OpenIDEO
Cancel
OpenIDEO is an open innovation platform. Join our global community to solve big challenges for social good. Sign Up / Login or Learn more
Phase: Winners Announced

The Sandwich Game (Updated 8/23!)

Let’s make it FUN and fulfilling to be in The Sandwich Generation! The Sandwich Game is a mobile app where sandwich parents share and earn prizes for all of the creative ways they’re making caring for their kids and parents engaging, healthy and FUN!

Photo of DeletedUser
47 22

Written by DeletedUser

Build a digital sandwich of your Day-Plan! Build a digital sandwich of your Day-Plan!
Build Your Digital Sandwich! Build Your Digital Sandwich!

According to the Pew Research Center just over 1 of every 8 Americans aged 40 to 60 is both raising a child and caring for a parent, in addition to about 1 in 7 providing financial support to both an aging parent and a child.

The need to understand aging dynamics and how to develop healthy multi-generational family relationships increases dramatically as more parents live well into their 80s and 90s and families are dispersed across the country.

The point is everyone is going to be involved somehow, some way, in elder care. Coupled with raising your own children, the idea of taking on the many tasks involved in elder care can feel daunting and grow to become depressing if not managed within a healthy mindset and structure.

That’s where The Sandwich Game comes to life! I speak from experience (raising my 2 and 4 year old little boys while caring for my 74 year old live-in father whose suffered multiple strokes and recently was diagnosed with prostate cancer) when I say “I need some lightness, some levity, some laughs” on a daily basis…we all do!

I love my father. I love my kids. I love myself. I want us all to be happy. Trying to juggle their needs while maintaining my own life balance is definitely a challenge. So how do we find that ideal balance between all of these competing needs?

My inspiration for The Sandwich Game came through my own introspection into how to elevate this daily challenge. What activities, events and plans could I map out every day (my Day-Plan) to keep us all engaged and happy?

The Sandwich Game is a mobile application and gameplay experience where Sandwichers share how they engage and elevate each day with their kids and parents; a place to compete (ie who shares the best day of activities) while feeling rewarded and learning from other players the great ways they’re engaging with their kids and parents within their own city!

Every day players are encouraged to share what their Sandwich looks like, ie what their day plan of activities looks like. We will offer a visually stimulating input and viewing experience where players are literally (and digitally) building a sandwich to create the best, most exciting and delicious sandwich of the day!

Bread– The comforting, loving thing you did today?

Meat– The physical, body, growthful thing you did today?

Veggies– The healthy, helpful food thing you did today?

Cheese– The silly, fun thing you did today?

Spread– The brainy, learning thing you did today?


USER EXPERIENCE / WORKFLOW:

Jane has a bunch of great activities planned for the kids the next day that she thinks her father will equally enjoy given his limited mobility and personal range of interest. She opens up the Sandwich Game mobile app and starts building her virtual sandwich!

The user interface lets her select the day she is scheduling and then prompts her to add digital 'layers' or ingredients to her sandwich (ie graphical representation of items that makeup a yummy sandwich). Each layer also includes a place for adding a description for what the ingredient represents in terms of a daily activity.

Lynn can check out other players sandwiches and store ingredients in her own 'Food Pantry' for later usage. Lynn's pantry also includes ingredients from her own past sandwiches.

When creating a sandwich Lynn can therefore either a) add items from her own Food Pantry b) scan/search the community Food Pantry for ingredients or c) create a new sandwich by selecting/describing ingredients, such as below:   

For the 'Bread' she selects a Bagel to represent morning since when the kids wake up (at the crack of dawn) they'll put on their rain-boots to go and wake Pops up in his back studio.  Always a winning moment...

For the 'Meat' she picks Bacon because after she goes on a long walk with Pops he'll have earned something delicious like bacon, but maybe just a little because it's not that good for him :)

For the Veggies she adds Onions to represent the doctor appointment Pops has scheduled.  He's getting a new medicine which will probably make him want to cry (haha Onions) given the million pills he takes already.  Lynn's 4-year old comes to Doctor visits which is making him comfortable with aging and Doctor office visits.

