18 November 2009

No News News Redux

I’m one of the few bloggers to take pride in bringing you no news news.  I’ve been offering my readers no news news for years:

8.02.2005
No News News
image If any of this surprises you.....
Culled from a report by Jupiter Research, Internet Retailer reports Baby Boomers spend more online than other age groups.

11.03.2006
Another Same Old, Same Old 

image 6.06.2008

The Crystal Ball of Common Sense

12.01.2007
The Same Old, Same Old Redux

4.17.2008
How Well Do You Know Boomers?

12.12.2008
No News News

image Now there’s more no news news (and it’s not news for two reasons – the first being that Dick Stroud gets up eight hours earlier than I do):

Today’s Seniors and Boomers Rival Younger Generations in Online Activities
Boomers are tech-savvy and just as likely as the younger generations to own a digital camera, DVD player and cell phone.

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Sounds familiar:

11.14.2005
My Favorite Cyber-Myth
How I snicker and roll my eyes whenever I read about Baby Boomers fumbling around on computers, scratching their heads, totally flummoxed.

From my book (© 2005):

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Come back regularly.  You can always count on me to bring you the newest of whatever’s not news.

15 November 2009

Chronologically Gifted

image I was thumbing through (for those too young to know what that means – it’s sort of like web browsing) the print catalog, Signals.

They know their market.  Almost everything would appeal to Baby Boomers – and these are the folks who’d still be getting the catalog in the mail.

Even smarter: While they have dozens of T-Shirts & Sweats available on their online catalog, the ones picked for the print versions are the ones that would appeal to Boomers.

And they know what’s on the minds of this demo – age discrimination.  That sounds rather serious (it is), but the casual clothing offered is fun, tongue-in-cheek stuff – and that’s great.  Even ol’ curmudgeon Chuck laughed out loud at this one:

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The digital revolution has done its job with me (and millions of others) – but a big chunk of Boomers and older are still hanging on:

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One or both of these pretty much says it all for a lot of Boomers:

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But we’re also making sure nobody thinks were giving up or stopping - because there's more to do, and we have plenty of time and energy left to do it:

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13 November 2009

Henry Stewart Talks: Citations

From: A___ 
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 5:19 AM
To: nyrenagency
Subject: Henry Stewart Talks: Citations

Dear Chuck,

image I am writing to update you on citations for talks appearing within The Marketing and Management Collection (www.hstalks.com/go).

The Marketing and Management Collection, of which your talk forms part, is used as an educational resource by academic institutions and commercial organizations worldwide. Following both customer and speaker feedback we have generated citations for every talk in the collection to enable speakers and viewers to reference the use of talks in their academic and commercial endeavours. These citations appear on each individual talk page.

image We have also recently created direct links to every talk in the collection which you might wish to place on your website alongside references to your other published works. The link will provide access to the first five minutes of the presentation. The full citation and the direct link to your talk appears below.

http://www.hstalks.com/?t=MM0832173-Nyren

Citation
Stroud, D., Walker, G., Nyren, C. and in’t Veld, A. (2009), "How the older market is evolving internationally", in Stroud, D. (ed.), Latest Thinking in Marketing to the Older Consumer: Marketing techniques to target the fastest growing population demographic, The Marketing & Management Collection, Henry Stewart Talks Ltd, London.

Once again, many thanks for contributing to the Henry Stewart Talks series on “Latest Thinking in Marketing to the Older Consumer”.

Kind regards,
A___
Henry Stewart Talks
Russell House, 28-30 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN
Website: www.hstalks.com

Makes me feel like I’m an Oxford Professor or something …

Dr. Gene D. Cohen

Over the weekend I heard through the grapevine that Dr. Gene D. Cohen had passed away.

Colleague Brent Green knew him, and crafted a tribute:

imageIn Memoriam: Dr. Gene Cohen, A Creative, Thoughtful visionary For Boomers and All Aging Generations 
For those in business and marketing, Dr. Cohen’s research and clinical observations provide exciting new insights into aging, while creating vast opportunities for new products and services and reframing outdated societal myths.

Here’s a short piece by Dr. Cohen that touches upon much of his research:

A New Perspective on Sustaining and Increasing Learning Capacity With Age
image Postformal thought itself often results in new learning strategies, novel insights and creative problem solving. It allows us to examine in new ways information we have had or situations we have been in for some time, bringing new perspectives and understanding into our awareness. In this sense, it can promote creativity with aging -- bringing something new into existence that is valued. It can lead to new breakthroughs in thinking -- not despite aging, but because of aging.

The mainstream press wasn’t jumping all over Dr. Cohen’s passing.  I wondered why.  I’m still wondering why. But finally:

Gene D. Cohen, Geriatric Psychiatrist, Dies at 65
image His outlook was optimistic, which he conveyed in books for general audiences. As research in the 1990s began to show that the brain was less susceptible to being ravaged by age than had previously been thought …

imageThe Washington Post now has an obituary:
"The magic bullets are all blanks," he said in 1998, advising people to rely on "intellectual sweating" instead of pills and herbs for good mental health. "Make it a point to learn something new, instead of turning to hormones or ginkgo biloba."

Although the medical establishment tended to treat aging as a disease when he started his career, Dr. Cohen found that the later adult years can be a time of great creativity.

In 2006 I blogged about Dan Pink and David Galenson and what they were saying about this subject:

What Kind of Genius Are You?
A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types - quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet …

More from the NYT:

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

Goodbye, Dr. Cohen.  Hello, all his accomplishments.

11 November 2009

Veterans

RT @CreatingResults: Marketing to Veterans As a Subgroup of Mature Consumers: http://bit.ly/40oZGdimage

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Veterans are well-educated and place great value on learning.


GIBillStampThe “Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944” – more popularly known as the GI Bill – was one of the most popular and transforming government programs of the 20th century.