Beginning in 2003, my business blog for Creative Services, Copywriting, Consulting, and Speaking. You'll find all sorts of information about the current trends in advertising and marketing to this unwieldy, diverse demographic.
Web 55.0: The Baby Boomer’s Gift
Longer Goodbye
getback
Red Hat Society Turns 10Hi Chuck**********I thought you would be interested to hear about the upcoming NMK (New Media Knowledge) Coming of Age event on Tuesday 27th May 2008 in London, UK, as it focuses on communicating with, and creating content and websites for, the mature market online. We’d be very pleased for you to mention it on your blog if you think it’s appropriate ....
For full details, speaker information and booking, visit:
Beers and Innovation: Coming of Age
Elizabeth
Elizabeth Varley
Events Consultant
NMK
www.nmk.co.uk
—
Elizabeth -
.... Sure, I'll mention it. I know Dick Stroud, and Kevin Lavery of Millennium. I spent some time with them last year in England while on a speaking/consulting tour. Before that, we'd met in New York and Chicago, respectively.
Chuck
One of my regular stops in the ether is The International Longevity Center. It’s a site that’s easy to navigate and filled with all sorts of goodies. The Newsroom is often updated, and I like their blog – where I’m often introduced to other worthwhile blogs/sites by people leaving comments.
Some of their publications are downloadable at no cost, others are reasonably priced. Here’s a freebie I sent to a bunch of people recently.
Founder and CEO Robert N. Butler has and is having an interesting life (if you can believe Wikipedia). He’s written a new book: The Longevity Revolution: The Benefits and Challenges of Living a Long Life. Bob Moos of The Dallas Morning News has a wonderful piece on the book and the man:The Longevity RevolutionDr. Robert N. Butler, who has spent his career studying older people and caring for them, calls the extraordinary human accomplishment "the Longevity Revolution" and says that "what was once the privilege of the few has become the destiny of the many."
Dr. Butler's 50-year career has been one of firsts. A pioneer in the field of aging, the gerontologist became the founding director of the National Institute on Aging in the '70s, created the first geriatrics department at a U.S. medical school in the '80s and established in the '90s the International Longevity Center, the first policy research organization devoted entirely to aging.
And a few weeks ago Ronni Bennett of Times Goes By interviewed Dr. Butler:I’ve written about casually flinging around the concept of ‘longevity’ in advertising and marketing. Be careful. However, using it to position a product or service - and the excellent work of The International Longevity Center - are apples and oranges. Don’t confuse them.The TGB Interview: Dr. Robert N. Butler
I discovered Robert N. Butler, M.D. when I first started researching aging a dozen years ago through his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Why Survive? Being Old in America. My copy, even in hardback, is tattered and worn now, Post-It noted and marked up to within an inch of its life, as it is one of the “bibles” I regularly use to think about aging and as a reference for this blog.
Nigel Hollis unpacks it on his blog:Top 100 Most Powerful Brands (PDF)
The BrandZ Ranking is the result of Millward Brown Optimor’s robust brand valuation methodology. Ours is the first brand ranking to combine analysis of financial data with primary research findings. We do this because brand value depends on consumer sentiment as well as on a company’s ability to translate that sentiment into shareholder value.
I have a thick, lumpy chapter about branding in my book. It’s not anti-branding, but warns readers about so-called branding experts who give you the impression that they wield some sort of wizardly 'branding wand' and can brand your new product out of thin air.What do McDonald’s, Colgate, and Tide have in common?
To my mind, while the numbers may sound less impressive, the performance of brands like McDonald’s, Colgate and Tide is even more compelling. They are a testimony to the fact that innovation and adaptation are the lifeblood of successful global brands.
MIT AgeLab
The MIT AgeLab was created in 1999 to invent new ideas and creatively translates technologies into practical solutions that improve people’s health and enable them to “do things” throughout the lifespan.Based within MIT’s School of Engineering’s Engineering Systems Division, the AgeLab has assembled a multi-disciplinary and global team of researchers, business partners, universities, and the aging community to design, develop and deploy innovations to improve quality of life.
While the web site is rich with info – you really have to attend a presentation by AgeLab’s Founder and Director, Dr. Joseph Coughlin. I co-presented with him at a private corporate event in 2006. Even back then, as an old, jaded conference attendee and presenter 
at 50+ events, I was sure there was nothing I hadn’t seen. Dr. Coughlin’s presentation was (for me) mind and body boggling. I want the car he talks about, the amenities he talks about. I hope I never need the pill boxes he talks about.
A recent article: AgeLab Designs Products For Baby Boomers By David Ho, COX NEWS SERVICE
