Boomer Myths and Misconcpetions Blog

Context Is Everything

For a couple decades, I have railed against terms like, elderly, senior citizen, and especially geezer when referring to older adults. Well, tonight I received an email from the father of the man who saved my life in Viet Nam. The email was entitled, Proud to be a Geezer! In this context, I have no problem with the term and think it is a pretty good descriptor of later life values - expecially when the world view is shared by a member of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. In tribute to my dear friend, Frank Vavrin, I share his message:

"Geezers" (slang for an old man) are easy to spot:
At sporting events, during the playing of the National Anthem, Old Geezers remove their caps and stand at attention and sing without embarrassment. They know the words and believe in them

Old Geezers remember the Depression, World War II, Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal,Normandy and Hitler. They remember the Atomic Age, the Korean War 1950-53-55, The Cold War, the jet age, and the moon landing, the 50 plus Peacekeeping Missions from 1945 to 2005, the Jet Age and the Moon Landing, not to mention Vietnam.

If you bump into an Old Geezer on the sidewalk, he will apologize.

If you pass an Old Geezer on the street, he will nod or tip his cap to a lady.
Old Geezers trust strangers and are courtly to women.

Old Geezers hold the door for the next person and always, when walking, make certain the lady is on the inside for protection.

Old Geezers get embarrassed if someone curses in front of women and children and they don't like any filth on TV or in movies.
Old Geezers have moral courage. They seldom brag unless it's about their grandchildren.

It's the Old Geezers who know our great country is protected, not by politicians or police, but by the young men and women in the military serving their country.

This country needs Old Geezers with their decent values.

We need them now more than ever!
Thank God for Old Geezers!

NOPE - Boomers Didn't Invent Spirituality Either

While reviewing the September 16, 2006 issue of Newsweek, I came across and article by Jerry Adler and Judy Scelfo called "Seeking and Finding". Yet, another attempt to credit that Baby Boom with a trait that has been common to those experiencing the fall and summer of life long before George Harrison of the Beatles picked up a zither.

One of the article's concluding paragraphs reads: "Of course, most boomers belonged to none of these movements, but the shared values of that generation have shaped the world we all live in today. Churches now accommodate boomer's demand for autonomy and freedom of choice, says Roof (Wade Clark Roof author of the 1983 book A Generation of Seekers), a phenomenon otherwise known as "niche Marketing - you know, motorcyclists for Jesus." He believes that is one of the forces behind the emergence of mega-churches - the mall-like institutions that offer a cafeteria of worship options, with services elaborately scored for guitars and keyboard, plus lifestyle services, from gyms to food courts and childbirth classes. 'Megachurches define this as the way they want to be religious," says Roof, adding: "boomers love options."

When I started doing workshops on marketing to older adults 20 years ago, the values we encouraged companies marketing to age 50 plus adults were: choice, autonomy, and empowerment. We also stated that organizations needed to be aware that spirituality and the importance of one's legacy take on added meeting in life's second half...and, since there are way more people over age 45 than at any time in history, might that not be part of the reason we need bigger churches? And since the majority demographic tends to set the tone for others, there are even more young people now interested in all things spiritual than in previous decades.

Once again, it is not the uniqueness but the sheer number of Baby Boomers that is driving change. The soooner the media, consultants and corporations give up this infatuation with a distorted 60's view of aging boomers and focus on the uniqueness of later life values; the sooner we can end ageism and get on with building a better country.

Boomer Version of Freakonomics

The more dribble I read about what Baby Boomers will and won't do; ;the more I understand why those of us working hard to counter ageism can't make more progress. In spite of the fact that our nation and all of the developed world is more senior than junior for the first time in history, the media and a veritable plethora of consultants want us to believe narcissism continues to rule.

I just finished reading about the latest special on how Baby Boomers changed everything - what a worthless focus. In the web posting, Larry W. Jones, President of TV Land and Nick at Nite stated, "Viewing the impact of Baby Boomers through the years is truly remarkable. Generation Boom shows just what a force this generation is to be reckoned with. Right away, Boomer demanded more - beginning with the amount of diapers they needed." What an amazing conclusion from such a trifling of fact. Could it be that the Boom used more diapers because there were 9 million more than the generations that preceded or followed the Boom.

