Neuroinclusive Design: What it is and why do we need it?

In this episode, Walt Zerbe Sr. Director of Technology & Standards at CEDIA Talks with Pete Trauth, Owner and principle of Nirvana Home Entertainment, Sam Fruzzetti, Lead Tech at Nivrana Home Entertainment, Rae Ridgway, Professor on the Geology Faculty at Glendale Community College, Avonna Nichol, student at Glendale Community Collage and Lytzy Trorrer, student at Glendale Community Collage about a challange they were presented by Pete to do a design thinking exercise centered around Pete's desire to understand and focus his integration business to cater to different neuro types. If this sounds strange, listen to the podcast to get a better understanding of what we're talking about.  Basically, it's about using technology to improve the human condition like the CEDIA integrator of 2027 white paper talked about.  

A few links:

https://landing.cedia.net/IO27/io27.html

https://www.glendale.edu/physicalscience

rridgway@glendale.edu

https://www.nirvanahomeentertainment.com/

Pete Trauth Email: pete@nhe.io

Transcripción del podcast

Walt Zerbe  0:01  
I am CEDIA, I am CEDIA, I am CEDIA, this is the CEDIA media, CEDIA podcast,

Speaker 1  0:06  
you take a problem, you break it down into its smaller pieces, rather than jumping straight to a solution. The marshmallow represents in this scenario, those unexamined aspects, those assumptions that we carry with us about the problem. And so design thinking is really a great way to approach a business challenge and a great way to introduce students to to a new problem solving tool, because essentially, they're they're invited to step back and really question those assumptions.

Walt Zerbe  0:42  
Hello, and welcome to another CD, a podcast. I'm Walt Zerby, Senior Director of Technology and Standards and your host for the CD, a podcast. And this week, we're gonna get heady, this is gonna be very interesting. You know, a lot of times we talked about technology, we talked about marketing stuff, we talked about business stuff, but I love when we get more into human stuff, how we think how we interact, how we design, and that is exactly what we're going to be talking about today. So we're gonna be talking about neuro inclusive design, and what it is and why we need it. And this idea was brought to me by my good friend and awesome, CEDIA volunteer, Pete trough. And Pete said, Hey, Walt, I got an idea. And actually, Pete, I'm going to bring you on right now. And I want you to explain, I want you to introduce the team of people that we have here. And then I know I'd like to get a little bit of background each on everybody. And then Pete, I would like to, I'd like you to explain how we got on the subject, and what event you attended that sparked this whole thing. So Pete trouth, Nirvana, Home Entertainment, welcome to the podcast. Take it away, Pete.

Speaker 2  2:02  
Thank you, Walt. So the group that we have here with us today is from Glendale Community College. This is the this is part of a program that they have called the team internships. challenge, I think is that correct? And I team internships program, the team internships program, and, and the business challenge, the small the Local Business Challenge, which which we participated in this semester, for fall semester, this year. The three people who are with us are Ivana Nichols, Ray Ridgeway, and let's see terreiro. And both Ivana and let's see your students over at GCC, and Ray is a teacher there and was heading up this program, super, super cool program that works with local businesses to address their their ongoing business challenges. And it gives the students kind of a, you know, a way to, to help to solve these, these real world issues that local businesses are, are facing, and it gives the businesses you know, the, it gives them this opportunity to work with a group of people that that's all basically, you know, it's, it's an opportunity to, to work with someone that you're not going to otherwise have the have the ability to work with. For most companies, this is just a resources problem, you know, where you can't afford to hire on 25 people. It's, it's just impossible. So. So it's a really, it's a really, really great opportunity for businesses. We were very lucky to get chosen to do this for this semester. And I'm sure that they'll each talk a bit more about that, that program. But what what we did this semester was what our business challenge was, and still is, is, is bringing neuro inclusivity into the design of a smart home. So

Walt Zerbe  4:20  
Pete, I want to cut you off for a quick second. So I think I finally made the connection between you and the program. You were one of the businesses that participated in the program. And then Ivana Ray and let's see, or part of the team that you threw a problem out to them and they assisted with the problem. Is that the connection? Exactly. Okay. All right. Continue.