For the Cheese....Cream Cheese obviously which to her will be the paint project she's going to do with the kids in the afternoon.  Her kids will put paint on their hands and make handprints on a long sheet of paper outside, while her father and her sip wine and enjoy a cheese plate and good conversation.  Fun for all! 

For the Spread she adds a drizzle of sweet tomato sauce as she's printed out a bunch of articles for her father to read in the evening about his latest topic of interest...how Nutmeg can be used to improve prostate health. Oh pops :)  

Note: while the above suggests a sandwich you'd actually want to eat, we should expect all sorts of yummy and yucky sandwich creations and visuals! 

How might your idea scale and spread to reach as many people as possible?

The social platform and mobile gaming design of The Sandwich Game means at its very core structurally it’s built to be a self perpetuating / technically limitless share-able community experience with the gaming and social levers to encourage more activity and engagement from the players. The idea of gamifying this experience is about creating a rewarding feeling for the Sandwichers (the cheer we all need from time to time) while letting those that like competing engage in a spirited race for who did best, or most, when it comes to mapping out and experiencing a great day with their parents and kids. Rewards encourage more play. Healthy competition encourages more play. The Sandwich Game will be a daily 'go-to' app for Sandwichers which is exactly when mobile app word of mouth occurs ("you HAVE to check out this app"). Users can review each others Sandwiches to come up with new ideas, a significant value when coming up with a fresh set of activities that fulfills both the young and old can be quite a challenge. In addition, Sandwiches can be viewed at a city level so you can learn from others about the best places, activities and events in YOUR city. Both of these features creates stickiness (ie a need to come back and check regularly) and helps with viral spread, as users desire to find new and local ideas to add to their daily plan for activities. In addition, we envision incorporating an 'Events' components to the experience where Sandwichers can see daily available activities/events (offered by local partners or added by Sandwichers themselves!) in their local area and then add them into their Sandwich that day OR store in their pantry/cupboard if the event is coming up later in the week. As a Sandwicher myself, I spend significant time each day scouring the internet for creative ideas that would interest both my kids and father. Having a single place to find events custom made for their entertainment would be a VERY valuable service that would definitely add to the word-of-mouth spread. As our online community grows, so to does our ability to extend the value of the online experience into offline channels that entrench users well beyond their mobile screen. Our database of Sandwiches can re-purposed into multiple formats such as downloadable books or calendars (both as memory lane/momentos for individuals OR as as a 'best of' set of cards for educational/consumer use). In addition, we'll have the opportunity to organize and promote local meetups (including possibly groupon type offerings from local businesses) to encourage more physical connections and friendships formed between local Sandwichers. So where do we find these Sandwichers? According to Kathleen Bogolea, MS (the Director for the Family Caregiver Support Program) there are roughly 20 million Americans who are part of the Sandwich Generation with communities, organizations blogs and research forming at a rapid pace to address their unique needs, concerns and interests. We'll reach out to these Sandwichers by partnering with these supporting communities and organizations communicating the unique value proposition (utility combined with healthy fun) of The Sandwich Game and collaborate with them on how we can engage their members in a meaningful way. In addition, our partnership channels described below will serve as an amazing launching pad and outreach program for The Sandwich Game, in particular in our ability to create digitally compelling and value-added campaigns and programs with the partners in a way that resonates with this particular market demographic.

How might your idea attract and involve partners from health care, business, government, nonprofit or other sectors?

