At the 2019 Spring NIC conference in San Diego, they tried a new thing that I got to be a part of — a 90-minute Hack-a-Thon.
By Steve Moran
At the 2019 Spring NIC conference in San Diego, they tried a new thing that I was fortunate enough to take part in — a 90-minute Hack-a-Thon. As you may know, hack-a-thons are something that comes out of the technology world. In the world of NIC, it looked like this . . .
There were three teams — which were each tasked with coming up with a new/innovative senior living concept that would appeal to Boomers. These ideas were then presented to a panel of three Boomer judges: me and two others from San Diego, who had no connection to senior living.
The three teams were led by Lynne Katzman, CEO of Juniper Communities; Sean Kelly, CEO of Kendal; and Kurt Reed, Principal with RSF Partners, a private equity firm out of Dallas. Each had a team of two other industry folks, Including Rachel Smith, Hsuan-Yao Huang, Gracyn Robinson, Mike Mattingly, Ashley Wilkens, and Astrid Kramarz.
The Hack-a-Thon was conceived and moderated by Robert Kramer and Jacquelyn Kung, a routine contributor to Senior Housing Forum.
3 Senior Living Ideas
The three senior living ideas presented were as follows:
-
Kurt’s team came up with an ultra-high-end CCRC on Roosevelt Island, New York, that would be targeted to well-healed Cornell graduates, though not restricted to only those grads.
-
Lynne’s team conceived a modern, active, independent living community bundled with retail, allowing residents to access services from the retail businesses rather than from the community itself. Their concept also included a network of communities around the globe that would allow residents to be global nomads.
-
Sean’s concept was a Zen meditation CCRC in the wine country of northern California that they are actually developing.
The judges were asked to score the three projects on a 30-point system: 10 points for its appeal to Boomers, 10 points for how easy they would be for an operator to manage, and 10 points for the likelihood of financial success.
It was a great experiment that included lots of audience participation. It was a great learning experience and was great fun.
5 Lessons Learned
Here are the crazy lessons learned:
-
As I talked to the non-industry judges, one of them said and the other concurred, that they had no idea that there even was a whole industry sector that was creating amazing communities for seniors. This means we still have a long way to go in telling our story. This is a fantastic opportunity.
-
We need more opportunities to really think about what the future of senior living might look like, could look like.
-
When the votes were in each of the three judges picked a different operating model. Suggesting that we need to spend time thinking about how we might try to create communities that appeal to different segments.
-
The ultra high-end project in New York was the least popular when the audience voted. While there is no doubt that a portion of the population will find the 5-star style of senior living appealing, it seems likely that much of what we are building will be too formal and too upscale for most Boomers.
-
We have this sense that people have a kind of negative view or impression of senior living. While the sample size of two non-industry judges is not very representative, I found it refreshing to see them react in such a positive fashion to what was presented. There what no so sense that, “well I guess I would move in if I had to,” but rather much more of a “that would be a really cool way to live out my last chapters.”
This leads me to wonder if our own negative perceptions are cascading over the general population and actually polluting their thinking.
I am already looking forward to the next Hack-a-thon.