3. Hi!
Working as innovation consultants worldwide gives us the
opportunity to create profound impact in the society. At Livework
we take this mission very seriously and even after such a long time
in this activity we keep getting impressed and deeply touched when
seeing the result of our strategies becoming reality and improving
the way people live and work every day.
This project, developed in partnership with Parsons and its students
for the Union Settlement Association in East Harlem, New York, was
no different and gave us a chance to think even more about how
small changes can bring such a tremendous revamp on the way
organizations handle their operations and serve their clients.
We find that often innovation is not about the big transformation,
but the small, incremental ones that happen conscientiously. This
document is the result of the collective work of a group of highly
motivated future professionals that having understood that, created
implementable solutions for the Union Settlement Association.
-- Luis Alt and Tennyson Pinheiro
Founding-Directors of Livework in Brazil
4. Introduction
About live|work
Unlocking the value of service
Services go to the heart of the way organizations succeed today and
Livework was among the first to understand this. With every project,
we work to make the difference for our clients by fulfilling our core
belief: that there is a huge opportunity in creating services that
customers value.
We are neither a traditional consultancy nor a classic design agency.
Our work is based on the insight that design for services cannot
be just an add-on. To create valuable experiences for customers
and organizations, design must be in at the start, integrated with
business thinking.
We start with listening and observing. By seeing from customers’
perspectives, we gain a systematic understanding of their
relationship to services and the world around them. Then we
apply the necessary creativity to craft both the details of customer
experiences and the stories required to sell a concept.
When we founded Livework 12 years ago, we were the first service
design company in the world. In the time since then, we are proud
to have worked on over 400 projects with both global leaders and
exciting start-ups. We have been at the forefront of taking service
design into a wide range of industries, from public healthcare to
manufacturing.
Page 4
5. Introduction
Our Process
Our Service Design
process is the
application of four
steps of phases to
a project of service
development.
Insight
Ideas
Prototypes
Delivery
Insight into the issues and
opportunities through
engagement and observation.
Develop ideas that respond to
the issues and opportunities
identified.
Quick and effective testing of
ideas at a small scale for early
learning and improvement
Developing successful ideas
into scalable solutions.
Any service must be based on
genuine customer needs, but
what people say and what they
do are often very different. To
find out their real needs it’s
essential to observe customers
in their natural environments
and also get an internal
perspective of the challenge
being faced by the client.
Using the rich starting point
provided by insights, we are
able to develop many potential
solutions to the service. That
can be done by involving users
and stakeholders, and also
by inserting our knowledge
of service systems into the
challenge being worked on.
Before committing to the
costly development of a new
or improved service, it is
necessary to build ‘experience
prototypes’, using low fidelity
infrastructure. These allow the
service to be tested quickly and
cheaply with end-users,
so the best ideas can be
identified and nurtured.
To deliver a consistently
high-quality service, you have
to make sure each step of
the customer journey works
together and meet their needs.
In this final phase, we formalize
the strategy, communicating
the new service so it can be
implemented effectively.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Page 5
6. Introduction
About Parsons
A pioneer in art and design education since its founding in 1896,
Parsons has cultivated outstanding artists, designers, scholars,
businesspeople, and community leaders for more than a century.
Today, when design thinking is increasingly being employed to solve
complex global problems, Parsons is leading new approaches to art
and design education.
The Transdisciplinary Master
Emphasizing collaborative design-led research, the MFA
Transdisciplinary Design in the School of Design Strategies at
Parsons serves as an academic laboratory in New York City for
graduate students seeking to define the next phase of design
practice globally.
The complex problems that confront a networked 24/7 global
culture call for broad design approaches. Parsons created the MFA
in Transdisciplinary Design for a new generation of designers who
want to address pressing social issues using new ideas, tools, and
methods. Students work in cross-disciplinary teams, consider issues
from multiple perspectives, gain insight from industry leaders, and
emerge with a portfolio of projects showcasing design as a process
for transforming the way we live in the 21st century.
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7. Introduction
Our Teams
Recreation
Arts and
Culture
Maggie Ollove
Helena Kjellgren
Rashid Owoyele
Trips and
Transport
Health and
Exercise
Volunteer
Services
Nutrition
Meals
Fernanda Alcocer
Namkyu Chun
Luke Keller
Emily Santoro
Aly Blenkin
Diala Iteif
Jennifer Meyer
Patrick Schlafer
Bridget Sheerin
Subodh Divekar
Elsa Kaminsky
Cristobal Oltra
Christopher Patten
Bernd Riedel
Janet Lobberecht
Nelson Lo
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Page 7
8. Our work at USA
Day 1 Insight
On May 5th, 2013 we arrived in New York and started working
together on the project locally. After an initial introduction by
David Nocenti and Maria Alejandro from Union Settlement
Association, Luis Alt and Tennyson Pinheiro from Livework
introduced Parson Students into the working process and
some tools to be used in the following days. The class of
Transdisciplinary Design got divided into 5 groups, each focusing
on a specific senior service: health and exercise, nutrition meals,
recreation arts and culture, trips and transport and volunteer
services. After the briefing, the groups went off to talk to seniors
and staff members and get a better understanding of the
services provided while trying many services by themselves.