Speaker 2  4:47  
So, so our business challenge being bringing neuro inclusivity into the smart home. And I guess that's in need of a you know a bit of a definition So, neuro inclusivity being the way that I like to put it at least is considering the differences between different neuro types in the design of, of home systems of home electronic systems. So, you know, where I believe that most homes are, most of these home systems are designed currently for what's called the neurotypical person, you know, that they're designed to basically, fit, fit the, the most average user. And what we're looking to do is to, is to consider the fact that 20% of adults in the world at least this is a, you know, this is a an estimated number that's, that's, that's appeared in a number of publications, but up to 20%. of adult people are neurodivergent. This is a lot of people were talking one and five, and that's, that's, you know, looking at, that's looking at at what they would consider to be like a diagnosable neurodivergent person, somebody who, who falls far enough away from what's considered to be typical, to be called neurodivergent. So, you know, just anybody who, whose brain is basically wired in a different way than the typical. And I really don't love the word neurotypical because it's, you know, I feel like really, it's it's all a spectrum is just, you know, how far from the from that center point on the curve you happen to fall? Yeah. You know,

Walt Zerbe  7:00  
it's better than the Biophilia though. Isn't that one? That's, that's our connection to nature. So when air temperature light, which is another issue, which you could what you would work into a, a particular neuro group that disconnection from that as a problem, or they're particularly sensitive to, So, but anyway, yeah, I get your own terms. They're, they're not the best terms. And I just wanted to clarify, we, as an industry, we have typically been guilty of also designing for maybe one person or the person who's paying the bills. So did you take a look at all the stakeholders that as part of this neurodiversity, and then I want to bring some other people on here, but my last question would be how is this different from design thinking? I assume design thinking is probably the process that you're going to follow, or tried to do. And you're going to also have a lot of empathy involved as well. So right, please feel free to chime in at any time on this stuff, too, since you're like the program had similar Yeah. So who wants to repeat? Okay, right.

Speaker 1  8:20  
You mentioned design thinking? Well, it's, it's actually the central piece that we we introduced to our interns at the very first orientation, we put them through something called the marshmallow challenge, which perhaps you're familiar with. The idea is you have some spaghetti noodles and a marshmallow and you have to build the tallest structure, you can in like 18 minutes. And so this is the introduction, the interns get not only to one another, but also to design thinking, which is essentially, this idea, right, where you take a problem, you break it down into its smaller pieces, rather than jumping straight to a solution. The marshmallow represents in in this scenario, those unexamined aspects of assumptions that we carry with us about the problem. And so design thinking is really a great way to approach a business challenge and a great way to introduce students to a new problem solving tool. Because essentially, they're they're invited to step back, and really question those assumptions that how did we define this problem? What are the other challenges associated that we need to visit and this might be a good time to bring in our interns have on it and let's see, to talk about some of those assumptions they unpacked in in coming up with solutions for Nirvana, home entertainment. I

Walt Zerbe  9:47  
would love to do that. I also want to do the marshmallow challenge myself. Did you say it's 18 minutes

Unknown Speaker  9:54  
and it goes so fast? Okay.

Walt Zerbe  9:59  
I This sounds intriguing to me. But before we get into your question posed to, to ANOVA, and let's see, I'd like to know know, what are you studying? In school? Yeah. So

Speaker 3  10:11  
I'm currently a student at Glendale Community College and I'm majoring in child development in pursuit of becoming an occupational therapist.

Walt Zerbe  10:18  
Very cool. Okay. Ivana,

Speaker 4  10:22  
I am a business major at Glendale Community College, and I'm also pursuing communication studies. So this is really interesting for me to do.

Walt Zerbe  10:31  
From my point of view, yeah, the reason why I asked that is, these are Pete's challenge to you was completely foreign. Exactly. So go ahead and answer raise Re, Do you want to repeat repeat your question, in case they didn't? Remember? Yeah, so

Speaker 1  10:48  
I'm just curious, like, both Ivana and Litsy. Were members of different teams and our team internship program. So we had five different teams that were all working on the same business challenge. And they ultimately decided on different focus areas to focus on. Right, so Avantis group was looking really more at, like, accessibility, I'll let you I'll let you tell Ivana what, what your focus was, and, and let's see, was more in their team, they were looking more at the marketing side. And so there were different aspects of this challenge that they unpacked. And I guess my question is, you know, what are some of the assumptions that you've revealed in applying the design thinking process, to the business challenge that Nirvana brought for us?

Walt Zerbe  11:43  
Okay, who would like to go? First of all, go ahead. Yeah,

Speaker 4  11:45  
I don't mind. Just to just to kind of bounce off of what you were saying there, Ray. My, my team actually went through a process of different focuses, our focus kind of shifted throughout the entire process. And I think that's kind of how it related to the marshmallow challenge. Because usually, when I have a problem, I look at the problem, and then I go directly to solutions. But the method that we use during this specific process was a little bit different, we had to kind of break down the problem, and then look at different problems that could be caused by this, you know, one problem, and how do we solve it. And it was pretty, it was a pretty interesting process. But overall, I actually gained a new way of problem solving. So it was it was quite interesting to learn so much about neuro divergence, because it wasn't a topic that I'm actually actually knowledgeable on. So it was a lot of new information, a lot of learning and a lot of research that we had to do just to kind of relate to what neurodivergent individual would be facing or challenges that they may have. So it was it was actually pretty interesting process. But some of the challenges that we ran into, would have to be things that things that we just haven't identified for ourselves. My group, specifically didn't have anyone who identified as neuro divergence. So we had to kind of do our research outside of the group, with family with friends, I literally had a friend who identifies as neuro divergent, so it was pretty cool for me to, you know, ask them for information and ask them for input. But the process went in complete circles before we ever actually, you know, landed on one resolution, because it is like a POC, and it's a very large spectrum. So you kind of have to look at it from like, the bigger picture, you can't just focus on one specific problem. So yeah,

