Baby Boomers remain the darlings of the media - at least to talk about. It is no secret that mainstream media remains addicted to youth markets of yesterday in spite of the exploding numbers of age 50 plus adults. If you haven't nototiced, even ads targeting Boomers seem to prefer nostalgia so they can maintain a youth focus. Still ohters show middle ageed Boomers acting like the young creative prefer to see them - in other words a fanticized vew of aging through young eyes.
Those of us addressing the need to change marketing paradigms for the past 20 years or so can't seem to get business and government leaders to recognize that Boomers are not one; but multiple generations. That they are maturing pretty much like past generations while bringing different life experiences into the equation - making them less trusting and more self-directed; less deppendent on traditional institutions and more prone to experiment; and less self-absorbed and more altuistic with each passing year.
The aging of the Baby Boom is too often pictured as a pending disaster rather than the dawn of a new eara of enlightenment. The youth culture of the past has given us the drug culture; increased dependency on government institutions to solve problems, unchecked agism, and a long-term health care system that addresses the needs of the body but not the mind and human spirit. On the other hand, our nation has never had this much wisdom and experience available with which to address and solve problems.
Hopefully, the tapping of this wisdom will begin on December 11th as delegate to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging gather in Washington, DC. With a looming deficit, the highest median age of adults in our nation's history and systems that are out of touch with reality, the solutions will not come by expanding the Federal bureaucracy; but through innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. The nation awaits...
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