimee expressed in the end when she talked about her past struggles of bringing her authentic self to work. And for early-career designers, this is so important to remind ourselves: to be an authentic human being and designer.-We talked about working with engineers and PMs, the design culture at OpenTable, her biggest design failures, and so much more. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Aimee Franco.===Highlights⭐ Transition to UX with an industrial design background⭐ Working with engineers & PMs⭐ Day-to-day as a Product Design Manager at OpenTable⭐ Design culture at OpenTable⭐ Her biggest design failure & learnings===Not Just Pixels is a student-led UX Design podcast that strives to help you grow as a designer and get that next design internship or job. This is the podcast I wished I had as a design student, and I hope you'll get something valuable from this show
Welcome to Season 8, Episode 19 of Healing Ties 2.0, 30 podcasts in 30 days celebrating National Family Caregivers month featured on the Whole Care Network. In this episode it is a pleasure to welcome the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Caremerge, Josh Studzinski. Josh leads the marketing, branding, and event strategy at Caremerge and Caremerge mission to ensure the aging experience is filled with peace of mind and joy. CareMerge and its applications are bridging the gap between families and their loved ones and improving communication with staff in senior living communities across the nation. Listen in and learn how Josh and the entire staff at Caremerge are creating Healing Ties all around us!
Welcome to Season 8, Episode 19 of Healing Ties 2.0, 30 podcasts in 30 days celebrating National Family Caregivers month featured on the Whole Care Network. In this episode it is a pleasure to welcome the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Caremerge, Josh Studzinski. Josh leads the marketing, branding, and event strategy at Caremerge andCaremerge mission to ensure the aging experience is filled with peace of mind and joy.CareMerge and its applications are bridging the gap between families and their loved ones and improving communication with staff in senior living communities across the nation.Listen in and learn how Josh and the entire staff at Caremerge are creating Healing Ties all around us!
Welcome to Season 8, Episode 19 of Healing Ties 2.0, 30 podcasts in 30 days celebrating National Family Caregivers month featured on the Whole Care Network. In this episode it is a pleasure to welcome the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Caremerge, Josh Studzinski. Josh leads the marketing, branding, and event strategy at Caremerge andCaremerge mission to ensure the aging experience is filled with peace of mind and joy.CareMerge and its applications are bridging the gap between families and their loved ones and improving communication with staff in senior living communities across the nation.Listen in and learn how Josh and the entire staff at Caremerge are creating Healing Ties all around us!
While tech companies may have inauspicious beginnings, Fahad Aziz, CTO and co-founder of CareMerge, shares with Pod-Pourri host Chris MacLellan the story behind CareMerge. Spending three months living at an assisted living community enabled Fahad to witness seniors’ challenges using technology while learning the needs of the community’s staff. The result, CareMerge and its applications, that are bridging the gap between families and their loved ones and improving communication with staff.
While tech companies may have inauspicious beginnings, Fahad Aziz, CTO and co-founder of CareMerge, shares with Pod-Pourri host Chris MacLellan the story behind CareMerge. Spending three months living at an assisted living community enabled Fahad to witness seniors' challenges using technology while learning the needs of the community's staff. The result, CareMerge and its applications, that are bridging the gap between families and their loved ones and improving communication with staff.
Notes:- 02:50 Providing Technology Solutions To The Senior Living Industry- 05:10 Messaging Challenges When Product-market Fit Is On A Case-By-Case Basis- 06:40 Using A Spear Fishing Strategy First Then Casting A Wider Net- 08:20 Launching Quickly A Tool To Change The Negativity Going Around About Senior Living- 11:10 Elevating The Customer's Voice By Position Customers As The Thought Leaders - 12:20 Building A Culture With A Consistent Message To The Team On Where The Focus Is- 14:00 Moving Fast And Putting The Clients First- 16:15 Testing Things And Validating Hypothesis in B2B Facebook Advertising- 18:40 Move Quickly, Test Things To Validate It Then Automate- 20:00 Creating And Testing 30 Different Creatives- 21:50 Best Advice For Someone Starting With B2B Facebook Advertising- 23:20 Test, Test, Test As Much As You Can To Get Data Points- 24:35 Real Numbers Will Make You More Successful Than Vanity Metrics- 26:25 Doing Things Differently And Differentiate Yourself- 29:10 Moving Offline Rapport Building To Online Communication Platforms- 30:25 Lightning Questions
In this episode, Fahad Aziz shares his insights into his journey as Caremerge’s cofounder. Fahad offers great stories including what he learned from living in a senior living community, why “Facebook for health care” wasn’t such a great idea, and what advice he has for aspiring gerontechnologists. 0:42 What does Caremerge provide? 1:35 Where did … Continue reading "12. Fahad Aziz, Cofounder and CTO of Caremerge"
Tony Galvan, Director of Health & Wellness for LCS, sits down with the leadership at Caremerge to talk through a variety of topics. With resident engagement, tech-based solutions remaining a top priority for senior living providers, it was great to catch up with Nancy Koenig, CEO; Kim Kessler, VP Product Strategy; Josh Studzinski, VP Marketing and Mary Giangrasse, VP Client Success. It was great to hear how they feel this space continues to evolve and what it takes to effectively implement and sustain technology within senior living communities. In addition to reintroducing us of some of their core solutions such as Community and Family Engagement, we discussed some of the latest offerings such as Caremerge Voice, In-Room TV Channel and Community Digital Display.
