Why Working Wings
Situated in a personal experience of assisting seniors obtain help for activities of daily living and different levels of medical care while also trying to manage a home and finances, the void became an obvious reality. The incredible cost of the services coupled with minimal availability, was only surpassed by the physical limitations aging brings with it. I started to wonder how seniors without the type of support we were providing could ever navigate this process and I became passionate about trying to support the aging in place concept in whatever capacity I could.
Unfortunately, about the same time, our neighbor of over 20 years passed away. This left his home and property to his daughter who had never been a homeowner with over 30 years of interior content and repairs as well as a fully stocked garage that would be viewed as a premier shop to most. All of this needed to be re-landscaped into an environment that was manageable for her and provided a path forward. This circumstance led me to consider a broader view of my new business.
This audio story is an attempt to convey the journey towards a business motive in which I would provide the services to support these life changes.
Approach
With angel wings proving my inspiration to illustrate this work, I tried to keep this in mind as I approached the design.
I personally recorded two different recordings, I then recorded a musical audio, several outdoor audios and three internal I used a phone and the recorder on my Surface. It was challenging trying to find audio that added ambience to this topic while not distracting. I spent considerable time revising the tracks and even tried using combinations. I tried distorting and fading away a bit as the interview started. I settled on an outdoor with some birds in the background and a few footsteps in the leaves.
The interview I conducted was almost seven minutes and it was a challenge to find key points that could summarize the full story, so I settled on a few clips that gave an overall description of her situation and her gratitude at the end. Editing the interview was painstaking as I cut the track in too many clips to remember to try to get them to flow together.
I placed all the files in different tracks and kept a blank track beneath the one that was my primary. I found the razor tool to be the easiest to work with so proceeded to cut each of the files in places that I thought captured primary thoughts or points
Constructive Comments
The comments I received suggested adding background audio. I hadn’t included any in my draft since I was so unsettled on which to use. The other recommendation was to make my post more attractive. I incorporated both recommendations and hope that the use of my logo helps with that.
Although, still a work in progress, I am very happy with the logo right now. I want to work on the “W” a little more as I want to infer wings and they aren’t there yet.
Lessons Learned
When interviewing, I would spend a little time coaching the interviewee. While the “ums”,” “and” etc. can be edited, it is very difficult to edit speech impediments or very fast talkers. Even when I zoomed the interview file as large as I dared, it was still difficult to make some breaks given the speed of the speech. I tried to cut some the track, inserted breaks between them and then tried to either fade or change the volume of the background audio to mask a little.
I was so worried about the background ambience, I spent too much time collecting different options. I underestimated the time it would take to parse the interview. I should have planned on scheduling a second interview so that I could fill in gaps or have another alternative that would provide the same solution.
Sources:
https://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-2017/costs-of-aging-in-place.html
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/aging-place-growing-old-home
https://www.piercecountywa.gov/2764/CAPS—Certified-Aging-In-Place-speciali
Residential Transition 