Challenge Definition
We formed a triad between USA,
Parsons and Livework to define the
challenge that would be tackled
by the project. Among many
interesting scenarios, we came
to an agreement that the focus
should be on ‘Senior Services’.
Day 2 Ideas
Probes and Preparation
Having decided on which service
to focus, and after getting
more information about USA,
its structure and the services
provided, we sent Cultural Probes
to part of the staff in order to
anticipate project needs and plan
ahead our 3-day immersion.
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By the second day, some groups
were already into the idea phase
while many were coming back for
more information in the centers.
The work was divided between
Parsons headquarters and senior
centers, being the main objective
to gain the best and most accurate
insights and transform them
in ideas for USA. At the end of
each day there was a storytelling
session so groups could share
learnings and have feedback
rounds to better shape their ideas.
9. Our work at USA
Day 3 Prototypes
and Presentations
What’s next?
The last day was about
prototyping and adjustment
of the solutions. Turning
ideas into implementable and
well-thought systems for USA.
On the last couple of hours,
presentations were held to
USA staff, therefore ending the
local phase of the project.
We are eager to hear from what’s
reserved for USA in the near future
and how the ideas contained in
this report are implemented and
impact East Harlem’s community.
Final Processing and Report
After the 3-day project in New York,
a team of Service Design experts at
Livework listened to the stories and
navigated through the raw materials
from the projects collected from the
students to combine what used to be
five initiatives into one well-rounded
and compelling book of solutions.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Page 9
10. Our work at USA
The Initiatives from the Groups
Recreation Arts and Culture
Trips and Transport
The Art of Re-creation
Improving Backstage to Enhance Services
Inclusion, Feedback and Ownership to empower the services.
Better calendars, trip organizations done by seniors and funding.
Nothing stopped this group from keeping trips happening.
Maggie Ollove, Helena Kjellgren and Rashid Owoyele
The group came to a conclusion that seniors are a very diverse
group, with different temperaments, personalities, interests, skills
and experiences and that they should be able to come at the centers
for a lot of different reasons. After seeing from all of the interviews
that they also are ‘fearful of change’, the group concluded that there
were things to amplify and others to reform in the senior centers.
With a mindset that everything is a matter of agency, with different
kinds of agencies of different kinds of interests and cultures, the
‘Recreation Arts and Culture’ group realized that there is everyone’s
culture but there is also the culture of the center itself. So when
incorporating the culture of people it would be a side effect a
change to the culture of the center. And something very positive
might arise from that.
The group went on to work on three different paths: FEEDBACK,
INCLUSION and OWNERSHIP, which are everywhere in the solutions.
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Fernanda Alcocer, Namkyu Chun, Luke Keller and Emily Santoro
When dealing with the ‘Trips and Transport’ service, the first
question that came to mind for the group was “how can we mend
a service that is already up and running so smoothly as this one?”.
Indeed apparently there was nothing to be improved. But even
though the service itself was almost perfect to its customers,
some attention points appeared when dealing with the backstage
activities prior to the trips itself. How to better organize and share
the schedules between staff members and volunteers? How to
empower seniors to organize trips and as a consequence lower the
workload for staff members and volunteers? How to get some of the
trips funded by the destinations?
Those questions were successfully answered by the group.
11. Our work at USA
Health and Exercise
Aly Blenkin, Diala Iteif, Jennifer Meyer and Patrick Schlafer
“What better way to
understand health
and exercise but
getting in there and
actually exercising?”
-Health and Exercise team
during final presentation
Approaching Models
There are younger seniors and older ones.
We should take different approaches to each of those groups.
After participating in zumba, jokercise, relaxation and meditation,
yoga and bingocise activities and talking to many seniors and
teachers, the group concluded that there are actually two profiles of
seniors that go to the center: active ones eager to engage in more
physical activities and highly motivated and older ones that need to
be pushed into activities and pampered by staff and volunteers.
Based on this finding, the group developed two different approach
models to get seniors in health and exercise activities which we
ended up spreading out to the senior center as a whole.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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12. Our work at USA
The Initiatives from the Groups
Volunteer Services
Bridget Sheerin, Subodh Divekar, Elsa Kaminsky and Cristobal Oltra
BUILDING A L
CU
TURE OF GR
ATITUDE
Creating a culture of gratitude for flexibility and forward thinking in
volunteering services at Union Settlement Association.
Volunteers are an integral part of the center, having strong
connections to the association and their roles. Although most of the
time working with a strong sense of purpose and pride, volunteers
sometimes might get too attached to specific tasks which can create
issues when managing services to best attend the centers.