Walt Zerbe  13:48  
and that's that was your flaring. So when you do like a brainstorm you flare, and then you bring it and you bring it in and all that, so that that's great. Yeah. I had a question for you. When you said nobody identified as I guess everybody said they were of the normal neurodiversity, or neuro inclusive. You know, I hate that term. Pete. We got to come up with a better way of saying this, but how do they know does ever does? Does everybody always know? Like, if they're in the mainstay group, or if they are different, they might actually be unaware it did you? Honestly.

Speaker 4  14:28  
I feel like I learned a lot about myself. Personally, I can't speak for everyone in my group. But some of the things that I learned about the different neuro diversities I identified with so I want to say maybe no one in my group was wasn't specifically diagnosed. But I identified with a lot of things that neurodiverse individuals go through a lot of issues, a lot of sensitivities. So I thought it was quite interesting to learn about it and learn about myself as well. I, I think I don't want to speak for my, my peers or my group members, but I can assume that they learned a lot about themselves as well, because we were all kind of, you know, relating to different topics and different things that we had issues with. So, it was quite interesting. Okay.

Walt Zerbe  15:24  
Fantastic. Let's see, awesome,

Speaker 3  15:25  
you're up. Okay. So kind of similar to Awana. So when P came in was like the business challenge, I had absolutely no idea what neurodivergent or neurotypical? Yeah, exactly. So kind of like, when we started doing the marshmallow challenge, we weren't specifically running into solutions. Like as a team, we kind of decided like to, like, get it started, we needed to have like a set foundation and then build upon that. So we kind of use that like as a team internship as like, starting, okay, like, how are we going to break down this problem? And what are we going to focus on, just so that we can have like a steady way to like what to work upon on. So I feel Melo challenge, like really helped just to get like the process, going and stuff. But I also definitely learned a lot about myself and like how to be more like, expressive and like aware of what goes around me. Because like, I never knew what neurodivergent was, or like, the struggles that people go through, around like, in our community, and sometimes, like awareness isn't even brought, because we're not like educated on it. So now that we know, like, you're aware on it, so like, it's like, how can you like now that you know, the problem? How are you able to help those people around? Obviously, you know, like, with the company trying to be inclusive, since my team was like working on like, the marketing, like now that we knew the problems that were going on around us, like how can we incorporate into like the Business Challenge?

Walt Zerbe  16:57  
Okay. Pete, I'm going to circle back to you again, and then we need to bring Sam into this too, how did you guys present your topic? To them, I'm sure, that has everything to do with how they're how successful they're going to be, was that a difficult process to identify what you're actually looking for. And this applies anything, your particular topic was neurotensin inclusivity. And I know I'm gonna mess this term up a bunch, as we keep saying this word, but was that a challenge from SAMSA,

Speaker 2  17:31  
I want to start this by, by addressing the thing about the terms and, and the difficulty with, with understanding the different terms because this was a particular challenge for me, when we started looking into this, as well was understanding the difference between you know, neuro inclusivity, neuro diverse neuro divergent, all of these different terms. And, and, you know, for me, it was, it was really challenging, because, number one I wanted to be, I wanted to be sensitive to, you know, to anybody who, who does identify with, you know, with being neurodivergent and, and to any groups that work with around that, you know, that just just the sensitivity. And then also, you know, it was important to me to be learning, you know, the, the correct terminology and to, to really, to really understand all of this. So, said just at the very beginning of this, there was, there was all of this, you know, just just challenge behind the terms. And I feel like if you take neuro off of the beginning of all of the terms, they all become much easier to understand. You know, inclusivity that one's easy to understand by itself. Diversity, really easy to understand by itself. You know, the divergent, easy to understand on its own, and, you know, when you take narrow off at the beginning of it, it also kind of loses a lot of its, you know, kind of high tech sound things and a lot more more high tech when you have neuro in the beginning. And it has this like this kind of, you know, really interesting sounding thing going on with it like, wow, you know, neuro neuro inclusively. This this this sounds interesting. And right, you know, I guess not to get too off track for understanding the terms take neuro off makes it so much easier. And then kind of getting back over to your question to answer your question. The way that we presented this was first, there was a big there was a big thing. out, you know, defining it, what is what is it? What is neuro inclusivity, and we had a lot of blank stares in the room. You know, I felt like, like, you know, we were going to be kind of had our work set out for us from the beginning, as far as, like being understood of what what is it that we're trying to do. So, we, we approached it in a way of first definitions, and then second. Looking at it in a, in a, from a standpoint of certain symptoms, such as, and these were kind of the ones that we saw the most from our own research. And I suppose things that had the most crossover between different neuro types, which were sensitivities to things like light and sound. And things like anxiety that was derived from different sources such as, you know, sensitivity to these to these different things. Sorry, we kind of approached it from as simple of an angle as we could from the beginning and sticking to you know, these these sensitivities as being the the main thing that we talked about at first, and that we wanted to incorporate these things into, into smart home design, which, which has quite a bit of audio and video and lighting and things like it, there's a lot going on with a smart home, that that would just naturally be an issue and be it like a difficult thing to, to have in your home. If you if you have these sensitivities, yeah, you know, the lights and the sound and all the, you know, the bright, loud things. So we roasted from that angle, and you kind of took it from there.