“In the senior living market, the old image is nursing home: the new image is active communities for older adults who can simplify their lives and spend their free time really enjoying themselves, their family, their friends,” says Nancy Koenig, CEO of Caremerge, which provides technology solutions for the senior living market. Like previous guests Jay Klauminzer and Elizabeth Harz, Nancy’s story is an interesting study in how to lead a company you didn’t start. She became the CEO in October 2017, taking the reigns from co-founder and chairman Asif Khan. Nancy explains her approach to taking on someone else’s vision (hint: focus on the metrics) and the triumphs that come with creating technology for a demographic that has long been ignored by the tech world.
In this episode, Teri welcomes Fahad Aziz, the Co-founder and CTO at Caremerge and a Forbes contributor.He has a lot of experience in technology, Artificial Technology, and Voice. He is also a contributor to Forbes Magazine where he covers technologies in healthcare. Caremerge leverages Artificial Intelligence and Voice to offer the most innovative wellness and engagement platform for senior living communities. They have been tackling some of the biggest pain points that users have when it comes to using voice technology in their homes and living facilities.Caremerge was named one of the 2018 Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies in the US and have won a number of awards. Key points from Fahad Aziz!Caremerge’s incredible work in the seniors’ living space and how they support those seniors wherever they may be living.Caremerge’s formal partnerships with Amazon to help them address some of the pain points that seniors have when using voice technology.Fahad’s BackgroundHe has been in technology for over 15 years and while working with different organizations he felt inspired to start something new, and decided to quit his job and move to Chicago.He initially had the idea for a Facebook for healthcare, but realized it wasn’t a good idea two months into it, so he pivoted into something else.He got an opportunity to spend some time in a seniors’ community in the suburbs of Chicago, where he witnessed a lot of challenges, so he decided to do something to solve those challenges. That was the birth of Caremerge and since then they have been serving 400 communities with over 100,000 residents.In their interactions with the communities, they saw the need for voice technology to be implemented in the communities.He did a research that he published on Forbes. Part of the research was on what voice technology could do for seniors and the results showed that the technology could really connect hundreds of thousands of people to technology.They were the first ones to build a product like theirs and build it the right way.The Caremerge ProductThey started with basic features like allowing residents to ask simple questions like, “What’s on the menu. What are the activities today? Has the mail arrived?” Once they deployed that, they saw a need for more. What was needed wasn’t more features but more capabilities to answer questions correctly. They spent a lot of time improving their AI engines and creating their own models for understanding questions and answering them correctly. They then launched their Alexa technology and started seeing an increase in their adoption.They got involved with Amazon to help them build an Enterprise Fleet Management System that would be used to deploy hundreds of thousands of Alexa devices from one portal and ensure their effective management.Name Free Invocation of SkillsThe biggest challenge that came to them with Alexa and voice technology, was that seniors had difficulties remembering to invoke the skills.They worked with Amazon to further improve their system that it was then deployed through the fleet management system, so that seniors didn’t need to say, “Alexa, ask community”, they would just say, “Alexa, what’s on the menu.” They got rid of that invocation command that was there to increase an option.Feedback from UsersThey have received mixed feedback. There has been a lot of excitement, but they are now going into a bit disappointment phase.They are waiting for that aha moment when people will realize that their product is exactly what they want.They are in the phase where people have bought their devices and enjoyed the first few weeks, but their uses for the devices have plateaued a bit.Some other feedback is that people love the whole oral experience. They like the fact that they don’t have to pick up the device to get whatever information they need. They use Alexa in the most mind blowing ways.New FeaturesThey just rolled out a reminders feature which enables people to set up reminders with Alexa where Alexa will wake up