this is commissioner suzanne at well and welcome to another edition of commissioner corner our community is at the forefront of addressing the needs of an aging population and a shifting demographic whose needs we all have to meet it's a fast paced effort in this community and it is my privilege today to talk about the institute for the ages how that organization a state of the art organization is front and center and meeting those important needs it's a privilege to welcome susan jack o its director of marketing for institute for the ages let's begin with how this organization is poised to meet the did needs of the changing demographics in our community and quite frankly all over the country and start with what you do what is your job description i'm the director of marketing and communications at the institute for the ages and my job is to explain what the institute does and reach out to our community both here in sarasota and across the country and the world as we're beginning to grow to explain the opportunities and challenges of addressing the issues on aging in a positive way talk to me about positive aging what does that mean positive aging essentially is growing old in the most positive way that you can to have an extended life as healthy as you can as long as you can and there are many many challenges that we are starting to address at the institute but by encouraging innovators to come to sarasota and talk to the people that live here that are experiencing aging learn what we need learn what the challenges are and get input to effect the best changes in developing both products and services for this huge population that is absolutely growing at a phenomenal pace around the world and i think some people have said you may or may not think about getting ready for this demographic shift but it's coming whether you like it or not and what is the democrat the demographic shift how do you define that what is its pace what are the dynamics of that that you're meeting well sarasota county is so unusual in that our population who are sixty five years and older looks today at about thirty percent of our total population like what the whole world is going to look like in tw the leaders of visionaries and trailblazers of our community took a look at how can we look at this demographic and use the knowledge and the insights as something that is very positive both in an economic development perspective and also in being able to drive a much more positive attitude towards aging so that we look at aging as something that's an asset and not a deficit when the founding founders of the institute started talking about developing this organization that just look looks at how people age people did not want to listen who wants to talk about aging and getting old and as we developed a study on the economics of doing this and the challenges we found that yes there is an opportunity no one else in the country or the world has this demographic in such a a geographic density as we have here that can really focus the insights of what does it mean to age in a positive way all together in a community and you talk about the literature that i was reading this is a very collaborative effort with a lot of stakeholders in the community i was a former mental health counselor dealt with a lot of depression that was people assumed was part of aging and when you talk about positive aging you're reaching all different stakeholders in how they view aging it's almost become it's a part of life not the end of life as we move towards aging talk to me a little bit about who you're collaborating with well our initial backers were interested individuals from the community but also sarasota county government obviously seeing that there is an economic opportunity here with our the number of older people that we have here also some of our local foundations the patterson foundation william and resell the foundation community foundation of sarasota county several individuals fellow named ed page who we're very grateful to who's been supporting us from the very beginning so it's been a cross section of businesses it's been private foundations it's been government and it's been individuals which is one of the things that i think makes it very very special that it's a wide cross section of stakeholders now that said it's we're also as we move forward with the institute we're having strategic partners join us who are people that are servicing the industry of people getting older the continuing care communities the hospitals and medical practices we're finding even at this  point particularly in sarasota we find the banks and the financial industries and all of the people who consults with the aging population they see that it's very valuable to understand what are the needs and how can they fill them absolutely absolutely talk to me a little bit about you just had a conference it was the seventh annual international conference on positive aging that was a wonderful title and it was here in town tell me a little bit about that who was involved in that and how that worked for our community well it started with the movement of positive aging which was a collection of people seven years ago that came together that said there is more to aging then just getting sick and old and dying so we want to do they want to look at how can we extend life in a positive way so they started this conference seven years ago moved into looking at what are the pillars of making aging a positive thing and they really consist of transitions which could mean death of a spouse could mean caregiving could mean retirement could be anything wellness course health and wellness we all know is so important aging positively community involvement and engagement very very critical and the fourth pillar that they talked about was creativity because creativity looking at things either in an expressive way or an applied problem solving way as you age can make a difference as to whether you age well or not and president of the institute for the i just thank you and it was at fielding graduate university in california and the sense was that the movement as such people proposing that positive aging can you can live much longer by paying attention to those four pillars there was a little bit of a stall we thought they thought what is missing and after some discussion there was a fellow named rick moody who happens to be the retired director of academic affairs for a harpy and also happens to be on the board of the institute for the ages they were talking about the possibilities of taking the traditional pillars of positive aging and combining what's happening now as recognizing factor in business and the growth of technology what can they offer what can they bring to the table to make ageing a much more positive experience so  conference call had the definitive statement if there's any way to bring these two viewpoints the psychological social aspect of ageing along with what are the tools in the techniques that are innovators can bring to the table to bring those two groups together to talk about how to age more positively it was the institute and tom foreman and sarasota and that's how the conference ended up here what were out of that conference what were the highlights attendees who signed up for this i'm very interested to know i was unable to get over there for some of the sessions but i heard a great deal about it what  came out of that and and what's the future well we had a lot of the previous attendees come and they were mostly from all over the country and from foreign countries to do presentations on work that they had already done and they were mostly businesspeople people that had coaching practices whatever and some of the older population had retired that were still working within the area but they came but we also had people from research institutions come we had private individuals come who are just interested what can i learn we had students come we found had one student find us on facebook from denmark and she came and she said this is so important to me this is the international conference on positive aging i want to go and learn for my future she's in her twenty's learn for my future what i can do to contribute to this whole movement so we actually had two students come from denmark and they really impacted how we are going forward with the conference and that's the difference and what's really special and unusual about the conference is that it's not just experts and leadership talking and giving you their ideas it's very interactive it's a very much of a networking let's exchange ideas and move this thought forward and vironment so that's what's really very special about it we find in this past year the feedback that we got it was the most interactive conference they had been to it sparked ideas for individuals businesses and organizations to move forward in a more positive way with what they're doing and we also discovered through the end process that we had on the last day called the world cafe where people came together and talked about what did i learn that surprised me at this conference what can i take away with me how can we move this forward and out of that came the direction for this and fifteen to have a conference that focused on intergenerational activity that's interesting i was just going to say what you were discussing led me to talk about i just wrote this down intergenerational so moving forward and you're going to be focusing on that in the aging process well in our even at the institute for the ages what we've discovered as we talk to people who sign up for our community research panel research network what we do is bring together people from the community to give feedback to people about what it's like to age and in the work that we're doing even with the innovators that are coming now to develop products and services they realize that for people to move through aging in a positive way the generations in the support needs to be there absolutely so tell me about the next one the next one is going to be here in sarasota they are telling us to expect twice the number of people we had last year wonderful it's going to be in february approximately the same dates february eighth through eleventh at the hyatt of sarasota and just very new development i think the timing is right the timing will be right yes and it's wonderful how that how this is all expanded and when i was writing down intergenerational i thought ageing is intergenerational you have redefined and as it's almost like we have a mandate to redefine and look at not only quality of life but economic development many many areas that positive aging will reflect and it just seems that the institute for the ages is indeed front and center to this yes you know and i'm i'm i'm excited i really thank you for coming and i know i know tommy also man i've traveled with him and we've talked about it what's going on in this  community we are very fortunate to have this agency in this community not just because of the demographics but just as part of the wonderful amenities we have in this community an institute for the age of ages is right at the top of that because this is this is something that we're all going to go through and we want to do it in the best possible way thank you so much for coming thank you so much for having me sit thanks for joining us in c and next time on commissioner corner