Agenda

While the mobile phone market is looking into more and more areas of specialisation in the search for continued growth, the opportunity to fulfil the unmet need of the senior market is largely over-looked. There are some exceptions to this: The aim of the conference is to bring together those exceptional people, from different disciplines and with different experiences, to help with the cross-fertilisation necessary to make the market grow. There is an emphasis on speakers who have real experience with consumers in the field.

9:00-9:30 Registration

9:30-9:35 Introduction

Simon Rockman will introduce Jon Bentley who will explain the running of the day and introduce the first speaker.

9:35-9:55 Connected Seniors (by video link)

Nita Norman from Telstra explains how the they built on the senior market base of all Telstra customers, fixed and mobile, of  30% of the network’s customer base to grow the mobile side. With pre sales programs such as Connected Seniors and bespoke handsets such as the EasyTouch Discovery, they increased the share of “new to mobile” customers to 74%. Nita will be sharing her insights as to the customer engagement and pre sales support required to expedite Seniors’ purchase and usage of new technologies – in this case mobile phones.

9:55-10:15 Emporia, the future of the Senior Market

Emporia is one of the best-known names in the senior mobile market. The company was founded by Albert Fellner and his wife Eveline originally to make fixed line phones and then progressed to mobile. Albert will be talking about devices to support health services and the future of the mobile market for seniors.

10:15-10:50 Tablets for seniors; Out of Touch

Is Touch the right user interface for seniors? Or is it mainstream mobile forcing fashion on the mature market? Ian Hosking and Mike Bradley from the University of Cambridge will be looking at the facts and misconceptions behind ‘easy to use’ interfaces. You’ll be asked to adjudicate with a voting slip.

10:50-11:10 Coffee Break

11:10-11:40 Lessons learned from Vodafone Simply

An elephant in the room of the senior market is “Why did Vodafone give up on Simply”, their proposition for seniors with dedicated sales training, products and marketing. Surely if the mighty Vodafone can’t make the senior market work, no-one can. Adrian Burholt ran the project and will explain that Simply was a sales success, but one that got caught between the launch of smartphones, 3G and other factors. There is a lot of good that came from the project and he’ll be sharing what he learnt.

11:40-12:00 Doro – a prelude for mHealth

What’s needed to make mHealth real, working from design intentions to products.

12:00-12:20 Beafon

An established player in the senior market Beafon has a good range of handsets including the novel S700 which is a combined DECT and GSM handset

12:20-12:40 Three Button Android

Antony Ribot will tell the story of Threedom: a phone for those who aspire to the iPhone, but either can’t afford it or find it too complex to use. He’ll share how and why it was created, the challenges, the emotional highs and lows, the opportunities and risks and maybe even what the future holds…

12:40 -13:00 Mind the age gap

Mindings is a digital picture service which converts an Android tablet into a smart photo frame. It sits in the owner’s home while their children send pictures to it through a secure link. It’s a perfect riposte to the outburst from one of the speakers last year who asked why such a service was not available. Mindings however goes further with greater options for remote care. The creator of the service, Stuart Arnott will present it and explain the advanced features.

13:00 -14:30 Lunch and Networking

14:30-15:00  Panel – Seniors Dragons Den

Jon Bentley moderates a panel of seniors giving their views to innovators in the senior mobile market. There is no seed capital for the winners but neither is there the humiliation of going away empty handed.

15:00-15:30  Marketing to Seniors

Understanding the senior market is a specialist skill and Senior Market Mobile is delighted to announce that Mark Beasley, managing director of rhc advantage, the UK’s only independent marketing agency specialising in older, more mature audiences, will be speaking at this year’s event.

15:30-15:50 Break

16:50-16:10 Touch Vote

In the morning session Mike and Ian from the University of Cambridge presented the arguments for and against touch. Who do you agree with. We’ll count the votes and explore the issues.

16:10-16:30 Lessons learned today

Simon Rockman, organiser of Senior Market Mobile will be looking at key insights from days presentations and the grapevine around the event. The mobile market is constantly re-inventing itself, does the Senior market need to follow?

16:30 – 17:00 Networking

A final chance to meet, swap business cards and see some of the new products on display.