These ten points build on ideas generated during the exploration into digital technology for later in life, and were developed after a SW Seniors Assembly in Bristol on May 28 2013.
They were first posted by David Wilcox on the Socialreporter blog. The aim was to provide a set of talking points about doing things WITH older people, rather than FOR them. More below on how they were developed.
Ten pillars of wisdom: a manifesto for a better later life There’s lots of research, programmes and even innovation funding to address the challenges of later life, as our team of socialreporters detailed in a recent exploration for Nominet Trust.
However, most of this is about doing things FOR older people. What would it be like to switch the professional emphasis towards doing things WITH older people?
I spent yesterday in Bristol at the SW Seniors Assembly getting some ideas, and I’m quite sure I’ll pick up more from a NESTA event with Vickie Cammack this evening. I’m nearby and so can attend, but it is also being live streamed from 6pm.
Meanwhile I can’t resist sharing some thoughts I developed from the assembly discussions, and then bounced off Tony Watts, who is chair of the SW forum on ageing, and Bryan Manning, visiting professor of compunetics at the University of Westminster. We turned my 10 provocations into a draft manifesto, and Tony suggested Ten pillars of wisdom, which I like, since it reflects a lot of the discussion around the wisdom held by older people, but perhaps not sufficiently valued by the “ageing industry”. Point 4. The manifesto reflects some of the 10 propositions generated by the Nominet Trust work, but this time without so much of an emphasis on technology.
Here’s an interview with Tony and Bryan. It is also available on Audioboo here with a couple more from the assembly.
What do you think of the manifesto? I’ll be developing a more rigorous framework with Tony, Bryan and others, and also developing ideas on how to put some of this into practice, building on the work we did for Nominet Trust on technology in later life. Now off to NESTA.
listen to Tony Watts and Bryan Manning on Audioboo
Update: There’s a very relevant new item on NESTA’s excellent list of projects - the Living map of ageing innovators: it is the Wisdom Bank which “provides a platform for people approaching retirement to share their skills and insights with those that need their advice”