RetirementHomes.com - Ageism

Boomer Factoids Create Barriers to Business Success

aadmin — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 10:03:06 +0000

When talking about Russia in a 1939 radio address, Sir Winston Churchill said, “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” This is also a good description of the future impact of the Baby Boom, in spite of the growing horde of Boomer experts offering such definitive conclusions as:

• Boomers will be teenagers forever — age 60 is the new 30.
• Boomers will be a drain on the economy and overwhelm the healthcare systems.
• Boomers will reinvent retirement.
• Boomers will not tolerate stereotypes.

These statements capture the factoids that have become accepted as characteristic of Boomers. According to dictionary.com, a ‘factoid’ is something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition. Current discussions about Boomer marketing more often resemble a diversion by those struggling to hang on to models that served them with yesterday’s youth markets, rather than insightful dialogue about new tools for reaching a unique consumer majority.

For years I have pointed out the paradox of the images and icons used to portray Boomers (Woodstock, drugs, war protests, acid rock music, etc.). As a leading-edge Baby Boomer, I didn’t protest the Vietnam War, but I did fight in it. I liked some Beatles tunes, but never cared for the Rolling Stones. In the 1960s, I enjoyed folk music and ballads over hard rock; I didn’t smoke pot or use drugs. And while I did drive a Volkswagen, it wasn’t a bus. My point: There are as many Boomers who are the antithesis of the stereotypes, as there are those who mirror them.

Not One Generation or Shared World View

In essence, Baby Boomers are several generations. Even though they will eventually share common later-life values, these adults view reality through vastly different experiential lenses.“[A]ll people see the world not as it is, but as they are,” writes Stephen Covey in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The so-called Boomer characteristics, as well as the prophecies of how these individuals will approach life’s second half, too often represent aging seen through young eyes clouded by stereotypes, myths and misconceptions. For example:

Baby Boomers will be teenagers forever—age 60 is the new 30 or 40. Myopic, overly simplistic and wrong, this factoid ignores developmental psychology research and condemns 78 million adults to terminal narcissism. It is at worst ageist, and at best replaces one stereotype with another. Although today’s older adults increasingly look forward to an active later life, and are the healthiest, wealthiest and best educated elders in history, these trends do not mean their values differ than much from their parents and grandparents.

The current image of older people as a problem— unproductive adults declining in health and increasing in dependency— is often perpetuated by the media and demeans this population. Representing older adults in this way has also marginalized life’s second half. But to replace that image with one of Skydiving Granny or the lifelong teenager ignores the central human need to find meaning and purpose in later life.

Baby Boomers will be a drain on the economy and overwhelm the healthcare systems. This is one of the most common and negative factoids touted by politicians looking to stroke a growing special interest group of seniors or, more appropriately, the publicly funded organizations serving them. Yes, this scenario could happen if we continue to ignore the importance of prevention. But this perspective looks at tomorrow through yesterday’s lens, forgetting that everything is changing, and older adults cannot be blame for the mess that is the US Healthcare system.

To plan for the first era in which our population is more senior than junior using yesterday’s models and past experience is like driving using only the rear view mirror: risky and foolhardy, to say the least. With the growing emphasis on health and well-being, complemented by increasingly sophisticated healthcare services, telemedicine and health promotion, we could see an outcome just the opposite of this factoid. As English novelist George Meredith once said, “[T]he future, not yet having been born, we should refrain from baptizing it.”

Baby Boomers will reinvent retirement. This statement gives too much credit to Boomers for a revolution already underway. Leading-edge Baby Boomers just started turning 60, and most of them will not retire fully until well into their 70’s, or older—if by then we still refer to this stage of life as retirement. In reality, the very concept of retirement is outdated.

Just as the Eisenhower generation led the protests of the 1960s—Abbie Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the like were not Boomers—it also began reinventing the concept of retirement almost a decade ago. Rather than accepting systems designed to cater to and care for them, this cohort started demanding more opportunities for health and well-being services, and for pursuing lifelong growth and fulfillment. One sign is the growing desire for programs and services to support healthy aging, and the explosion of Active Adult Communities.

