SCIP: The Social Care Innovation Podcast
The Social Care Innovation Podcast Episode #0.5 with Hosts Jonathan Haag and Cody Pittman. Jonathan is the Vice President of Innovation at CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions and Wrinkle Innovation. Cody is the CEO of Duett.
Mary P. 0:01
Welcome to SCIP: The Social Care Innovation Podcast.
Jonathan Haag 0:12
I'm Jonathan Haag
Cody Pittman 0:14
And I'm Cody Pittman.
Jonathan Haag 0:15
Join us as we dive into the dynamic world where healthcare and social care intersect, exploring the vital link between health and the factors that shape our lives beyond the hospital walls.
Cody Pittman 0:29
Each week, we sit down with experts, thought leaders and advocates who are reshaping the landscape of care, delving deep into the social determinants of health that impact is all.
Jonathan Haag 1 0:38 From community health initiatives to innovative policy solutions. We're here to blend the best ideas, insights and experiences to create a healthier, more compassionate world.
Cody Pittman 0:51
So grab your headphones and join us on this journey through the Care Blender. Because when it comes to health, every story matters. We've been, we've been talking about this for a little while now. How do we share these ideas? How do we kind of build enthusiasm in our industry for cool ideas? We've been talking about it, and now we're here.
Jonathan Haag 1:12
Yeah, it feels good. I'm excited to talk to interesting people that are doing really incredible things in their communities.
Cody Pittman 1:22
Yeah. I mean, the wild thing is, we already have several episodes lined up, we've got the person that runs her own caregiver agency that is also a tech entrepreneur, that built a technology solution in collaboration with a state entity on aging. We've got some of your colleagues who have their own innovation projects, both also other technologies, but also physical products. And then we've got a doctor, we've got CEO, executives from Area Agencies on Aging. And I think we've got some policymakers coming too.
Jonathan Haag 2:00
Yeah, it's gonna be a great experience. And I'm excited to hear how folks respond to this.
Cody Pittman 2:07
Yeah, yeah, me. Me too. Jonathan. I know a lot about you. We talk every Tuesday. But for everybody else out there. How did you find yourself working at Area Agency on Aging? How do you find yourself talking about innovation? And in this chair today?
Jonathan Haag 2:24
Yeah, that's a great question. Cody, I'm really excited to be spending one more day of the week with you. So, as you said, I am the Vice President of Innovation at a an Area Agency on Aging that serves older adults, those of any age with a disability and family caregivers. And my career has revolved around walking alongside colleagues to help build creative confidence. And so CICOA really embraced that mindset and viewed creativity, and creatively responding to the needs of our community as an essential part of our business. And so I've had the opportunity now to build an innovation function within our organization. And that includes a startup incubator, a capital fund, and an advisory service.
Cody Pittman 3:34
My background was not Area Agencies and Aging. I spent most of my career working with small businesses, technology firms, startups around strategy, sales and marketing, building, helping them solve some of their biggest problems. The opportunity to take the lead of a company called Duett slipped across my desk, and I couldn't refuse it, it was a well identified problem, a really great solution that we had prototyped and undeniable data that said, hey, we need to go build this thing to help case managers and Area Agencies solve this problem. So that started about three and a half years ago. And that's I've been drinking from the firehose ever since on some of the problems that we're going to talk about. That's my first question for you, though. You've already kind of started to answer which is, you know, CICOA and Wrinkle Innovation. I've taken a unique approach to innovation, but how might any AAA or any community based organizations start flexing and innovate or start flexing or building an innovation function?
