BIOs & Contact Info

Wayne Caswell

Wayne Caswell, Founding Editor

Retired IBM technologist, futurist, market strategist, consumer advocate, and founder of Modern Health Talk (mhealthtalk.com).

After 30 years at IBM, I established CAZITech Consulting, held leadership roles in industry groups developing Wireless and Home Gateway standards, served on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, successfully lobbied the Texas legislature to protect the rights of municipalities to install public Wi-Fi networks, and co-founded a nonprofit homeowner advocacy to enact new consumer protection laws and abolish an abusive state agency. After that is when I founded Modern Health Talk. Here’s why.

I am a long-time advocate for BIG Broadband and fiber-to-the-home. That’s because of the important role broad adoption of high-speed Internet service has in telemedicine, telework, distance learning, e-commerce, and e-government. I now spend my mornings following innovations and trends that address the rising costs of medical care as our population ages, and the politics preventing wide adoption. I then respond in mainstream media with my unique perspective if appropriate, also writing the Modern Health Talk blog.

Here’s a summary of what has influenced me. It’s not meant to be a resume but to show the evolution of health care perspective, bias, and politics:

  1. IBM enterprise (hospitals) to consumer (PC) marketing & strategy
  2. Broadband and digital home consulting with focus on sensors & telehealth
  3. World Futurist Society focus on functional medicine and health tech
  4. FCC Consumer Advisory Committee
  5. Two positive experiences with consumer lobbying & grass roots activism
  6. University of Texas sociologist study of public response to novel new treatment
  7. Modern Health Talk sharing perspectives to influence the future
  8. Sleep Wellness impact on individuals and society
  9. Austin’s Body Hacking conference
  10. Retirement move to 55+ active adult communities
  11. My Politics

1. IBM enterprise (hospitals) to consumer (PC) marketing & strategy

The first half of my 30-year IBM career was focused on technologies serving internal operations and large corporate accounts, including hospitals. For example, I installed patient accounting and medical records systems at Santa Rosa, the largest hospital in San Antonio. The second half of my career shifted, however, to supporting PC-based consumer applications and working on international standards for sensors and wireless networks.

2. Broadband and digital home consulting with focus on sensors & telehealth

By the time I retired from IBM, I had developed an interest in wireless and fiberoptic broadband Internet access, thanks to its application for telework, distance learning, and telemedicine. I founded CAZITech, an independent consulting firm serving large corporate clients including Siemens and 3M.

3. World Futurist Society focus on functional medicine and health tech

I always had a knack for extrapolating trends and predicting future opportunities or threats, and that sparked interest in the World Futurist Society. I was already seeing problems with the business model of our nation’s “sick care” system and how innovators were attempting to break the model through functional medicine, concierge billing, and medical tourism.

4. FCC Consumer Advisory Committee

As a digital home consultant, I held a volunteer position with the FCC, serving in three working groups: advanced technology, homeland security, and rural & underserved communities. While I’d fly to D.C. several times a year on my own dime, that gave me an opportunity to visit my mom in Fairfax. It also helped expand my views on problems facing rural hospitals and family doctors, as well as the potential of telehealth.

5. Two positive experiences with consumer lobbying & grass roots activism

Twice I was part of small groups who successfully took on powerful and politically connected corporations, learning important lessons in Extreme Democracy. The first time it was with a dozen friends who were able to kill a bill proposed by AT&T that would have banned municipal Wi-Fi. It was a top priority for the company, because they planned to profit from selling Internet access. With millions at stake, they spent accordingly, with over 100 paid lobbyists, but our grass roots effort prevailed. The second experience was cofounding Homeowners of Texas, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that took on the Texas Association of Homebuilders and got an abusive state agency abolished outright.

6. University of Texas sociologist study of public response to a novel new treatment

I took part in an interesting experiment sponsored by UT’s sociology department. The objective was to study human reactions to a promising but unproven approach to battling a global pandemic. This was before COVID and MRNA vaccines and instead investigated injectable nano-bots designed to seek out and destroy invasive pathogens. The lessons learned were about how people react with distrust when afraid of something new.

7. Modern Health Talk sharing perspectives to influence the future

Some people don’t understand why I’d create a website and write hundreds of articles about healthcare technologies and policies but with no compensation for that work. In my view, it was all worth it to share helpful perspectives with others; and even the tiniest impact on a the future of a multi-trillion dollar industry, and the society it serves, would be rewarding enough. I value what I learned in the process, even with no income.

8. Sleep Wellness impact on individuals and society

While helping a friend scale his Austin sleep wellness business, I applied my expertise and interest in lighting to improve sleep quality. To better understand the beneficial impact of good sleep, I had to find ways to explain it in consumer terms. Functioning as a self-described Sleep Economist at Intelligent Sleep (now replaced by Body Logic Experience), I developed a computer model to do that and worked to expand those observations into population sleep wellness.

9. Austin’s Body Hacking conference

My interest in sleep wellness caused me to attend this very interesting conference, which explored the many ways people were using wearable, implantable, and ingestible technologies to address different physical disabilities, an interest of mine. I learned how many of them were willing to experiment on their own bodies, without relying on any regulatory oversight.

10. Retirement move to 55+ active adult communities

Because I introduced IBM to the emerging smart home market before retiring in 1999, I was already thinking of how such technologies could help people age-in-place and avoid or delay high cost institutional care. That interest caused me to start my consulting firm and later write as founding editor of Modern Health Talk. It also caused me to seek out communities that cater to the aging demographic where homes are designed specifically for that. I continue to learn, as a technology consumer myself, what products and home features people of my age value and will actually use. I’ve long promoted the concept of Universal Design, where products are NOT designed for the elderly but for everyone, regardless of age or ability.

11. My Politics

Having voted for both Republicans and Democrats, I consider myself Independent and tend to look at the nation’s spending as investing, and taxing as the way to fund those investments. The trick is determining who economic policy serves: the wealthy or the workers. That’s why, even with a career foundation in the most conservative of corporate America, I have become more Progressive, even siding with labor unions. That world view influences my writing here at Modern Health Talk, where I see healthcare as a human right, and where I am very critical of our current “sick care” system, which mostly serves the profit objectives of the medical industrial complex.

Contact or follow me at:

Email: WayneCaswell
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/waynecaswell
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/waynecaswell.austin