To paraphrase the authors of  Freakonomics, what we read about The Boom is based on "a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit." However, if you simply examine the numbers and the facts, the Boom "is not penetrable, is not unknowable, and - if the right questions are asked - is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking" Perhaps it is time for Levitt and Dubner to do a sequel called Baby Boom Freakonomics.

While we know that we tend to share common values in each stage of our life, this reality is ignored when it comes to the Baby Boom as it joins the Eisenhower Generation in the fall and winter of life. Instead of constantly revisiting the 60's, as if were the panacea for modern marketing, we need to focus on the reality beyond the numbers. From marketing to labor issues, the solutions are not that illusive if you know what questions to ask and understand the impact of aging in a post modern world.

It's Not About a Birthday

The May/June issue of The Journal on Active Aging carried my thoughts on why all the focus on Baby Boomers could cost companies market share. The article was published as a feature the publisher, ICAA, calls the Soapbox and was entitled, "Boomer factoids are barriers to business success". The message was that Boomer factoids were now replacing aging stereotypes and unfortunately perpetuating the youth culture of the past.

Immediately on publication, I received an email from Joe Newland, who was encourage a focus on successful aging long before it was a mainstream movement. Joe's comments follow:

Now that I'm pushing 70, I can say with authority that you've got it right. Born in 1937, I'm not a "boomer"; I think I'm a member of the "silent generation." (whatever that means) I've never understood stereotypes or being categorized as this or that. People are people; what has age got to do with anything? I'm the same Joe I've aways been, except maybe I'm a little wiser and have a better understanding of what makes folks tick.

While Joe is now retired from his role as a consultant to the senior living industry, he continues to work as a personal trainer and professional speaker. His talk, "Living Well Into The Future," is a wake up call to sedentary folks to become more physically active. If you live in the Midwest and seeking a speaker to motivate your members, give Joe a call at 614-833-3740. As both a motivator and role model, our industry owes innovators like Joe a big thank you for his early innovation.

Joe also is an example of why Boomers can't be given credit for "re-inventing retirement" as is often the case. There has been a growing revolution underway for over a decade lead by members of the Silent and Greatest Generations that is called Successful Aging. As the number of older adults continues to grow as the Baby Boomers join their ranks today's older adults, our nation will reach the tipping point and move the marketplace from the Youth Market focus of the past to the nation's first culture dominated by older adults.

Shortly after receiving Joe's email, another friend emailed to ask, "Why do all these financial companies think we all have fond memories of being hippies when most of us were never hippies in the first place." If only companies would realize what most leading edge boomers already know - It's not about a birthday. It is about later life values.To treat Boomers as somehow different than past generations of older adults from a values perspective is to subscribe to business suicide on the installment plan...and it would appear many are now subscribing.

ABC & Boomers

If you didn't catch the beginning of ABC Television's series on Baby Boomers, you did not miss a thing. The focus was on the 76 million Baby Boomers soon to be retiring and why cities should be working to attract them.

While there are 76 million surviving Boomers, the youngest is only years old which is hardly near retirement. This is just crazy. What about the millions of consumers already over age 60? The median has discovered a way to continue to ignore older consumers as a group by focusing only on an 18 year demographic phenomenon. Further, the most recent research documents that 80% of Boomers will continue working well beyond their 65th Birthday.

The news report went on to focus on "the largest asset transfer in history" as if it would be equally divided among all Boomers and spark a major spending fury. Well, like the rest of society, most of this wealth transfer will go to a very small percentage of the consuming public. A case of rich getting richer perhaps.

Even the "experts" used to provide "color" to the news report don't seem to have a clue about what is really going on with this demographic shift.

Boomeritus - It's Everywhere

Surely when the next dictionary comes out Boomeritus will be defined as "a realization that a demographic shift that began 60 years ago has potential for business and the key is a return to tie-dyed marketing and advertising. This attempt by some narcissistic boomers and Madison avenue to reinvent life's third stage as an extension of 60' flower power is crazy. The evidence is every where...Paul McCartney pitching securities, hippies and VW Vans are new icons for Ameriprise, even a Farrah Faucet reality show.

While many of us pan this "60 is the new 30" mentality, others claim that companies are just showing that they know their customer base and really understand that aging baby boomer...they get it - they know where the generation is coming from. Really, but in my 60 years in business, Paul McCartney is not what I think of when it comes to financial or life planning. I love his music; and realize that is what he does.