Jonathan Haag 4:44
Yeah, I love this Cody because this is what I live and breathe non nonstop and what collectively we get to do. For a social care organization to embrace creativity, or innovation, I think you have to have a couple core elements present. The first one being creativity and creative response. It needs friends, right? So within your organization, building a culture and instilling within team members, these really important elements of safety when sharing creative responses to opportunities and challenges, and encouraging wild ideas that colleagues are sharing with you to, to hold on to embrace those things. And to walk along side colleagues, and that is incredibly important. It's essential to it. Creativity needs protection, it needs watered, it needs nourishment, it needs friends. Right? That can't happen without that. Secondly, creative response needs someone or a culture that helps excite imaginations, right? So that when a colleague is out in the community, serving an individual, that that individual isn't just going through the checklist of their job duties, right. But that they have permission to think really wide, about what's in front of them. Whether that's the situation that they're the individual that they're serving finds themselves in, or the environment around them. We want our colleagues to always be thinking creatively about that. And that requires permission that requires the organization to say, we support you thinking widely. We want you doing that, and we want you sharing that with us that those elements start to build creative confidence in your employees. And guess what, Cody, that doesn't cost a thing. Right? That doesn't cost anything. This is this is building a part of your culture. Right? The last thing, so you can nail those first two things, right. But the next thing starts to get a little bit more difficult. And that's providing ways to express sparks of imagination, or sparks of inspiration, right? To take the things that your colleagues are seeing out in the community, and maybe coming back and because you've created this environment of safety and permission where you're sharing ideas, they're making themselves up onto whiteboards, or napkin sketches. Okay, how do we take that next step, and make these things a little bit more real, more tangible, so we can go and test a new idea to see if it works or not. And I think a lot of organizations can do those first two things. But that last part of of what we call prototyping, that becomes difficult, right? But I want to encourage folks in social care, in organizations that are wanting to think creatively and to think innovatively to understand that prototyping doesn't have to be intimidating. It's something anyone can do. It's actually something we learned to do in kindergarten, right? It's getting some of some crafts out some paper, some scissors, of which you will hear some stories and these podcasts where it was literally scissors and glue sticks to prototype something. But these prototypes are not meant to be expensive, right? They're meant to communicate an idea and to go put this idea into the hands of folks who are going to be interacting with it and using it and getting their feedback. So you You know what to then go in and prove on the prototype? Right. And so to me, walking alongside colleagues encouraging creativity, and providing avenues to express sparks of inspiration. So, ideation and prototyping is what we call it in our model. Those are essential elements that social care organizations can adopt, and and to build their innovation muscle.
Cody Pittman 10:43
Here's what I heard, you got an idea, you got people out in the field experiencing a vast array of life and people and clients and engaging lots of different businesses, lots of different problems all at once. But at some point, you've got an idea. Like, I think we can make an improvement here. We're not building the pyramid overnight. What we're talking about... when we say prototype, what we mean is, what's the next step that you can take? To answer the question, should we keep going, take one small step, answer the question, should I keep going? If the answer is yes, take another small step. And answer the question, should we keep going? Do it again, and again, and again and again. And eventually you have learned that we should stop, or you should learn, and then have built the thing that now either your entire organization use, or several Area Agencies on Aging use or an entire country of people use. And I think, you know, when people think about innovation, they often think, Oh, I've got to go build a huge company, a huge tech platform. I say no, a lot of these ideas are going to be only applicable to the 100 people that work in your organization, or are only going to serve the couple 1000 community members that you engage with. Some of these ideas are going to be really big, but some of these ideas are going to be small. And that's perfect. I mean, heck, at one point, a lot of AAA's across the country operate transportation services. At one point, that was a new idea, should we do this? The answer ultimately became Yeah, we should do this. What other ideas are out there like that, that we should be exploring. And I think that's kind of the main idea of this podcast is bringing these ideas together, talking to people that are operating these things, or have walked this path that you're talking about ideation, prototype launch, so that our audience can see how it's done and learn from each other.
Jonathan Haag 13:02
So Cody, we are sitting in a podcast studio inside of our local public library. And before we came in here, you had shared a quote, or you had said something that I think got right to the heart of what we're hoping to accomplish as we share this podcast, and talk with really incredible people who are doing incredible things. I think it's also a phrase or a question that organizations can ask to themselves to start to build that creative confidence that they need. Cody, can you share what that really profound?
Cody Pittman 14:00
You're gonna ask me to quote myself?
Jonathan Haag 14:02
Yeah, I am. It was that good.