The theme of this challenge “How Might We All Maintain Wellbeing and Thrive as We Age” being sponsored by Mayo-Clinic is a telling sign that major health care providers and other large business and government partners are interested in ways to show their support for for educating, encouraging and enabling healthy aging. For each of these potential partners, we believe their is significant value in the aggregation and sharing of data related to these Sandwichers and the elderly they support. By offering an accumulation of daily activities, demographics and overall health of this population our Knowledge Bank can be used to: 1) Analyze demographics, activities and trends for healthy aging within this population 2) Provide data access to inform governmental/nonprofit research programmes 3) Distribute for educational purposes healthy daily activity plans (online/blogs, email/newsletters, books/mags etc) In terms of Corporate Sponsors, in addition to the knowledge access described above this community provides a place to engage and reward with members for their positive healthy aging contributions, creating a meaningful dialogue with this target demographic, the brass ring of sponsorship value. Specifically, Sponsors Opportunities include: 1) Promoting the most popular sandwiches within both The Sandwich Game community AND their own related properties 2) Hosting challenges within the communities (most creative, biggest, yummiest Sandwich) offering prizes 3) Providing educational/healthy tidbits to users after they submit a Sandwich as a non-monetary way to let the Sandwicher feel rewarded In terms of Local Businesses there are sticky opportunities to get involved from both a rewards perspective while promoting their own product/service offering, such as: 1) Offering rewards/prizes for the most popular sandwiches to the Sandwichers that let them feel pampered or appreciated (a manicure, a book etc)) 2) Offering discounts/coupons when their business product or service is included in the Sandwich Day-Plan 3) Promote their product/service as a 'Sponsored' ingredient, ie a specialist doctor that wants more business can be the 'Sponsored' sauce of the day!

How might you design an early experiment or prototype to further develop your idea?

Leveraging my background in bringing ‘Social Games for Good’ to life (see http://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnliss) in addition to my personal experience creating Sandwiches (ie day-plans) for my 74-year old father and 2 kids, I would lead the requirements gathering, design and development of a iOS Mobile Application prototype, targeting one city for initial beta testing, feedback and refinement and then rolling out to other cities from there. The initial requirements/design phase would include a period of target audience Q&A and testing to ensure the user experience meets their needs in addition to assuring the value proposition is clearly defined and incorporated. I can safely estimate this prototype design and deployment phase can be completed at a budget of $30,000 and within 6-8 weeks.

Evaluation results

11 evaluations so far

1. How well does this idea enable people to maintain wellbeing and thrive as they age?

Really well. There's clear value in this idea for people of all ages - 27.3%

This idea is getting there but the connection to healthy ageing isn't quite clear - 63.6%

Not so well – there were other ideas that provide more real value for people as they age - 9.1%

2. Does this idea outline a clear mechanism or strategy that would enable it to scale and spread around the world?

Yep – it's really clear how this idea would get diffused and adopted by people from all over - 27.3%

Seems like the mechanism for diffusion still needs some fleshing out - 72.7%

No, it doesn't really look like it takes scale and spread into account. - 0%

3. How attractive is this idea for partners from health care, business, government, nonprofit or other sectors to get involved?

This idea is ready for partnership! It's easy to see how and why different sectors would want to get involved - 9.1%

There's some opportunity for partners here but it would need more refinement to really attract other organisations or people - 63.6%

It's not clear to me how or why partners would be motivated to get involved - 27.3%

4. How easy would it be to pilot an early version of this idea for continued iteration and learning?

Really easy – ways that we might test this idea in a pilot are already springing to mind - 18.2%

A pilot would be doable – but we'd need to spend quite a bit of time to figure out how to do it - 72.7%

An early pilot doesn't seem too easy at this point - 9.1%

5. Overall, how do you feel about this concept?

It rocked my world - 9.1%

I liked it but preferred others - 45.5%

It didn't get me so excited - 45.5%

This inspired (1)

UPDATED: Staying in the loop 2.0
UPDATED: Staying in the loop 2.0

47 comments

Join the conversation:

Comment
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

I think the healthcare world could use virtual project management. www.2tasks.com has 60 days free for those who sign up.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

This is awesome. There are so many uses for this application. Thanks for thinking of this :)

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks so much!

