Embrace the Chaos, It's Not Noise

The lessons learned from seven years of the testing of a behavioral monitoring system— the Everyday Living Monitoring System (ELMS) — outside the laboratory in the real world are discussed. Initially, the real world was perceived as messy and filled with noise that just delayed and complicated the testing and development of the system. However, over time, it became clear that without embracing the chaos of the world and listening very carefully to its noise, the monitoring system could not be successfully moved from the laboratory to the real world. Specific lessons learned at each stage of development and testing are discussed, as well as the challenges that are associated with the actual commercialization of the system.