to remind a user whatever they needed to be reminded of.Google AssistantThey are planning on designing their platform for Google Assistant too.The only difference with Google Assistant is that they don’t have a fleet management system so it would be challenging for enterprise deployments than it is with Alexa.Alexa’s HIPAA ComplianceThey are very excited about this development.They have been part of the program and watching it very closely as an Amazon partner.For the first time, a care provider doesn’t have to take up any liability any longer. Before Alexa’s HIPAA compliance, the care providers were liable for any Alexa device in their buildings. Now, when a vendor deploys a device, they sign a BAA agreement while Amazon will sign the same, which takes a bit of liability away from the care provider or community.Caremerge can now comfortably deploy their devices due to the compliance.The Future for CaremergeThey are doing more research on how to further improve their response model (how to better answer questions)They are also continuously working on their reminders and notifications features.They are working with Amazon to address and improve on data privacy and safety issues. Links and Resources in this EpisodeCaremerge Website See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
At the StartUp Health Festival, panelists Ruchita Sinha of GE Ventures, Casey Silver of Arsenal Venture Partners, Matt Karls of Cambia Health Solutions, and Asif Khan of Caremerge, join host Jay Sullivan of DLA Piper to discuss the capital raising process and the challenges and benefits of bringing in diverse investors to create a billion dollar business. PANELISTS: Ruchita Sinha, GE Ventures, Casey Silver, Arsenal Venture Partners, Matt Karls, Cambia Health Solutions, Asif Khan, Caremerge HOST: Jay Sullivan, DLA Piper LOCATION: StartUp Health Festival, San Francisco, CA IN THIS EPISODE: Bringing Different Investors to the Same Table Advice to the Entrepreneur: How to Differentiate Yourself From the Crowd Balancing the Fundraising Cycle With Running the Business
Like many of us, Asif Khan worries about the health of his parents. Unlike many of us, Asif took that worry and leveraged twenty years of experience within the technology and global healthcare realm to create a revolutionary cloud-based communication and care coordination platform that streamlines collaboration among health care providers, non-clinical staff members, residents and their families. Caremerge offers HIPAA-compliant secure messaging, shared care plans, real time risk management and proactive quality measures designed to increase quality of life. Designed specifically to meet the needs of a growing market, the platform is easy to launch, simple to use and highly impactful across multiple care settings. Caremerge is funded and backed by Cambia Health, GE Ventures, Ziegler LinkAge Longevity Fund, Generator Ventures (Formation Capital) and Arsenal Venture Partners. Asif holds a B.A. in journalism & history and a B.S. in computer science. He earned his MBA from Booth School of Business – University of Chicago. He is also a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. 00:00 The summary of CareMerge.01:00 Why Asif founded CareMerge.05:30 How Asif's mother inspired him to quit his job and solve an important issue in healthcare.06:45 The disconnect between the demand in healthcare and the supply of providers.08:15 How CareMerge is a person-centered solution.09:00 How the Affordable Care Act is changing the game and pushing those in healthcare to think about care differently.10:45 The two things that Asif has learned from creating CareMerge.11:00 “People are only going to use technology if it augments their workflows and experience.”11:30 “People struggle to change their habits, and in healthcare, it's all about habits.”14:30 The majority of CareMerge's clientele.16:20 CareMerge's focus on the highest-risk patients.18:30 How CareMerge is accessible on all types of devices, and how CareMerge works on an individual standpoint.22:45 How CareMerge loops patient's family members or caretakers in via a built-in Advanced Directive platform.24:00 The importance of a phone call.28:00 What CareMerge looks like from an internal perspective.36:00 You can find out more at CareMerge.com.
Asif Khan is the founder and CEO of Caremerge offerng web and mobile apps for senior living industry allowing senior living staff to capture and share critical information in real-time, among each other and with off-site providers (hospitals, physicians, therapists, and families) to help make timely care decisions. Caremerge was selected to be part of the GE Health Growth Acceleration Program (a partnership with StartUp Health), and was named one of the five coolest apps of 2013 by HealthBeat Magazine.