Walt Zerbe  22:09  
Sam, what was your involvement in this?

Speaker 5  22:12  
Yeah, so I'm, I'm the lead tech for nirvana. So I'm just kind of helping develop in, you know, implement our approach to actually dealing with this stuff. And, you know, I think this conversation definitely drives home that there's a lot of confusion about the topic out there. And definitely understanding it is tough. And, you know, I think the thing that we keep coming back to is that it is just this spectrum of needs, and the topic itself, our understanding of it is evolving. It the term originates in autism and describing autism spectrum, but it's grown to be much larger covering basically, you know, how it's been affected by how we think about the brain and how we interact with the world. And this idea of what's neurotypical is a bit elastic, because, you know, what's neurotypical in the American context now in the present year, is not what was neurotypical 100 years ago in a different country, right, this stuff changes over time. So, you know, our approach is sort of, okay, we understand a lot of technology, the space we're in, it's all oriented towards kind of a common denominator often dictated by these brands, or, you know, the power, powerful people in the space. So how can we use these tools that exist, and sort of refine things to help more people in more different ways? You know, one thing that the class kept coming back to, I think, in every group, was just the need for more customization options, and making those options accessible and easy to understand, which I think is, you know, if you look at Tech, now, there's a lot of trends towards forcing you to use tech in a certain way, because whatever company likes you using it that way, you know, they, they have their systems, they want you to become familiar with the systems rather than adapt the systems to you. And so that sort of kind of industry wide. A central kind of challenge here is how do we bridge that gap and make more solutions for people in these things that we actually can control like light and sound?

Walt Zerbe  24:30  
Like, I couldn't agree with you more interaction design is a real art, and a universal interaction doesn't work. So I get that I guess that was a key takeaway from from what you you went through as well as how you interact. I personally love tactile things. buttons, knobs, switches, like it used to be in the old days and then everything went to touch. And a lot of people don't like touch. They need the feedback, I'm sure with neuro A different neuro types. That is probably a major factor. Yeah,

Speaker 5  25:04  
touch touch is one of the things we have talked about and are interested in kind of expanding into that space. Because that's not something we often think about in our field. But it's hugely important for this stuff for exactly what you just said, Yeah, you're

Walt Zerbe  25:17  
like, here's the app comes with the system. Here you go. And you're like, ah, yeah, it's not really gonna work for me. And just just to let you guys know that, and I had said this on the podcast before, way back when, when I had an integration company. There was a remote control called the Pronto. That was quite popular feat, you probably know, and I used to do a live. And I did a promo for a guy who was the world's number one baby heart surgeon. And it worked great. And he was actually at live locally, and it was a friend. And his, it was his father. And then I got a call, he threw it across the room and smash it and million pieces. I'm like, why? And he couldn't stand it because he needed something tactical he needed, he needed buttons. And I never asked him that question. And I was like, Duh, he works on touch his whole being a surgeon, and on little tiny things. His whole deal was touch. And I did not make that connection. And I failed that customer and I got them a touch remote them but that's exactly what you guys are talking about. And this was somebody that was though, I would say neurotypical. But I got wrong and really interesting. So I want to ask Did any of you have on array and let's see know about our industry? Before became do? I knew you're gonna say that. I just had to ask. Are you surprised by it?

Speaker 3  26:54  
I'm very surprised when I heard CEDIA are like, just want in general. And like the whole industry, I had no idea ever existed. It was just like, completely new to me.