By making their work more visible to staff members and seniors
that visit the centers and also turning volunteering into a gaming
experience, managers will have more room to create shifts and
cycles in volunteers roles, which will in turn make them feeling even
more appreciated by everyone.
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“Feeling appreciated
and secure in their
ability to continue
helping is key to
the happiness of
volunteers.”
13. Our work at USA
Nutrition Meals
Christopher Patten, Bernd Riedel, Janet Lobberecht and Nelson Lo
Taking the food delivery service to a whole new level.
The Meals on Wheels program has been running for a while at
Union Settlement Association. It is responsible for delivering over
400 meals at seniors’ homes everyday. During hurricane Sandy it
was one of the few services running non-stop, delivering food to
those in need. Also, and most importantly, the program is, for some
seniors that can’t leave their homes, one of the few chances they
have to connect to the world outside everyday.
It was based on that last insight that this group developed a series
of connecting services, which influenced many of others’ solutions.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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14. Solutions
Target Areas
Initiatives and
ideas got divided
into 6 main
areas that deal
with the senior
journey into the
center and also
with backstage
activities.
Reaching Out
Raising awareness of USA
in the local community and
also globally through better
communications of the value
it brings to society and the
services it provides.
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Ownership Journey
Welcoming In
There’s no better experience
than feeling taken care of
when arriving somewhere
new. Sadly, that only happens
when there are structured
processes to show someone
new how to get around.
A very thin and almost invisible line divides
getting to know something and starting to feel
confident about it. At USA, once seniors start
making themselves at home, they begin their
ownership journey, moving towards a sense
of shared property where it is very hard to
differentiate the center’s culture to their own.
15. Solutions
Volunteering
Volunteers are at the heart of
the center’s operations. They
deal with people, with staff
and sometimes get no ‘love’
from it. Creating a funnier
atmosphere for them to work
and fostering appreciation for
what they do should be on the
agenda as soon as possible.
Making it Work!
Some say ‘there’s no better
attack than defense’ and we
say ‘there’s no better way to
improve services than creating
the right conditions in the
backstage operations’.
Getting Funded
Because at the end of the day, someone has
to pay the bill, we better think of new ways
to show our value to donors as well.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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16.
17. Reaching Out
Raising awareness of USA in the
local community and also globally
through better communications of
the value it brings to society and the
services it provides.
In this section:
• Branding of External Agents
• East Harlem gets Global
• Free Admission Tickets
•Be Open and Ready to New Publics
Page 17
18. Solutions
Reaching Out
Branding of External Agents
T-shirts, Stickers and Banners to get the community in the know.
Volunteers get around everyday, be it to take seniors somewhere or
to get them food. People from ‘El Barrio’ know them, and they also
know all the community and the neighborhood’s every little secret.
Better brand service evidences is an easy to implement, big
opportunity to amplify the presence of the Union Settlement
Association, generate awareness about its services (not only
senior) and build appreciation for what is being done by the
organization. Whether in the food carts volunteers drag along on
foot or on the trucks through routes, one thing has to be kept in
mind: either we are sending a message to outsiders or loosing the
opportunity to do so.
By creating an unique, well-rounded message from USA, the
neighborhood will begin to see how everything is connected and
realize there is something going on. “¡Algo está pasando!”
Quick-Win: Meals on Wheels
Meals on wheels is already a glue and connection for the community even
though people don’t seem to really see it that way. So how do we get those
stories about the clients out there to the people? Well, we think that the
meal can be a connector to generate stories and distribute them around the
neighborhood and also take them online (more on that later). Even before
that, meals on wheels should become a visible service. Brand it up!
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19. Solutions
East Harlem gets Global
Getting those amazing stories beyond the
community limits by taking them online.
Free Admission Tickets
It’s not about fooling seniors. It’s about getting them in!
One of the most surprising discoveries of our work with USA is that
quality services are offered for free to the community. Activities and
benefits that many people are willing to pay a lot of money, such
as yoga classes and transportation services, are offered for small
amounts or even for free by the center. But if those offers really are
so good, then why are they currently being underused? Because
people don’t know about them? Maybe, but also because they
don’t know they are good and free.
One of the main aspects of the Food for Thought
initiative is the storytelling used to connect people
from the centers to those that can’t leave their
homes. But what if those stories get also global
by publishing them on the web? Having a portal
showcasing some of the best stories is not only a
way to get some very particular and full of emotion
narratives from seniors across East Harlem (and
hence generating awareness for USA) but also to
give back to those storytellers a sense of belonging
to the new world.
“I think it’s great,
when you think of
nutrition you don’t
think of storytelling.”
- David Nocenti
It is a two way street that might help to bring more
attention to the terrific work being done by USA and
also help to get more funding from benefactors that
will most certainly relate more to the organization
and the community as a whole.