A few years back, Shearson Leaman Brothers did some GREAT ads that demonstrated they DID GET IT! The ads focused on making continuing contributions, spirituality, changing values. The ads told emotionally moving stories of real life people - not celebrities or yesterday's icons. What's missing from most ads it any realization the importance of autonomy and significance takes on as we enter life's third stage. While many are returning to college, they are not motivated by the sex, drugs and rock and roll images of yesterday; but to learn for learning's sake - to pursue an old dream - or launch a new venture.

As long as companies continue trying to extend  youth into the 7th, 8th and 9th decades of life, consumers will continue their apathetic response to the ads being run. Companies should be taking clues from companies that are doing well and succeeding where "youth focused" companies are failing. New Balance shoes have been eating Nike's lunch for years now by focusing on ageless values rather than egocentric, do it now images. Chicos is doing great by selling comfort, Costco builds loyalty by taking care of their stakeholders, and Whole Foods are all growing rapidly without invoking 60's icons...These are the companies that get it.

The Pathway to Happiness - Turns Out to be Aging

With all the focus in recent commercials on nostalgia to attract Boomers, one would think the road to happiness lies in the past and not the future. Or, I suppose you could conclude that older adults have been waiting for Baby Boomers to get older to show the rest of those in life's third stage how to "reinvent" retirement.  as some pop culture consultants claim. Once again, it seems the consultants and Madison Avenue types trapped in yesterday's youth paradigms are wrong...again... or should I say still when it comes to understanding older consumers.

According to a 2006 University of Michigan Study, the belief that younger people are happier, a belief which is shared by the old and young, is just another myth or aging factoid. It would seem that older people "misremember" how happy they were as youths and young people "mis-predict" how happy or unhappy they will be as they age. While the young know older people are unhappy, they don't see themselves as unhappy in later life.

While the older people in the study tended to believe that other older people were unhappy, they reported self-happiness that was significantly higher than the ratings younger people gave themselves. Likewise, the self-reporting by young respondents documented that they perceived that they would be as happy at 70 as they are today; but that others their age would not be as happy and unhappiness would increase with age. The results however would document what Dr. Stephen Covey pointed out in his best selling 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, "No one sees the world as it really is; they only see the world as they are."

According to report co-author, Dr. Peter Ubel, "People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance; that if something good happens, they will experience long-lasting happiness, or if something bad happens, they will experience long-term misery, but instead, people's happiness results more from their underlying emotional resources - resources that appear to grow with age. People get better at managing life's ups and downs, and the result is that as they age, they become happier - even though their objective circumstances, such as their health, decline." (www.icaa.cc/Newsletters2006/ICAAResearchReview_6_22.htm)

In other words, with age comes the wisdom of experience.I wonder how many times similar studies will have to be published before the media, Madison Avenue, corporations, the senior living industry, and long term health care providers get it.

Wisdomkeeper's Guidance

I recently asked a friend of mine to facilitate a meeting of a group of marketing professionals on the topic, "The Native American Concept of Self and Community and What Businesses Could Learn from our Native Brothers and Sisters." My friend is Lakota Healer Gene Thin Elk; and his response to my request that he join our wisdom circle for a few days is worth sharing. In an eloquent way he was saying he would join us; but did not know for how long.

Since the concept of time is arbitrary, yet it is claimed to be a precise scientific measurement. When “times passes” nothing has truly been lost or gained. The essence of our memories, dreams, visions and our relation with them, through the act of free will give birth to reality. The condition of one’s spirit, in relation to one’s state of mind, is the eternal gift. When we understand cycles of dreams, visions, insights, memory, thoughts, their emergence, dissipation and re-emergence we will understand our eternal self that comes from the Wakan (Sacred/God).

Our privilege is to enter, learn, harmonize, give life to and move through Mother Earth and her (woope’) laws. Condition of our Spirit and the conditions in which our Spirit interplays are the eternal joys paramount to focusing on the temporal limiting conditions. Enjoy the moment for it is totally new and it is unfathomably old and yet it is neither, because we are the real expression of the Wakan and the relationships we have with all of creation are the REALity!