link
Spam
Photo of Ashley Jablow
Team

Hi Lynn and team – congrats on your winning concept! If you're interested in pursuing your idea further, you might want to check out the Knight News Challenge. They're focusing on the topic of health and the winning entries will receive grant funding to bring ideas to life. You can check it out here http://kng.ht/1aunB0h. Congrats again!

link
Spam
Photo of Vishal Jodhani
Team

Congratulations Lynn! Fantastic concept and so impressive to watch how so many "layers" have been added over the course of the challenge.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks so much Vishal! Looking forward to the realization phase!

link
Spam
Photo of Vikram Lokhande
Team

Congratulations Lynn. Bring out the sandwich game...soon :)

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks Vikram - on it!

link
Spam
Photo of Paul Reader
Team

Congratulations Lynn! I shall look forward to watching this through the implementation phase.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks Paul! It's really exciting :) I'm looking forward to continuing this collaboration with you!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

GREAT idea Lynn! Assuming that you get to build this, I think that it would really fun and useful if a few events for each part of the sandwich were suggested to the user that can be created both by users (user generated events) and by you, the developer - in collaboration with mobile-geographically desirable sponsors of the events! A museum local to the user for example, might sponsor an event suggestion that gets pushed to users who are geographically playing the Sandwich Game near the museum!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

I love this thinking Ira! Every day I'm scouring the internet for fun kid/elder friendly events - so that we're not doing the same things each week. Having an 'Events' component of the app, where Sandwichers could see daily available activities/events (partner or user-generated) in their local area and pull them into their Sandwich that day OR store in their pantry/cupboard if the event is coming up. GREAT thinking, definitely adding this to the model!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

This is an amazingly fun idea that would brighten everyone in the families day both in the home and connecting with your local communities. Hooray!
Being a mom, daughter, grand daughter, sister, aunt... are all thankless roles we play, doing what we do not because we will be rewarded but because we love one another. But there are moments when you just need a smile or a bright idea from someone else just like you and the sandwich game would bring it to you in a cool and accessible format.
I wish that my mom would have had a game like this to play when her mother was still alive. Caring for her elderly mother tore her and her siblings apart and took her away from me and my young children. She - and I as her support person, would have had so much fun adding a little more bacon to our days and maybe shared more time together instead of apart.
Great idea Lynn! I applaud your creativeness and ability to turn what could be routine daily care of young children and aging parents into family fun, bonding, and loving life!

link
Spam
Photo of Paul Reader
Team

Great idea Lynn,
Although a member of the older (potentially recipient) generation I can still appreciate the appeal of this. Perhaps we of the older generation could add a little 'spice' by providing positive feedback for care given/services performed.

I also think this idea melds well both with Annie's Toolkit and Karoline's Staying in the Loop. Since you have indicated (on Annies concept) you have care giving experience and Karoline too has been a care giver I thought maybe you and she might compare notes on areas of convergence and how your respective ideas might blend with Annie's.

To me, one of the really great things about the OpenIDEO platform is that, although ideas compete for acclaim, their coalescence and integration can sometimes produce something magical.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks so much Paul! I definitely like your thinking about having the older generation provide feedback/encouragement about the experience...in addition to sharing their own ideas for types of activities they'd like to see more of even!

Great that you mentioned Annie's Toolkit...I've been collaborating on her idea...providing feedback etc...it would be very cool and aligned if she included The Sandwich Game in her toolkit. I'll ping her now about that idea...agree that is a very amazing facet of OpenIDEO!

I'll also have to check out Karoline's Staying in the Loop concept...see what could shake out from that!

link
Spam
Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

Great to have you back and joining us on another challenge, Paul! As always, we're digging your collaborative and thoughtful approach.

link
Spam
Photo of Anne-Laure Fayard
Team

Paul, I can't agree more on the beauty of linking different ideas and how openIDEO encourages and supports such a collaborative approach. Great suggestions for connecting Lynn's ideas with others. I like the idea to also bring in the feedback of the older generation in the loop.