Having ‘Free Admission’ tickets distributed around the
neighborhood and by current USA clients might be one of the best
ways to get the word out and bring more people to the center.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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20. Solutions
Be open and ready to new publics
East Harlem used be about Italians. Then Hispanics. Now Chinese.
Who knows who will come next? Let’s be ready for them!
It became clear from our depth interviews with staff members and
also by looking around that if someone speaking Chinese or with no
knowledge of Spanish or English idioms arrives at any USA center,
then it would be hard for them to access the services, or even to
understand what the organization is all about.
By not having a staff member or volunteer ready to tackle a
situation like this means not being able to serve those people. What
is worse: we imagine that many immigrants from Asia may actually
pass in front of the center and not feel welcomed at all.
There are two points on this solution:
1. Think about language capabilities when hiring staff and recruiting
volunteers to work at USA.
2. Communicate clearly which languages are spoken at each center,
so new people can always come in and feel at home.
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Quick-Fix:
Volunteer Exchange Program
Establishing a partnership with
other community centers all
over New York can be a good
and smart way to eliminate
language barriers. Maybe
somewhere else there are some
Spanish skills required, while
at USA, right now, Chinese
and Portuguese could come
in handy. The volunteers (or
staff members) would have the
chance to meet new people
and learn new practices while
being even more useful and
appreciated.
21. Welcoming In
There’s no better experience than
feeling taken care of when arriving
somewhere new. Sadly, that only
happens when there are structured
processes to show someone new
how to get around.
In this section:
• First Time Visitor Tour
• Easy Codes for Calendars
• Activity Take-Aways
• Short and Informal Announcements
• Small Deed Cards
• Food Pals
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22. Solutions
Welcoming In
First Time Visitor Tour
A guided tour for new visitors to introduce the space and how to
find more information about the center’s activities and benefits.
Imagine it is your first time in a city. If you know where you should
go, then you probably have no idea how to get there. Sometimes
you don’t even know what there is to do or visit there. Now that’s
what happens every time a new customer gets in contact for the
first time with a service. And it’s our obligation to guide him and
teach him how to navigate through our service.
To make sure that transition between tourist and local happens
smoothly there should be a visiting tour, an official introduction
to the center, planned and known by staff members, volunteers
and even some of the ‘reference’ seniors (see culture champions
ahead). During the tour, new seniors could learn about the offers
through people or by the environment (think of wall calendars
and announcements, USA folders or explanation processes for
specific services), which should be done in complement to some
other materials that are suggested in this document, such as easy
calendars and activity take-aways.
It’s always best to feel local and learn your away around.
While doing the research,
students got toured around in
the centers by Brittney, one
of the staff members. Maybe
that is something worth to be
standardized at USA.
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23. Solutions
Easy Codes for Calendars
Incorporating information into activities calendars to improve its
attractiveness and understanding of what really happens.
If calendars could better inform seniors what to expect from each
activity and make easier the decision to take some of them, then
attendance might raise a little bit. For instance, it has been detected
during interviews with some seniors that there are some seniors
with higher energy level than others. Through easy and visual codes,
every activity could be showcased in calendars with information
on the senses that are activated by them, energy levels and
requirements for every session. This is a simple measure that could
result in a smoother navigation for seniors into the activities, which
could enhance the popularity of many services by lowering adoption
barriers. Some will relate to them by senses, others by energy level.
“people don’t
really look at
these calendars
and they don’t
engage with
them”
- Health & Exercise
Group Member
There is also the opportunity to address specific publics by targeting
some of the activities with special tips in events like ‘this is special
for people who suffer from diabetes’ or ‘if you have mobility
difficulties, don’t miss the next ... ”.
Keep in Mind
A prototype of a week
calendar incorporating color
codes for centers and icons
to show which senses are
activated in each session.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Much have been suggested in
the ideas about the use of walls
for communication with seniors.
We must take extra care to not
turn every wall of the centers
into an information center,
since too much information
sometimes is the same as no
information at all. Nonetheless,
having more than one way to
inform (and not mislead) seniors
is good. For instance, calendars
in more than one format can
be a good solution: large print,
leaflets and wall sized versions.
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24. Solutions
Welcoming In
Activity Take-Aways
Still in synchrony with the color coding for calendars, take-aways
might be a useful way to promote and help seniors remember.
Instead of taking home a calendar where the attractive activity gets
lost in the middle of many that probably don’t fit our schedule or
personal taste, small, straight to the point take-aways. Seniors can
take it home, hang it on the fridge and don’t forget the date or
place to their favorite session. Useful as a reminder and also as a
conversation starter for visitors and company at home, take-aways
can also be used as invitations handed out by a senior to another,
spreading the word about the Union Settlement and its services.
Note that this must be an easy to do, template based, as cheap as
possible solution. Once done for the first time, then it is only about
editing dates, printing and making it available at the centers.
