In 2014 my caregiving interests were evolving to be more about awareness and less about about tools for effective caregiving. When you talk about caregiving or disabilities you start to notice that people's eyes glaze over. They don't believe those topics are ever going to be their problem or they believe the problem is so far away, they'll be better prepared for it when the time comes. Death is another one of those topics that no one wants to talk about. People also assume they're going to be ready when it is their time.
If you've ever heard of an untimely death, you'll know that most people aren't "ready" when they die. Just like how they're not "ready" to become disabled. Even if they're 80+ years old.
I wanted to continue the caregiver/disability conversation at SXSW in 2014 and I decided to bring in death. John Romano and Evan Carroll, the co-authors of Your Digital Afterlife were a natural choice for partners in continuing the conversation, so in 2014 Evan co-hosted a core conversation with me.
We were lucky to have some very talented attendees in the discussion. Cameron Friedlander wrote a fantastic summary of the event and Chris Cullman made a graphic recording.
Graphic recording by @cullmann.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on my summary of the conversation or for you to check out some of the articles written before the discussion.
A summary of my interests in Designing for the Fringe.