Walt Zerbe  27:04  
Yeah. Okay. There's okay, I was, if you said you knew about it, I would be shocked. So I was expecting you to say that. I don't know, I would love to get more into maybe some of the main neuro types that you identified. And I would, I know that there's one of the issues we have in our industry or our world, is there is too much technology. And there's the paradox of choice. And there's too many choices. And all that stuff can be paralyzing. To somebody I know, my wife does not like technology. So it's funny. I'm good at technology. But at the same time, I love technology, I think it can complicate things a lot. And sometimes we make things like there's a thing called Rube Goldberg where we you can make things more complicated than they need to be when you could just go over and touch flick the switch, or grab a pencil and and get a piece of paper. So I'm curious if you if if that is a subject at all, as well that you got into I know that we've talked about autistic, or people with autism are there other just for the benefit of the listeners, as they're looking out for G's, just how many I know there's probably a ton, but maybe some of the main categories of of neuro types that you identified. You'd like to take that.

Speaker 4  28:35  
And some of the neuro types that we identified, well, it was a lot, but we kind of focused on bipolar disorder, of course, autism, but also ADHD. It was actually ADHD was a common one it not not only in our not only in our group as a whole, not my specific group, but the actual group. But I also have, personally I have a friend who identifies or who has ADHD, so I got a lot of input from that. But ADHD was a big one and also Tourettes disorder. So those are the ones that we focused on, specifically my group. But we, we kind of tried to shift our focus from an actual disorder, which was, which was actually the, the root of our idea. We wanted to shift that focus from the disorder to the common adversities or the common symptoms, that, you know, these disorders share where they where they overlap, where they overlay, brilliant. And, yeah, that was that was kind of our main focus, because I mean, the spectrum is large, you know, the spectrum is large. And you know, a lot of people identify on different sides of the spectrum like you know, but they Still have a same common issue, they still deal with the same common issue. So I think that was just a more beneficial focus for us. Because we can be on that we can stay on that spectrum all day, you know, we want to, we're gonna we have a lot of different people, you know, that we would have to focus on or service if we're before, you know, how to, you know, on the spectrum, just going down this, you know, going around the spectrum. So, but I want to say, Yeah, ADHD was a big one, dyslexia and bipolar disorder. And also Yeah, it was a big one.

Walt Zerbe  30:32  
So what I just talked about before asked you that question about the paradox of choices and too many things. For a person with ADHD, that's, you'd need to remove that, that would be a problem. If they got to study a screen and have a bunch of choices. That's a impedes their ability probably to even enjoy or use a system. What about you? Let's see, do you have any do you want to chime in on on what you focused on?

Speaker 3  30:58  
So my team's problem, focus was like, specifically like marketing without like, targeting people, like, Oh, you have ADHD, or you're considered this. So what we saw also was that this spectrum was like very large, similar to like what Ivana mentioned that there was a lot of like, overlapping, like symptoms, so we kind of just wanted to make it more were something that we can, the overlapping symptoms where we can just help everyone. So like, when we came up with our ideas, we specifically just looked at also ADHD, we looked at anxiety, depression, something that was more common than like the LA basis, just because we know that the company was like, more located in the LA. So we just kind of focus here. So when we looked at that, since we focus on that we kind of just like, brought all the overlapping symptoms that were together and kind of build up on the idea from that, okay,

Walt Zerbe  31:52  
I'm purely convinced as this world continues, anxiety and depression are going to continue to rise and wellness and safe, safe areas, safe places, which can be something like their vana and other integrators can provide will be, I think, a key part of our businesses. And a way to help people with tech, you know, we were we went from AV, solidly to we can do a whole lot better for people now. And not just provide TV and everything. So I want to take a pause. Ray, and Pete, would you like to throw in any questions here at this point, before we move to another subject?

Speaker 2  32:34  
Well, I mean, I'll say that I agree with you on the idea of having a safe space in the home, and I think that that's something that, that we're going to see a lot more of. You know, maybe it is something that, that I think, is somewhat reserved right now anyways, for more affluent homes, you know, like, you don't see specialty rooms like that in, in, like, every home around, you know, around the world, but it's but I could see much more households adding a room like that than, say, a home cinema. You know, that? Yeah, a wellness focused room. And, and, and devoting something to being that safe. You know, kind of soothing environment, things like, like meditation rooms, and you know, and the like, Ray, I don't know, if you have,

Walt Zerbe  33:42  
or, you know, it, it could be applied to a standard room too. It could incorporate blinds, lighting, audio, aroma. And who knows what, maybe breezes and you could just take your room, that's normally a, you know, a bright multipurpose room, and you're like, Oh, I think I need to decompress. And then then boom, you hit the decompressed button and the room changes so that you can just, you can decompress. So I agree the on the dedicated rooms. I see you smiling.