Short and Informal Announcements
Using popular events as pollinators to promote others
If every time a volunteer, external teacher or staff member starts his
programmed activity by making a short announcement of another
service provided by the center, services could probably be more
utilized. The idea is to have a routine for announcements that are
done right before activities. Less popular services are promoted in
the popular ones.
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Into action ...
• Create an occupation versus
capacity indicator to see which
services and activities should be
more announced
• Have short cycles of internal
follow-up, using internal boards
and meetings to suggest which
services must be announced
and why is that
25. Solutions
Small Deed Cards
Starting conversations between strangers through small actions.
With several prompts like ‘say hi to someone you may not know
very well’ or ‘open the door for someone’, small deed cards are
conversation starters that help to promote inclusion and break the
existing clicks inside the centers. Useful for recently joined seniors
and for settled down ones that think they just don’t feel like meeting
new people but once it happens will be really thankful for that.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
As a second stage for the small deed cards, is introducing them into
popular activities at the center, such as Bingo. For instance, in the
activity space there could be used small action cards, so if this is the
bingo size activity that happens perhaps one of the activities is to
wave to the person across the room, creating actions in context with
the activity being conducted at the moment.
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26. Solutions
Welcoming In
Food Pals
Establishing a service to enable people that receive food at home to
be more integrated to other seniors and intentionally give back.
Inspired by pen pal, a relationship most commonly used to practice
reading and writing in a foreign language, to learn more about
other countries and life-styles and to make friendships, Food Pal
is inspired by and attached to the storytelling and sharing service
run by the Meals on Wheels program (more on that later). Meal
deliverers act as postmen, taking letters from and to the centers to
seniors that are at home, which starts to establish new relationships
between physically distant people with lots of stories to tell.
Paying Back (If Wanted)
The fact that seniors can’t leave their homes doesn’t mean they can’t or
even don’t want to help USA. During research the ‘Nutrition Meals’ group
discovered that seniors that receive meals at home have a ‘give-back’ will,
since they are not able to afford the food they take everyday. One way
of giving back is done by the use of Gratitude Cards, explained later, but
it got us thinking that maybe there are some tasks such as translations,
storytelling and problem-solving that those seniors could tackle remotely.
Page 26
27. Ownership Journey
A very thin and almost invisible line
divides getting to know something
and starting to feel confident about
it. At USA, once seniors start making
themselves at home, they begin their
ownership journey, moving towards a
sense of shared property where it is
very hard to differentiate the center’s
culture to their own.
In this section:
• New Suggestion Box
• Feedback Wall
• Town Hall Meetings
• Task Box
• Manager Meeting
• Senior Power
• Talk About Deeds
•Culture Champions
• Seniors as Trip Planners
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28. Solutions
Ownership Journey
The Feedback
Loop Solution:
New Suggestion Box
If seniors are the eyes of
the community centers,
so why not allure them
to tell us what to do?
There is already a suggestion box available but it is difficult to see
where it is located. The first step to enable feedback from seniors
is replacing the old suggestion box (see below) with a new and
more welcoming one that really makes people want to share their
thoughts and opinions. And it also should be more visible to seniors.
The feedback loop is a
solution that seeks to
enable the conversation
between the seniors and
the managers.
Suggestions made easy are our first step to enable conversations.
This solution has actually already been prototyped around the
centers (see a picture of it on page 9) and was very well received by
senior members.
Feedback Wall
Holding accountability for the suggestions made by seniors.
Any customer might try the service once. The hardest part is to
make him keep coming back for more. A suggestion box is not an
object but a service that enables better communication between
USA staff members and seniors in favor of the center.
In the interviews some of the seniors confessed not feeling
confident that anything would happen if they said something, had
agreements or give feedback, because in the past very few visible
actions were taken after a pronunciation by them.
A quick-fix in that sense is to build accountability into the physical
space and have a feedback wall where USA can respond to those
suggestions visually, and therefore create a feedback loop.
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29. Solutions
Town Hall Meetings
Breaking the clicks and creating a strong community feeling at USA.
The last step in the Feedback Loop solution is to organize and get
to the point where people feel that they are going to be able to
participate and be heard in discussions around the center.
One way to intervene is introducing a simple and easy voting system
using stop light colors (red, yellow and green) so that people can
voice their agreement or disagreement with different discussion
topics happening in formal meetings or popular activities. In the
lunch room this could be a way to break the clicks that usually
emerge in there and to make people talk about relevant issues for
the center.
The frequency is something to keep in mind. Start slow and make
minor adjustment on format and topics before making Town Hall
Meetings something fundamental for the center.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Page 29
30. Solutions
Ownership Journey
The Ownership
Loop Solution:
Manager Meeting
Instead of a manager
feeling that he has to
organize or suggest
everything, what if the
seniors could have more
agency over the activities
and programs that take
place in the centers?