Cody Pittman 14:06
It's actually one of my favorite things is if I ever say something out loud, and then Jonathan writes it on a post it note and it makes it onto a wall in his office. I, it makes me feel good. But I think what I was saying to you in the parking lot was what would the world look like if social workers walked around believing that anything was possible? Now that applies broadly. But we're talking about in our industry, if everybody's thought, Yes, I, I am the one to solve that problem, or Yes, I can do that. Or yes, we can do that. How many problems would we be able to tackle for everybody if we all just thought it was possible
Jonathan Haag 14:45
And Cody to be able to sit with folks for an hour each week to hear the stories? I think we're going to see that the social care industry is full of opportunities for us to have that mindset. And that question that you asked, is one of the most important things that I think I want our, our peers, to really ask themselves and to consider. And to then maybe just maybe embrace. Right. And I think that's, I don't think I know, that's why we're sitting here. Doing this.
Cody Pittman 15:33
It's one of the best things about working with every agency on aging is because this industry is sits at the intersection of federal and state dollars, typically interacts with State Units on Aging government bodies, but also vast networks of home and community service providers, funders, health plans, AAAs are well positioned does, to see a lot of problems and solve a lot of problems. The other really cool thing is, by by nature, AAA's are collaborative. By choice, people that are in this industry, are constantly putting themselves in positions to learn from each other. We're a part of that. But a really great example is the USAging conference is coming up in July this year, it's gonna be in Tampa, last year was in Salt Lake City, you and I were both there. And the thing that blew me away was the number of people there from a wide array of organizations, not only the Area Agencies on Aging, but inside of that social workers, case managers all the way up to executive leaders. But in addition to Area Agencies on Aging, we had health plans. We had technology vendors, we had home and community based service, home and community based service vendors, home delivered meals, PERS companies were all there. These are all people coming together to share best practices, learning from each other saying, hey, what worked in your area in your territory that we might be able to bring and implement in our area. So by nature, this group is positioned for collaboration and chooses to be that. And we're hoping to be a part of that.
Jonathan Haag 17:22
And Cody, I think that collaboration, maybe I missed it in my equation before. But I do think it's an important ingredient. And I actually think it's the competitive advantage that social care organizations have when doing innovation. Collaboration. Yes, it's it's a buzzy word that exists in a lot of industries. Right. But when it comes down to true collaboration, do you see better examples than what you see in the social care landscape? I would argue not right. There are so many combinations of collaborations that exist, that create this outsized impact that can never be achieved alone. And I think very few industries are, have the identity or are positioned to do that. And I'm so grateful, we get to sit in that realm, right. Because working together being collaborative sharing best practices, hanging out at a conference, like us aging is so sweet, because those conversations often translate into tangible relationships that serve our communities.
Cody Pittman 18:48
This will probably get put elsewhere in the podcast. But I think people get concerned with friction, like, Oh, if I've got this, if the idea is so good, it should be easy. It's like, typically, nowhere in our lives are things easy, actually. But especially when ideating and prototyping friction is actually a really good thing. Because what you end up getting is a refined idea. You want people to be you are talking about advocacy and safe to share ideas. But what's the mixture of enthusiasm for the idea so you have the energy to keep going, but also a healthy amount of criticism to build that friction. So the idea is refined, so that it will succeed or is more likely to succeed? I think if we were to go back a couple years where we were at with Duett and prototyping, it was no you do want some people to come in and say, Hey, what about this? What about that? here's where you here's where it might not work. That friction is good because on the other side of that that we have a better idea that is more like better positioned to succeed.
Jonathan Haag 20:04
Cody, that's a wonderful example. And I might even layer in a friction point that social care organizations often see is competition, right? They look in the market. And they see, oh, well, that person's already attempting to solve that problem. And it doesn't make sense for us to go and pursue that. At the same time, that solution doesn't work all the way for us. So we're just not going to do anything. Right. Right now. I'm working with three entrepreneurs, all from different organizations that are all building products, for caregivers, right, for the family caregiver. And I think some folks would look at that and say, the market doesn't need three more caregiving solutions. But I think that's the wrong mindset, right? Social Care Organizations and health care organizations touch nearly everybody. Right? Everybody will intersect with health care, and social care. And so the market once lots of solutions, right, it wants to see it needs dozens and dozens of family caregiver solutions, because that's the thing about social care and health care. It often is not a one size fits all, right? There's a lot of opportunity. And if I can encourage social care organizations, to have that mindset to not be intimidated by the friction, or the competition, but to accept it, and see, okay, actually, this isn't competition, because digging deeper, these two things actually don't do the same thing. And so there is a need for what it is I'm proposing. And the same thing with friction to accept that to say, Hey, this is good feedback, right? Maybe the initial thing that I suggested, wasn't right on when I put it into the hands of, of, of individuals in my community, they're saying this, to accept that feedback. Because that's, that's an advantage that social care organizations have. We are so close to the end users of our products, that it's an advantage to have that feedback, and we need to treat it as an advantage.