Speaker 4  34:15  
That's like literally what we came up with. No, we're like, Yeah, well, you know, innocence. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, we focused on one problem factor, and that happened to be insomnia. A lot of individuals, they suffer from insomnia and we're like, Okay, this is a big one, you know, how can we cater to, or how can we solve this problem? And, you know, by solving this problem, we're not only helping neurodivergent people who ended identify as neuro divergent, but also nor the neurotypical or, you know, people who don't identify as neuro divergent. So you're, you're, you know, you're killing two birds with one stone just by focusing on the actual problem and not the person it. So it was pretty cool. Yeah. You said it. I was like, yeah.

Walt Zerbe  35:07  
Part of your groups, I nerd out on stuff like that. It's very cool. What about you? Let's see. Did you? Did you want to add anything to that what you did you have like a, an end result,

Speaker 3  35:17  
you're reading our minds out because we actually came up with an idea of a showroom. Okay, in that showroom, we actually like came up with like, creating like having different lightnings, humidifiers, Blackout lights, and then like soundproof walls. So it's kind of more of like, we wanted to make a room that was accommodated like it's already there, but extra things I would hope people like. So for example, like with our idea that we had, so because we were talking about like the whole marketing idea, we wanted to kind of have like a before and after showroom, kind of like if you're going into like an Ikea type of thing. So we would have like, people walk into like just a regular room that has absolutely nothing in it, and then walk into the second room that would have the adjusted lighting, with lines and everything. So it's kind of related to what you said, just like of accommodating a room for people that might need it. That's

Walt Zerbe  36:10  
awesome. I love your outcome. I think it makes sense. How long did the process take?

Speaker 3  36:17  
Um, well, I didn't come off, like straight off straight off the bat. Um, well. What was? Right 810 weeks?

Unknown Speaker  36:28  
Yeah, about 10 weeks,

Walt Zerbe  36:30  
10 weeks. And that was from the interview or pitch with nirvana. To okay, what are we going to do? Yes. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  36:41  
Exactly. It was a long process. Yeah.

Walt Zerbe  36:44  
Yeah, but such a great learning one, because it's one. And that's what I'm hoping people are gleaning from this podcast. So this was one particular challenge, but the the process can be obviously applied to anything. Which is great. So Pete, like, what are you gonna do with this,

Speaker 2  37:03  
I wanted to add something really quick to both of what a Ivana and let's see, just talked about their group, so Avanos group, they have these really cool packages that they put together, that, that we really latched on to as a company, you know, the, the idea of having this, they had the package that they called the sleep care package, which, you know, Ivana kind of touched on that, dealing with, dealing with, with that insomnia, and, and they had a number of different things that you could do to help with sleep. Really, really awesome. And, and let's see this group, with the showroom idea that she was talking about, one of the things that we really picked up on was that they were, they were talking about, like actually using another person's space. So you know, like, say, partnering with another company, that might be in like, a parallel or adjacent industry or something that, that you can utilize their space as your showroom. And, you know, both companies could possibly get benefits from this. You know, for small integrators, it's, it's a space issue where, you know, you don't always have a place to put a showroom. And you might not have the resources to build that out. So just that thought of, you know, it's something kind of outside of the box, you know, that that's available, and that's something that other companies might really be into, because you're also developing their space for them.

Walt Zerbe  38:46  
I got an idea to add to the throne upon what about a specialized Airbnb? Yeah. And then all everybody comes together, you know, Nirvana, and the people that make the gear, you all invest in it. So then it also can bring in revenue to help offset the costs, but you market it and pitch it as you know, you could be living in a much better way. And come stay here.

Unknown Speaker  39:15  
Super cool.

Walt Zerbe  39:16  
Genius. He's Pete's right in that. Yeah. So what have I missed? I mean, let's What haven't we covered? Pete, you had a you had a couple lady talked about the packages? Yeah, why don't you take it over from here and, and maybe cover anything that I haven't brought up?

Speaker 2  39:39  
Yeah. All right. Well, we talked about insomnia. That's that one's great. And that's something that we didn't really think about before. Before getting into the the groups thing with GCC. Anxiety, of course, is the big one. We talked a bit about that and then hypersensitivities to different things. Over and under stimulation to, to, you know, to the environment, I think, like under stimulation is something that we didn't really talk about yet. But is another important thing to think about, you know, there's like one of the factors of, or I guess one of the symptoms, or that I noticed was the best word to use, I'll say symptom of, of autism spectrum, would be under, under stimulation as well. So something that actually requires a more stimulating environment to be able to feel more comfortable. And some of these things would involve, like different kinds of surfaces that you can feel, you know, the sense of touch, being able to, you know, to fidget with things and stuff and, and, and have different different things that you can kind of feel just to, for that stimulation that's necessary. There were a couple of groups to over at the, at the GCC presentations that talked about OCD. And that was one of the, one of the, one of the neuro types that we really didn't talk about as a company before. And was really interesting to me, I thought that, you know, it's, there's a lot that there's a lot of crossover between that and say, you know, ADHD and autism spectrum. You know, and I think that we're going to see a lot more crossover between these different neuro types as we go through more and more research on them. The crossover, to me is something that's a particular interest, because you're able to kind of maximize your output.