Lynn, very nice idea and very well-developed. I like how you based your idea on research as well as personal experience, and I find the scenario really useful. I was wondering if you had a way of providing some visuals that could illustrate the user experience. I think it might help making your idea even clearer.
Regarding the prototyping phase, it is great to see that you can build on your professional and personal life. I assume you will still plan to do some extra research with other "sandwichers" to get a better sense of their needs as well as get their feedback on the app.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thank you for this excellent feedback Anne-Laure! While I have been reaching out to various Sandwicher bloggers and related communities for initial feedback - you are spot on about including in my requirements gathering, design and testing phase a core set of these target individuals to best influence the direction of this mobile app experience, I'll add that to my prototype detail now, good call.

Regarding visuals, I have a great set of game designers who will be creating wireframes for the user experience which will absolutely be valuable in sharing with the above target audience for gathering feedback and refining before the build phase. Again, spot on and soon coming!

link
Spam
Photo of Anne-Laure Fayard
Team

Lynn, glad you found the feedback useful and looking forward to the next steps.
Thanks for adding me to your virtual team.

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

Looking forward to seeing the wireframes!

link
Spam
Photo of Paul Reader
Team

Thanks for adding me to virtual team Lynn!
Also thanks to Meena and Anne-Laure for the greetings and encouragement. I too am interested in the wireframes as I'm not familiar with that term in this context.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Lynn, congratulations on a beautifully positive approach to the challenges of living in the Sandwich Generation! Exposure to new ideas, activities and environments is so important for young and old alike - vital stimulation for brains that we now know are far more malleable than once thought. I love how this game encourages active, organized pursuit of that idea to culminate in happier, healthier family members of all ages! It's often those little day to day things that make the biggest long-term difference.

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

Further ideas: Taking it Offline > The knowledge bank as a 'recipe book' metaphor.

This is a (toolkit) of best practices and ideas for best combinations of sandwiches organised by need (like recipe books that are structured as if you have tomatoes, all the meals you can make with tomatoes as the main ingredient).

For example if you need to do a chore, let's say grocery shopping, which activities can you build into this need so that all the 3 types of individuals involved can get something meaningful out of it.

This recipe book toolkit can be used in group meet-ups, sold to make money to run the organisation, and distributed to spread awareness. There is plenty business opportunity in terms of sponsorship and advertising here too.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Hi Crystal, your idea of taking it offline is very appealing. In my case, I feel that we if the game can help bring the social aspects of the game from the virtual to the real world.

I see opportunities for more Groupon style deals for activities and services that might serve as focal points for meeting up and developing support structures that are more meaningful. On the flip side non-commercial type group activities can also be proposed/suggested if there are enough people using similar ideas/ingredients in their sandwich.

Since this game might operate on a city level, this idea has even more meaning and success of being implemented.

Perhaps Lynn can weigh in on her experience. As a person in this demographic would such an experience be meaningful?

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

*correction : "I feel that if the game can..."

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

This is a GREAT line of thinking, especially since one of the other ideas submitted to this challenge included creating community clubs/gathering spots for the elderly, which I am a BIG fan of. My father just moved here to Los Angeles in January and finding local, vibrant activities where HIS age range would be there too would be wonderful!

Let me do some processing on how to work this 'group/meeting' concept AND the 'Recipe Book' concept into the overall pitch. The Recipe Book is VERY interesting but still may be better organized/offered online...maybe as an add-on purchase to the game? I'll have to think on this more. It's such an everyday evolving set of data that distributing anything in hard copy has it's complications.

I definitely like where ALL of this is going though. Thank you SO much Crystal for surfacing/developing this (you have QUITE a creative mind!!!)...and Zonghe for contributing/developing even further!!!

link
Spam
Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

Way to go on the collaborative concepting guys.

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

I think that having an offline component to the game is not weakening it's strength in concept in anyway.