In the Lakota culture there are no elderly only Wisdom people called Elders.

What a wonderful message. With all of our technology and advancement, we left behind our respect for the elders of Society. As we become a nation dominated by older adults, we can only hope to end ageism and embrace all that the Wisdom People have to offer.

There is No Baby Boom Generation

If I see one more article where some "Baby Boom" consultant or corporate Marketing Director talks about the impact of the Baby Boom "generation", I think my head is going to explode. The Baby Boom, those born between 1946 and 64 is made up of multiple generations. Leading edge Boomers have one foot in the Eisenhower Generation and the other in the 60's. Trailing edge Boomers have one foot in Generation X. Assuming they think, act, and believe as one is simply insane.

In a recent article, I saw the following quote attributed to Giunero Floro, vice president of advertising, brand and media for Ameriprise, "There are an estimated 78 million baby boomers approaching retirement. We wanted to connect with them in a very personal way," he said. "The biggest insight [reflected in the ad campaign] was that baby boomers have really changed everything that has come before them, and now they are revolutionizing retirement." What a crock.

Let's examine this statement. First, the youngest Boomers are still in their 40's. If that is "approaching retirement," I guess your are approaching San Francisco once you reach Kansas City. Second, to use 60's "hippie" stereotypes to portray the Baby Boom could hardly be perceived as a "personal" approach. Finally, Baby Boomers did not demonstrate values different from previous generations as they moved up the demographic triangle; there were just more of us. We aren't reinventing retirement; but changing circumstances, health and resouces have made yesterday's concept of retirement outdated.

In 1969, Abraham Maslow described "behavior attributes of more highly matured adults" to include being more introspective, seeking simpler lives, more others centered, increased need for personal autonomy (independence) among others. In 2001, the Yankelovich Monitor published what it called "leading behavior attributes in older markets"; and they were remarkably similar to Maslow's list published three decades earlier. In other words, what we are seeing is not "Boomer Values;" but values shared by all adults in life's third stage. Boomers get all the credit for changing every decade simply because there are so damn many of us.

What we are experiencing is a marketing and advertising industry attempting to fit the square peg paradigms of yesterday's youth market into the round hole that is the nation's first market dominance by older consumers. Like most people in later life, my decisions are not motivated because Paul McCartney, Christie Brinkley or some other "Boomer" spokesperson endorses a product or service. That approach was pretty effective in life's first half; but is simply a waste of advertising dollars. The fact that many Boomers "relate well to" a Paul McCartney doesn't convert to increased trust of the company or its products. We have learned that "paid" celebrities delivering a "scripted" message is just that.

Long Term Care's Visionary Philosopher King

It will come as no surprise that nursing homes in America has suffered from negative images and bad press for the last couple of decades. This press is largely self inflicted due to a lack of innovation and short term focus on the bottom-line rather than the staff and customers. Like American business in general, nursing homes are trapped in command and control management systems and the medical model of care and its resulting rules, regulations and restrictions.

In a dismal industry generally devoid of innovation, Dr. Bill Thomas has become the light at the end of the tunnel. In 1991, he launched what is known as The Eden Alternative during his tenure as medical director for a nursing home in NY by introducing plants, birds, children and self-directed work teams into a traditional home. The result: according to the NY Dept of Health there was a 50% decrease in infections, 71% dip in daily drug costs for each resident, and a 26% drop in nurse's aid turnover.

With those results, you would think the industry would have rushed to adopt this new paradigm...but not so. The Eden Alternative movement grows every year; but it remains a long way from an industry revolution. The Long term care industry, once dominated by nonprofit operators, just can't seem to focus on the holistic needs of their customers. They are too busy filling beds to capture as many short term, Medicare reimbursed rehab stays as possible. While no doubt increasing short term profitability, it is compromising long term success; not to mention the quality of life of both current residents and staff.

With the aging of 76 million Baby Boomers, an increasing amount of attention is being given to innovations in long term care as evidenced by the June 19, 2006 article in US News & World Report about Dr. Bill Thomas and is vision of a better way - "The Greening of Aging". The article shares the roots of The Eden Alternative, the current Green House Model to replace the outdated nursing home and Bill's latest venture, The Eldershire. If you are unfamiliar with either the concept or the man, reading the article will be time well spent.