The mid-way solution in the Ownership Loop, and next step
from the task box, is the “meeting with a manager” feature. It is
basically a process where a manager can sit down with seniors
and the suggestions on the task box and grab whatever seniors are
interested in and have a tutorial on what things could happen to get
these tools back, opening up for dialogue with interested seniors.
Being transparent and planning with seniors what to do next.
Task Box
Stop only asking for suggestions,
start prompting for actionable things.
Often it is easy to make suggestions on what should improve around
the centers. The really hard part is to create a plan or know what
has to be done in order to implement that suggestion. Enters the
Task Box, a place where instead of suggestions, actionable small
things that need to happen are given as input. So, for instance, if the
men in the pool are missing their pool tools, they can put ‘get pool
tools’ in the task box and a suggestion on how to do it as well.
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31. Solutions
Senior Power
Task forces organized with seniors to achieve task objectives.
Ownership and inclusion has been one of our main targets in
the project when seeking to create a positive and welcoming
environment at the centers. Empowering seniors to take
responsibility for task forces that aim at solving some more complex
task box issues could be a way to maximize the engagement
between seniors and USA. Imagine if seniors were tasked to do a
short term activity to acquire the tools they need, whether with
money or any other way.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Page 31
32. Solutions
Ownership Journey
Talk About Deeds
Forging shared values through meetings made to define the content
that is featured on the Small Deed Cards.
Small deed cards is a solution shown in the previous ‘Welcoming in’
section of this document. Now once seniors are more comfortable
and used to the center they can get to define which are the deeds
used and when. The idea is, before posting and spreading this kind
of activities and deeds, having seniors and staff members to talk
about what they collectively expect to see and share, which later
might culminate in the celebration of shared community values.
Culture Champions
Focal points in the organization to think and promote special
culture-related events both inside and outside the association.
Throughout the solutions and later in the approaching model, it
is easy to perceive how powerful the combination of roots and
role models can be. Just as with any other age, at the center some
seniors are reference, taking a leadership role, while others prefer to
simply follow the rest. So encouraging seniors as culture champions,
and having them as a glue to their own ‘people’ might increase the
general sense of belonging and ownership in the center, as long as
they take on the responsibility to blend in with other groups as well.
More on that on the Culture Model Approach later.
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33. Solutions
Seniors as Trip Planners
Having community hubs to help USA organizing destinations and
planning ahead senior trips.
“Planning, executing and retaining for trips is very difficult”,
according to Brittney Narcisse, responsible for developing,
coordinating, and supervising community recreation and education
programs for senior adults for USA. Now imagine going through
the hassle of organizing an entire activity or trip for seniors and not
having the right quorum attending because of lack of interest.
“I want to get
seniors to take
different kinds
of trips”
- Brittney Narcisse
But instead of seniors having the center to plan and organize closed
trips, what if this responsibility (along with destination picking)
could be in charge of a senior that is already a hub for the others?
Think of culture champions for trip planning.
The result might be a win-win situation for everyone, with improved
adherence of the trips and transport service by seniors and more
time available for Brittney and her team at Jefferson Senior Center
to do other more productive duties.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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34. Volunteering
Volunteers are at the heart of the
center’s operations. They deal with
people, with staff and sometimes get
no ‘love’ from it. Creating a funnier
atmosphere for them to work and
fostering appreciation for what they
do should be on the agenda as soon
as possible.
In this section:
• Gamification of Volunteer Jobs
•Gratitude Cards
• Gratitude Wall
• Gratitude Workshops
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35. Solutions
Gamification of Volunteer Jobs
Badges and roles system to get people engaged and changing jobs.
Much has been said about the importance of volunteering for the
center. And that is a very obvious and clear point. The problem is
that sometimes volunteering might become a little more than that
when people start to consider their roles as something that nobody
can take away from them. Alright, it’s nice having people identified
with what they do, and with a sense of purpose, but sometimes
there’s an extra hand needed somewhere else or even this strong
connection to their role might go into the dark side, becoming an
exclusion tool to keep away unwanted people.
So, in order to change the status quo, the solution is to promote
a job rotation initiative powered by games. Through the use of
medals, badges, charts and other game strategies, it might become
convincing to tell volunteers how nice might be to change airs from
time to time. Perhaps a new opportunity to become a multi-tasker
volunteer on the board of acknowledgment? Alongside, and in
symbiosis with the Gratitude Initiative (next page), the gamification
of volunteer jobs will also turn itself into a great tool to recruit new
people, making it fun to get to know USA and help the organization.
Keep in mind when implementing, that even being the sole purpose
of this solution is to promote changing roles in order to eliminate
internal clicks in the association, fixed roles should also be gamified
and promoted if required (ex. chef for meals).
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Mobile applications like
foursquare (picture) gamified
the going out experience
while Nike+ raised the
competitiveness and the fun
side of running for amateurs.