What makes the concept strong is the blend of both worlds, after all we do live in the physical!

I understand that the recipe books would become outdated, but the the knowledge learnt and gathered over that period - lets say they are published 6 monthly - will act as a both a memoir and as a tool that can be used by people to people community groups.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Absolutely, I completely agree with the offline component...both the groupon/meetup concept AND the book idea especially from a memoir perspective for the individual (I've been thinking about adding pictures attachments to the posts, which would be a lovely book addition!).

I think I'll add the 'book' download/purchase as part of the product expansion plan...and then in the initial build what I can immediately extrapolate from this is how we can break the activities within a Day-Plan into sandwich components and then let users filter/search/review these individually and add them to their own sandwich (including when their looking at an entire Sandwich they can pull specific components into their own, or save them for a rainy day). I'm adding this now to the concept....very good collaboration on this!

I'm also going to add the groupon/meetup component as a product expansion/roadmap item so that we can hit to the longer tail revenue stream opportunities on this...once we get past beta launch!

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

I would like to add some comments to further build 'How might your idea attract and involve partners from health care, business, government, nonprofit or other sectors?'

1. Local businesses offering discounts if they are included in sandwiches. (as above)

2. Health care providers running the most popular sandwiches as sponsored day programmes as a way to gain dialogue with a community that might be profitable for them.

3. Competition prizes for popular sandwiches provided by interested parties for being added in the list of ingredients for a sandwich.

4. Sharing the data collected in the knowledge banks for informed governmental/nonprofit research programmes, in return the app/platform dev. and running can be funded in some part.

5. Co-designing sandwich templates with professionals/businesses/startups in the field who will share their expert opinions by giving to the sandwich community, in return professionals will gain a deeper insight into their field.

6. Rewarding sandwich advocates with tools to build, blog, share and analyse the success of their sandwiches with others in the community using really fast and easy UX design. (gamification? or real-world rewards?)

What other sectors would be interested in this activity? I think we could brainstorm sectors such as the financial services, transportation, quantified self... uhm...

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Crystal - this is amazing feedback / collaboration - thank you so much!

#2 is a great idea especially with Mayo sponsoring this challenge....how they could spotlight popular sandwiches as a way to promote dialogue with an audience they want to connect more with. If this idea makes it further in the challenge I would be very excited to brainstorm with them ways to engage in a valueable way....both within The Sandwich Game community AND within their own community of elderly and caregivers!

Can you speak a bit more about #3 - just so I'm sure what you mean by this idea - sounds very interesting! I also really like #5 in terms of experts adding feedback to your sandwich - making your day plans even better - giving you more ideas!

I've added you to my Virtual Team - I'd love to know about your background - the more collaboration on this the better!!!

link
Spam
Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

Way to go on this awesome conversation, guys! Crystal, here a tip: update your OpenIDEO profile so folks can dig who they're collaborating with. Think skills, experience, passions & wit!

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

Hi Ladies - I have updated my profile. Good to meet you!

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

Reply to post above: Yes, point three is rather unclear! :) Trying to sort it out myself here... There are two ideas in one:

3a - Sandwiches that are most popular in the community (generate alot of conversation or show that they are being put into use by members) can win prizes.

These prizes will be donated to the community by interested parties - these could be prizes such as a 1 hour manicure, a book, a specialist doctor appointment, a hamper of organic treats etc...

3b - Interested parties can become a 'sponsored' ingredient: the specialist doctor appointment is the X sauce.

A competition can be run asking community members which is their best recipe for a sandwich that uses X sauce.

The winning recipe, wins the use of that X sauce, and can go off and have that specialist doc. appointment.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

As I sit in the ICU with my father today (he's having complications from a surgery last week) - I am SO loving the type of prized you're suggesting - manicures, books, organic treats....GREAT thinking! I'm updating the sponsor/partner section today with all of these synthesized ideas...let me know what you think!

link
Spam
Photo of Crystal Campbell
Team

*OK*

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

I am interested to learn more! I was wondering, though, if there was any benefit to the other 7 out of 8 people that do not fall into the sandwich group but; nonetheless, need to maintain their health as they age? Also, how can you prevent people, who have very little spare time to begin with, from discounting this app as a nonproductive time consumer that could better be spent on personal self-fulfillment or other necessary daily activities?