Cody Pittman 22:58
I think we got two more things that we need to do before we wrap this thing up. One of them is we were kicking around the idea collaboration of the week.
Jonathan Haag 23:05
Yeah, we don't have to do that for point five.
Cody Pittman 23:10
But we may not make the episode. I may not make the episode. But let's try it.
Jonathan Haag 23:16
Okay.
Cody Pittman 23:17
We've been kicking around this idea of having a section of the episodes being collaborations of the week, where we smash two things together and see, hey, what might that look like? You could also call it the "What if" section of the podcast. Since we're sitting in the public library, the thought that I was having for you, as we were kind of getting started was what would a collaboration between a public library and an area agency on aging look like? I'm gonna say a couple more things on that you react. This Public Library is a little bit in a unique position right across the hallway from us as a coffee shop right across the street is a high school. My idea was, how can we have an intergenerational interaction here? Once a month, once a once a quarter? Where high school students come across the street? We bring the AAA uses its transportation services to bring some of their clients here. What would that look like?
Jonathan Haag 24:21
Cody, I love that one. It is you you listen to the CBS Sunday Morning. Encouraging videos... do you ever watch those Cody?
Cody Pittman 24:31
I can't say that I have.
Jonathan Haag 24:33
Okay, well, I'll do that for you. But it's you often hear these examples of, of students and adult day centers being co located with one another and you have these beautiful interactions for both sides of the relationship right? And so to see you physically put together Okay, we're sitting in a library doing this, this library has a coffee shop, and there's a crosswalk right across that coffee shop and to the library, to the high school, right? So having a time before classes start to, to talk, right to share wisdom, to maybe the Area Agency on Aging, create some prompts some weekly prompts to, for folks to, to respond to, Right?. I think it's an incredible thing. And I think this is the muscle for trying to flex, right? We're trying to look at our surroundings to be curious, and to view all these things as movable, and as opportunities that we can creatively respond to. So Cody, I'm a bit jealous of your suggestion, because I think it nailed it.
Cody Pittman 26:00
Take it, It's yours, you can have it.
Jonathan Haag 26:02
Thank you. Well, listeners, it's also yours.
Cody Pittman 26:07
Boom! Don't say we never did anything for you.
Jonathan Haag 26:11
That's right. That's right. Cody, my mind went to I don't mean to exclude the school after that a great example. But thinking about an Area Agency on Aging and a library. So the Area Agency on Aging that I'm a part of spends a lot of time doing essential needs trips for adults via our transportation program. And those essential needs are to doctor's appointments, or grocery store visits. Right. But to expand our definition of essential, right, libraries in the leisure and education that it gives individuals that come here, that's essential, right, so to think about, how might the Area Agency on Aging and the public library, collaborate? That's just one more example of how they might to view that as an essential needs trip.
Cody Pittman 27:16
It's, it took me a second to remember this, but I was here yesterday, reserving a slot. So I was in the library twice, in two days. And when I was walking out yesterday, there was actually a table eight women playing mahjong together. And it looked like they had been doing this for years. And this looked and seemed like they had been meeting up for years doing this. But that kind of goes along. It's like, there's a community center. How do we get more people here? That was, what if or collaboration of the week, maybe as we do more episodes, we'll actually name this section. But for now, collaboration the week, if you want to talk to Jonathan about building an innovation function at your social care organization, you can email us at support@duett.io. That's “Support @ duett.io”. And I can get you in contact with him. If you've got a recommendation for a guest that we should have on our show. You can do the same thing, which is email support @ duett.io. But we'll take recommendations and feedback as well. Jonathan, this is fun.
Jonathan Haag 28:27
This has been amazing.
Cody Pittman 28:30
Thanks, everybody.
Note: This episode was transcribed by https://otter.ai. If you have suggestions for edits email support@duett.io.