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36. Solutions
Volunteering
The
Gratitude
Initiative
What drives volunteers
is feeling appreciated
and the sense or ability
to move others. But
that can be a two sided
coin when it comes to
volunteering work in the
senior centers. Enters the
gratitude initiative.
Gratitude Cards
Showing appreciation for small acts that mean a lot.
Volunteers are a priceless help to Union Settlement. Without them,
much of what happens simply wouldn’t be possible. And although
what drives them is the feeling of being appreciated, there are
two sides to that coin. For one, they have a very strong association
to their roles and routine at the centers, which is good and keep
them wanting to come back to help. The down side of it is that
the attachment is so big that there is a constant fear of change, so
besides of not letting go of an specific task, they keep wanting to do
it the same way they ever did, creating a kind of barrier to USA.
Based on the opportunity to create a new culture, gratitude cards
play a central role and are the basis of the gratitude initiative by
being the main evidence that sticks it all together.
Those are cards that can be written down with nice messages of
appreciation for something done by volunteers. They often don’t
see how much they are appreciated and also, how much other
volunteers (with other roles) are as well. Externalizing the feeling
of appreciation and making it visible to the whole center might be
just the small but powerful element that was missing when thinking
about creating a culture of volunteering.
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Gratitude Wall
The gratitude wall is where the cards are placed
and made visible to everyone at the centers.
Having those cards written, sent to volunteers and read by them
could work but wouldn’t be as powerful as showing everyone what
is happening around.
On top of creating a nice atmosphere, those cards might actually
enable a feeling of peer-to-peer admiration between volunteers and
a healthy competition to do better or meet and please new people
from the center. Cards don’t necessary have to come from seniors,
but also from colleagues and staff members. There should be no
rules to stop people from showing appreciation towards someone.
A last and most important side effect: seniors might just want to
start volunteering and getting this kind of love themselves after
seeing the gratitude wall, turning volunteering services more
appealing to them or anyone that enters the centers and gets right
in front of one of these walls.
37. Solutions
Gratitude Workshops
Taking gratitude further into the organization
Gratitude cards might just become one of the most powerful means
of storytelling and fact-registering inside USA. The idea behind
Gratitude Workshops is to take a discussion that started on a paper
and move it forward, finding out what can be done from what has
been said. This workshop can happen once a month, or every time
the wall is too filled with cards. The cards are taken out, and read to
the participants, seeking for actions or just powerfully promoting a
culture of gratitude for volunteers.
As a side effect this workshops might be, alongside with the
suggestion box and the task box solutions a good way to feed the
organization on what is currently happening, but most importantly,
having volunteers feeling more appreciated and empowered will
benefit staff, clearing their time and making it easier for them to
implement job rotation and the gamification of roles.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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38. Making it Work
Some say ‘there’s no better attack
than defense’ and we say ‘there’s no
better way to improve services than
creating the right conditions in the
backstage operations’.
In this section:
• Shared Calendars for Trips and Transport
• Activity Calendar and Job Picker
• Approaching Models
• The Culture Model
• The Bingo Model
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39. Solutions
Shared Calendars for Trips and Transport
The Existing scheduling system isn’t communicated as efficiently as it
could be, which ends up getting in the way for planning trips.
The group in charge of trips and transport did an extensive research
on the service and found out that, although the service itself runs
very smoothly, it could be a lot optimized in the backstage mainly if
the use of digital and, most importantly, shared calendars were to
be implemented in the organization. That would end up freeing up
time for both drivers and staff members to generate more value to
the center in other activities.
Right now there are currently two calendars being used to plan
trips. One by Brittney and her team, responsible for scheduling
events and the second one by Wesley to organize pick-up and
transportation events. Each calendar is very different and personal,
so they both have to sit together to discuss about what can and will
happen and when, which takes a lot of time from them.
Now if both of them had the possibility to access the same calendar
and when changes are made by one, it got reflected to the other,
then alignment meetings would be less frequent and wouldn’t take
as much time as right now. Sharing a calendar digitally is one way to
go, specially given the factor that there are multiple centers.
Training staff and volunteers in the new platform could be as simple
as getting in contact with other institutions and partnering up.
Students did some research while in East Harlem and there are
schools and organizations nearby with just the right profile to help.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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40. Solutions
Making it Work
Activity Calendars and Job Picker
Helping staff members and volunteers to find the right jobs.
The Gratitude Initiative also picked up the need to embrace
calendars to empower volunteer work. In this case, it is about
coding it according to the requirements for every activity and event
(creating groups) in order to use it as a tool to start conversation
with volunteers and senior volunteers. They could use it to add jobs
or take away jobs and to flexibly assign roles.
Enabling volunteers to really see the possibilities can make it easier
to tear down the barrier of competing for job between them. A
smart coded calendar can also put volunteers in place to help
identifying holes in the programs or where they could be better
utilized by the Union Settlement Association.