Walt Zerbe  42:09  
Yeah, two birds with one stone thing? Yeah,

Speaker 5  42:11  
I think one of the common through lions here too, is you can have a lot of different neuro types. But there's common symptoms of these neuro types, common things you can work towards treating with your solutions. And that's sort of a key insight here is, you know, our job isn't to diagnose people or tell people what they do or don't think our job is to say, Hey, you, you like this, let's find a solution for you.

Walt Zerbe  42:40  
So Pete, it sounds like yeah, GCC completely did the job. They did the task at hand. And now your challenge is, what do you do with it?

Speaker 2  42:48  
Yeah, absolutely. And there was something that you brought up earlier to that, I had to write that one down as well was dealing with with minimum minimization. And

Walt Zerbe  43:02  
simplicity is a new luxury is my, my take on things if I can? Well,

Speaker 2  43:06  
there's, there's this really, that what I'm seeing is a very tough challenge, or at least just a complex challenge that is going to exist between minimization and at the same time, like maximum, maximum ability to customize. Because we do need to be able to fit a bunch of different modes, you know, we're, we're having to get outside of this. You know, like, I'm not gonna throw brand names out there. But there's a number of different companies that they have their interface. And that's it. It's one way. And we need that customization back that, that we used to have with some of these old companies like pronto that you brought up. Like RTI is another one.

Walt Zerbe  43:59  
Yeah, it's 100%. Customizable, yeah,

Speaker 2  44:02  
which it takes too much time. You know, it was was the issue with that, and, and the cost of is, of course, higher to do that. So it's, you know, there's that challenge of, you know, being able to offer different kinds of interfaces, different kinds of connections to the system for people and still keeping it easy to use. So keeping it Yeah, fide and, you know, I think that that's going to be the key thing to work out. As we get into, you know, more and more involved.

Walt Zerbe  44:40  
I think AI is going to play a good role in one area that is a pet peeve of mine, and that is the ability to manage media media is a hot mess. You've got this service on this show on this service and now, sports has moved to here and this box ports, this streaming service, but this box doesn't. And just finding and managing, like, we used to design systems put in the hardware walk away, because you put a CD or a VHS tape, or whatever, you put physical media in the thing and you played it. Now that we have everything, unbundled, and everything individual and content everywhere now it's content overload. We now do our customers a disservice by putting in systems and leaving. And I thought there would be a great opportunity for a concierge service to help those that that that really are into that and need help. But that's, that's a heavy lift and potentially inexpensive one, you might need to have dedicated staff for it, I think AI is going to solve that one for us, in the pretty near future where you can just say, find me this, and it'll find it but I know personally, that the managing and trying to just watch a show is can be very paralyzing. And I bet to a lot of neuro types. It's their worst nightmare. Yeah,

Speaker 2  46:06  
I have a hard time picking a show to watch. You know, I'll go on to, you know, Apple TV or that too. Yeah, incredibly difficult. And,

Walt Zerbe  46:15  
yeah, sometimes I'll spend 1520 minutes and then they'll decide to watch nothing. And I just, I just got frustrated and spend 1520 minutes and I'm like, I'm just gonna turn around with totally understand. That's the kind of stuff you can fix, or try to fix with the right tools. Anyway, what have I missed? Right? Do you want to add anything in here? I mean, I, I've been seeing your your smiling face the whole time. And I'd love to hear more from you.

Speaker 1  46:41  
Well, I'm just so grateful to Pete and the Nirvana team for bringing this business challenge to GCC. It was really incredible to get to learn more about neurodiversity. Pete prepared this great slide for us, that kind of had like a dial on it. That's kind of how we refer to it. And, and it showed or like a clock, you know, showed all the different neuro types. And he posed this great thought question like, What if neurotypical were just another notch on the dial? Like, does it belong there? And I thought that was such a really valuable thought question, even to this day, I find myself thinking about it, because, you know, the work our interns did, to identify common symptoms was absolutely brilliant. Because in, in taking that approach, they immediately take the pathology out, right, there's all of this kind of stigma still lingering from, you know, autism, and just, we do we talk about these things as a disorder. And maybe they're not disorders, maybe they're just needs, and we all have needs. And so having a shared lexicon to be able to explain what those needs are, and identify them. And that's the first step to getting them met. Right. And so being able to have that conversation and and push that forward, just in my mind makes it easier to build a more inclusive world. Not just in our homes, right, but in our lives. And so I'm just so grateful to Pete, for his visionary challenge that, that he brought for us and, and just getting to see these ideas come to life was really exciting.

