Preserving family stories has never been easier. Remento, an AgeTech Collaborative™ startup participant, is a digital storytelling platform that helps people capture and preserve memories by turning spoken responses into beautifully written keepsake books. Through simple weekly prompts and innovative Speech-to-Story™ technology, recorded memories are transformed into hardcover books that include both written stories and QR codes linking to the original voice recordings.
Designed with simplicity in mind — no apps, passwords or technical expertise required — Remento makes it easy to preserve the stories of parents, grandparents and other loved ones.
We chatted with Charlie Greene, Remento’s Co-Founder and CEO, who described the company and its work with AARP, the keys to effective storytelling and how the act of reminiscing is good for your health.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
What is Remento all about?
We like to say that Remento is the “life story book” that completely writes itself. Our product is designed to capture the memories and stories of people as they age, turning those memories into a physical book through a process that is as simple as talking — no writing required.
The book also includes a QR code that lets users play the recording that was used to write that story. In that way, the book gives future generations the benefit of having not just the words in print but also the ability to hear the voice of the storyteller, hear their laugh, see their smile — experiencing the stories as if the person were sitting right beside them.
How does the process work?
Every week, we prompt the storyteller via email and text message to enter into our “recording studio,” then we ask them a question and record the memories and stories they recount.
The questions are often sourced from family members. One week it might be a question from a grandchild asking what school was like for them as a child; another week it might be a question from a daughter about what was going on in a particular photograph from decades ago. Questions can also be sourced from the Remento question bank, which were written by memory scientists and professional storytellers and designed to help the storyteller think of events and details they might not otherwise recall.
After a year of gathering these weekly recordings, we use our Speech-to-Story™ technology to turn those recorded words into beautifully written stories compiled into a hardcover book. The stories retain all the tone and personality of the storyteller, but it reads as though you had hired a professional writer to take the recordings and turn them into real stories.
You mentioned that family members can provide prompts. How else can they get involved in the process?
There are no apps, no downloads and no passwords needed to be able to record your stories; you can access our “recording studio” right on an iPad, for example. But if you’re an older adult and not especially tech savvy, you might want to invite some family members to give some assistance with that. Those family members — whom we call collaborators — can also do things like ask questions of their own, upload photographs and even copy edit the content that gets created.
What are some of the most interesting prompt questions you’ve seen?
The best story prompts we see are always along the lines of, “What was happening in this photograph?”
When you study the science of storytelling, you discover that one of the most important things that great stories have in common is specificity. For example, if I asked you about your wedding day, you might go on for five minutes in hyperbolic terms about how amazing it was — and it would be an entirely boring story! But if I asked you, “What was something that went wrong on your wedding day?” you’d likely zoom in on something very specific and detailed, which would almost certainly be more interesting.
Photos are very helpful from a storytelling prompt perspective because they naturally lead to specific questions like, “Who?” “What?” “When?” and “Where?” — which themselves lead into “How?” and “Why?” The answers to all those questions, when combined, can yield stories that are deeply meaningful.
Some of the other prompts that are the most fun to hear about are from third- or fourth-generation family members. Most of us are naturally curious about the lives of others, specifically oriented to the point in their lives that aligns with our own age. So if I’m getting married, I want to know about my mom’s wedding. If I’m having a baby, I want to know about my parents when they were having kids. If I’m in elementary school, learning about grandma’s elementary school experience allows me to relate in a way that is directly relevant to what I’m experiencing right now.
What a terrific way to nurture connections between generations.
Just like AARP, we care very much about brain health and the importance of connection as an antidote to social isolation.
From a brain health perspective, one of the most powerful things you can do to stimulate your brain and decelerate cognitive impairment as you get older is to get nostalgic — that is, reminisce about your past and recall specific details. So going on a reminiscence journey, whether that’s using Remento or chatting with old friends about your shared memories, is medically good for you.
When it comes to social isolation, we know that people who are more isolated and lonely are much more inclined toward depression. Some of the best feedback we’ve gotten from our product is that it helps family members connect with a loved one who may be living alone and far away. Instead of calling them once a week and chatting about the weather, children and grandchildren can learn something meaningful about their loved one — and now they can call and have a conversation that is more genuine. Anecdotally, we’ve heard from people who use our product that they feel more connected to their families, which can stimulate brain health.
What was the inspiration behind founding the company?
Remento was very much born from personal experience. I lost my dad at a young age, and I had tons of questions that I never had a chance to ask him. Years later, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, and I wanted to make sure that I captured her stories. The experience was profound: I learned a lot of things about her that I can’t now imagine not knowing.
But the process was full of friction, and it created in me a real inspiration to bring this experience that I had learning about my mom, into the lives of others. I wanted to use technology to help people avoid the scenario so many find themselves in — clinging to voicemails after someone passes in order to keep their memory alive. I wanted to create a product that actually brings people closer to the ones they love, and that would preserve their memories for when they’re no longer here.
Besides your activities in the AgeTech Collaborative, you have been collaborating with other teams in AARP -- including Wish of a Lifetime® from AARP, which fulfills the dreams of older adults through personalized experiences that promote healthy and purposeful aging. Can you tell us about a success story that has come from that partnership?
We’ve been partnered with Wish of a Lifetime for quite a while now, and not long ago we identified a woman named Stella Goldberg, whose wish was to tell her story on a public platform. So we worked with Wish of a Lifetime to give Stella free access to Remento. When her book was ready, we held a book launch party where she could talk about her book to an audience, do a book signing and share some of her incredible stories. And she has some amazing stories to tell about barely surviving the London Blitz during World War II, losing a daughter, losing her parents, immigrating to the U.S., starting a business. Stella’s own grandchild heard some of these stories for the first time, so it was very powerful.
You’ve also worked with Senior Planet® from AARP, which helps older adults sharpen their digital skills with free, expert-led classes. How did that go?
We did a pilot program with Senior Planet in their Denver office. It was a six-class curriculum to help people in the later chapters of life understand why preserving their legacy matters, and to encourage them to think about the legacy and stories they want to leave behind. We brought in some speakers to talk about the best practices of effective storytelling. We then did a deep dive into various tools that can help them make their stories and legacy more tangible for future generations, including a hands-on workshop using Remento.
We got extraordinary feedback from the course — a unanimous 10 out of 10 stars! — and we’re working with the Senior Planet team to expand the classes to more facilities.
Besides that, what’s up next for Remento?
We’re very excited that we are about to cross the threshold of having recorded one million stories on Remento, which makes us the company that has facilitated the most self-recorded memories of people over the age of 65, ever. We find a lot of joy in that.
We are also increasingly growing the B2B2C side of our business. Right now, Remento is sold directly to consumers, and we’re increasingly looking to partner with organizations that are supporting older adults during moments of transition or helping them during important life moments — for example, groups who provide care for older adults or who help them with financial advising or estate planning. We want to partner with those kinds of organizations to help people start considering the “emotional inheritance” they want to leave behind.
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