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks Susan! I absolutely think those wanting to maintain their health could benefit from an app that gets them thinking about how best to create a day-plan that incorporates many type of healthy mind and body activities. While the idea of turning the feeling of being sandwiched between kids and parents into a positive will definitely attract the 1 out of 8's in terms of how to identify activities that please BOTH parents and kids simultaneously, I'd LOVE to create a similar app for the 7 out of 8's and find a clever hook (ie the Sandwich visual) to do so! Keep sending your thoughts, I definitely appreciate it :)

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Re: people discounting the app as nonproductive, I think there are people who play games and join communities online and those who don't. This is definitely for the former. Then within that target group, the 'need' is that it's actually pretty hard to think of clever day plans...and I for one need help coming up with new ideas every day. Yesterday, we brought the kids paint outside and let them make hand and footprints on long sheets of paper...while I made a cheese/wine plate for my dad and I to watch and talk. That was my idea, something I'd post to the Cheese or Spread category. I'd love to share that with other Sandwichers...while learning new ideas from them in terms of things I can do within my day to keep it interesting. I'm absolutely convinced that other Sandwichers come up blank many days in terms of planning activities that please both sides of the equation...the productive part of this is that it's producing a lively Day Plan...something they have to do anyhow...this just makes it better...and more fun :)

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

That was a very thorough response. I can see how this could help with coming up with new ideas for keeping both the young and old entertained.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Thanks so much Mark!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

The knowledge bank built up by the game would be a great resource for those 7 of 8 people who would be inspired by the activities and thoughts of these sandwiched group. Perhaps in response to Susan, the game can be expanded to have not just the sandwichers building their sandwich but others building other types of sandwiches that encourage active ageing.

Then again Lynn I like how your solution is very focused on a single group. I feel that this targeted approach is good too because different groups would require different needs and spreading the net too wide would dilute the end product.

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

I love the idea of a knowledge bank! Since we'll have the data of each sandwich, we can create all sorts of formats to distribute/share the information (online/blog, email/newsletter, books/mags etc)! I also agree, if we can get the concept to work within this particular demographic...then we can extrapolate to others having learned and refined from the first market...that would be MOST exciting! Right now, I'm working on getting sketches in place to help visualize the process. I have a few game designers looking into ...but Zonghe if this is something up your alley and interest...do let me know...I'll add you to my virtual team for collaboration either way!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

Great update to the concept Lynn! This is really shaping up to a more meaty solution, no pun intended. Given my background as a mechanical engineering undergrad, I think we'd better leave it to the game designers :) . However I'll do my best to further help critique and add to the concepts. Thanks for the add!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

You are ROCKING it Zonghe - keep it coming - I'm so happy you're a part of the team!

link
Spam
Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

I am so happy to have connected with Amy Goyer (Caregiving, Aging & Multigenerational Family Issues Expert) who posts with AARP! She had the below response to my idea, I really liked her note about younger caregivers given I was 38 when I started taking care of my father (a few years below the actual Sandwich Generation range). She and I will be connecting in a few weeks and I hope to collaborate with her on gathering more feedback and support for The Sandwich Game! - Lynn Liss


"Lynn - thanks for sharing! I love your idea of balance in each day. I'd love to see how you make this work and make it quick, because as you know caregivers don't have time for much! I also like that this would be attractive to younger caregivers - I was just asked to speak at an event about younger caregivers and this a unique new idea!" - Amy Goyer

link
Spam
Photo of Meena Kadri
Team

Great outreach, Lynn. Excited to read your updates and to see where things go next!

link