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41. Solutions
Approaching Models
Two models to frame how to get seniors engaged in the center.
Using the lens of Health and Exercise programs, and by actually
participating in many of the activities available, a clear observation
came through: there are two basic factors that dictate the way
seniors interact with the center and which activities they choose to
take part in, energy level and cultural motivation.
Energy level basically indicates the amount of energy and movement
or ability that each senior demonstrates, which specifically in
exercising programs dictates what they do. Cultural motivation is
the connection of the activity, any activity, to their background.
If it’s more connected, they are more likely to feel motivated and
participate than if it’s not.
There is also an apparent division right now between younger
seniors and older ones, being the first more active and motivated,
excited to go to the centers and help the instructors while the later
are more inclined toward relaxation, lunch and bingo activities.
With that in mind, and considering that men almost never get
involved in activities at all (and prefer to rather stay in the pool
room), two approach strategies were created to motivate and
convince all seniors to join in activities. The first model, called The
Culture Model, is for highly motivated seniors (average age of 60)
and the other, The Bingo Model, for the seniors averaging 75 years.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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42. Solutions
Making it Work
The Culture Model
Social Capital
Peer-to-Peer Leadership
Having key seniors as agents for the
classes to engage other seniors
The culture model uses key ‘younger’
seniors as agents for the classes. They
organize the activities, pass the sign up
sheets and make other seniors to sign
up and donate money. They are also
responsible for the communication of
the classes by sending text messages or
putting posters on the centers’ walls.
After class, senior leadership encourages
people and make sure they will come
back - making it clear that what just
happened is not only an intervention but
a continuous movement.
Partnership
(school and hospital)
Instructor
The instructors are recruited from schools
or hospitals (where their students must
have internships) and are supported by
the seniors.
Explaining and categorizing the energy
level of the activities is very important in
this model, since there are multiple levels
of effort that should be communicated.
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Instructor
Sign-up Sheet
to other buildings and
phone messages
43. Solutions
The Bingo Model
Formalizing and taking advantage of the
current model of engagement.
Some seniors can have low motivation
when getting out of their daily routine.
The Bingo Model was created to target
those ‘older’ seniors, where instead of
having the seniors working to establish
and run the model, we must go towards
them in order to communicate and get
their involvement.
Timing is very important and one of the
main findings is that there is a sweet spot
between lunch and bingo time, because
bingo is so popular at the centers (hence
the name of the model).
The bingo model is based on a current
practice that has not been formalized,
where teachers rebrand their classes to
seem more effortless and appeal more to
those public and make announcements in
the sweet spot using the energy levels and
sensorial solutions mentioned previously
in this report.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
Go To
Energy Level Matching
Partnership
(school and hospital)
+
Payroll
Instructor
Ask for Nothing
Timing and Scheduling
SWEET
SPOT
in any way
Naming
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44. Fundraising
Because at the end of the day,
someone has to pay the bill, we
better think of new ways to show
our value to donors as well.
In this section:
• Getting Stories Out!
• Destination Subsidies
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Tip! Filled cards can be available at
fund raising events.
45. Solutions
Getting the stories out!
Taking advantage of what is real and happening at USA
“Thank you for that
30 seconds of the
video, because even
though I work here,
I never see that”
There is nothing more valuable than strong, real, purposeful stories.
Nothing persuades better than a well told report that is simple,
concrete and emotional. If initiatives that are spread throughout
this document are used in favor of fundraising through storytelling,
then people will see the great value that the Union Settlement
Association brings to East Harlem’s local community.
As a sample of how powerful a story like this might be, one of the
groups recorded a video of the Meals on Wheels program which we
thought might be interesting to influence the official videos ...
- Staff member during
groups’ final presentation
Password Protected Video
Use the QR-Code on the side to see a video shot
by the students while in field research or log-in
to http://vimeo.com/livework/foodforthought.
USA Senior Services Project - Final Report
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46. Solutions
Fundraising
Destination Subsidies
Finding destination partners that can help to take certain related
trips off the paper.
Establishing partnership with another organizations might be a good
way to get funds to achieve goals or accomplish tasks. A concrete
solution related to that came from the Trips and Transport team that
thought of lowering trips costs or even making them entirely costfree just by sitting down and talking to representatives of popular
destinations that seniors want to go to.
In this solution, both seniors and staff members could approach
organizations related to interesting trips and see if there is
something to trade as a way to pay for their visit. For instance, if
seniors want to go to a specific park, one way might be to have
them doing some kind of gardening work while there as well, which
could even become a therapy like activity. If seniors ask so much
to take Walmart trips, maybe the main interested in having people
there is actually the company and it could be up to them to subside
traveling costs after all.
Partnership might be a great way to avoid seniors having to pay out
of their pockets to get admission to certain destinations.
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