Walt Zerbe  48:30  
That's typical Pete Gopi. Thank you gotta put it in a paid plug. And you know, what, what is normal, I do despise that normal. Because whenever you normalize anything, if anything's meant to one size fits all, it never works, right? It could be a tire, it could be close, I don't care what it is, this is exactly the same thing. And now we're talking about humans, which are more important than tires and clothes. So this is not about one size fits all this is, yeah, it's this is where we should be going. We have the tools now, to really do this. And as we're moving into AI, we're really going to have the tools to do this. So and as Pete said, the customer that being able to customize things, and even end users being able to now customize things. And when we talk about common control platforms like Mater you guys might not know about that. But this is a common community. Well, I see. I just expanded your video, right and I see your fellow keyboardists. So you know, MIDI, right Musical Instrument Digital Interface. That is something that allowed multiple brands of things to talk talk with one language, that's what matter is. So matter is coming into the scene as well. So it'll let all the different brands and all the different devices speak at least at some level, a common language for core functions. And you won't have to be like, Oh, I'm going to be I have to go with Brand X and I have to use Brand X stuff because it doesn't talk to brand y and that's going to go out the window. to real soon, so it seems like totally the right time Pete to be doing this investigation because all the other pieces are coming together. Now it's up for it's up to people putting, getting the picture in their head about how can I change my business to one that actually, what our tagline that we like to use that we did in the integrator 2025 White Paper is using technology to improve the human condition. That is what you guys are working just worked on. And now we're actually able to do it. It just somebody has figured out how to get started. Looks like you're at Pete.

Unknown Speaker  50:38  
Yeah. I hope so.

Walt Zerbe  50:43  
Yeah. So have I missed anything else that anybody like to add anything else to this conversation? It could be about the process or anything? I don't, I don't care.

Speaker 2  50:53  
Do you feel like the timing is right. And like the industry has been moving towards, you know, has been moving much more towards wellness. And, and I kind of I see this as a cornerstone of wellness, you know, the, the neurological side. And, you know, most of what we've been seeing in wellness is has been more on the on the physical side and more on the you know, on the light side of, of physical health, you know, men not so much on the side of mental health. So, you know, I would like to see this gain more traction for that.

Walt Zerbe  51:40  
Yeah, if I were starting a business right now, I would try to center it. I wouldn't call it like, you know, waltz wiring or something? I would, I would, I would totally try to wrap it around wellness. And but I don't know, it's tough to find a name. But basically, that's the goal. How do you how do you try to put tech into improves and through improve the lifestyle and and the quality of everyone's life that lives in the residence? That's that's the goal. What about easy to say, tough to do about

Unknown Speaker  52:13  
Walt's wellness world?

Walt Zerbe  52:17  
Sounds like a movie. What was that Ray? Well, it's

Speaker 1  52:22  
a wild wellness. We

Walt Zerbe  52:27  
all right. Well, Sam, any last words here

Speaker 1  52:30  
that I don't have? Right? Is, oh, I was just gonna say I, this came up many times in the planning and the execution of this of this team internship with Nirvana, you know, dealing with neurodiverse population, we were very lucky to have a number of folks who did self identify as on the spectrum. And I think that's important, because one of the key things here is right, nothing's for us or about us without us. And so having that representation, like having those voices heard, I think is a really valuable part of this. And I just wanted to put that out there.

Speaker 5  53:12  
Absolutely. And, you know, going off that, you know, I would just say like these solutions apply to everyone, you know, this, this is a framework that is universal, and we're approaching it as a specific problem. But, you know, it applies to everyone. And it's a way to improve the services for everyone, no matter where you're falling on this stuff.

Walt Zerbe  53:35  
Yeah, I totally agree. All right. Well, this has been a fantastic discussion. And one that's super important. And I'm hoping anyone listening to this cast will will take it seriously. This can apply to every everybody's business and ultimately, in my mind is what you should be doing. So thanks for for doing this, Pete. And, and thanks, Ivana. And, let's see and Ray for assisting with it. And Sam, you got a lot of fun trying to figure out how to actually make it happen. So good luck to you on that. But this has been just a fantastic discussion. And Vaughn and let's see, I wish you all the best in your schooling and in how you go in the future, we could use brains like yours in our industry. So if you decide we're always looking for people that can help, you know, we used to say, you know, people that are techie people that can, you know, do technology, but ultimately this is what it's about. And it takes your kind of a mindset to, to actually make a difference. So I hope you guys might end up in our industry sometime. That'd be super awesome. But nonetheless, good luck to you. So thanks, everyone for being on this cast and doing it with me. Thank you all. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  54:46  
Thank you.

Walt Zerbe  54:47  
Thanks. Alright. Thanks for listening to the CD a podcast. And you're not gonna say but at least keep an open mind.