Today, Boomers and those ahead of them exercise more, eat better and smoke less than their predecessors, indicating that they will likely continue to change the face of aging in the years to come. To focus solely on Baby Boomers to the exclusion of millions of adults beyond age 65 is marketing myopia at its worst.

Baby Boomers will not tolerate aging stereotypes. If this factoid were true, misguided media stories and advertisements perpetuating stereotypes would not exist. In fact, many of these efforts are either created or approved by Boomers, who are both victims and perpetuators of aging stereotypes.

Since Baby Boomers outnumber any other 18-year age cohort, they will inevitably grow to hate how older people are stereotyped, just as a growing number of today’s 70 and 80 year-olds dislike how they are referred to and portrayed.

In the end, marketing workshops that delve into purported Boomer attitudes and behaviors unique to Boomers may keep consultants and companies busy for a few years. However, these workshops will have little impact on the bottom line if they continue to be grounded in Boomer stereotypes, factoids and models developed to reach and serve yesterday’s youth markets.

Marketplace realities

So what can businesses do to plan for success in serving the new consumer majority of age 50-plus adults? They must accept the following realities:

No one buys anything or uses a service solely because of their age. Rather, individuals purchase services to satisfy wants, address needs and enjoy experiences. To gain the attention of aging Boomers, stories must connect with their later life values, rather than perpetuating factoids and stereotypes growing out of previous life stages – most of us left the stereotypical 60’s behind decades ago.
The 65-and-older age group will grow 78% between 2010 and 2030, while the total population will increase just 18%, according to the US Census Bureau. Furthermore, “age 40 plus adults already comprise a New Consumer Majority of middle age and older adults, a historical first,” writes David B. Wolfe, author of Ageless Marketing.
Few advertising agencies, corporate marketing department and businesses neither understand later-life values and how nor how to connect with them. By accepting Boomer factoids that have their roots in aging stereotypes, companies will continue to waste billions using the wrong words and messages.

Researchers have clearly documented the problems caused by negative aging stereotypes. In perpetuating the myths of the youth culture, we have replaced purpose with pills; productive lives with retirement packages; personal significance with shallow volunteer opportunities; and meaningful community involvement with mindless activities. Thanks to innovative community developers, organizations such as encore.com and the International Council on Active Aging, things are slowly beginning to change but there is much left to do.

Personally, I try to avoid using the term Boomer marketing, because it makes no more sense than senior marketing; I prefer developmental, inclusionary or ageless marketing instead. For that matter, I’m not particularly crazy about elderly, retirement, senior citizen, Baby Boomer, Gen X’er, or any other generational labels or typologies. While some people buy products because of the label, they are unlikely to rally around a generational label. Senior/Boomer typologies have made research companies and ad agencies a lot of money, and they have exacerbated our misunderstanding of a values-centered age cohort of older adults, rather than improving the effectiveness of business communications.

New rules and tools are needed to insure success in a market dominated by middle-aged and older adults. It is time to view the market through a new lens. When it comes to meeting the needs of the New Consumer Majority, the youth lens of yesterday provides a distorted image of reality. The tools needed to grind a new lens for future success are readily available to those with the vision to use them.

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Senior Living Professionals

Creating Empowered Cultures

aadmin — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 09:43:29 +0000

You do not have to change,
survival is not mandatory.
Edwards Deming

The act of “retiring” can be a profound threat to one’s significance or relevance and may even influence a person’s future direction and life satisfaction. When one’s former position and recognition are lost, there may no longer be opportunities for experiencing personal significance and satisfaction. For many, physical concerns regarding appearance, peak performance and memory also begin to color their attitudes toward themselves and their personal value. They mindlessly accept the stereotypes and perceptions of aging, as a time of loss and decline; and begin a downhill slide. Their beliefs about aging and “retirement” all too often become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Life's Second Half ... A Positive and Joyful Experience

On the other hand, the size of the aging population offers both for profit and not for profit organizations golden opportunities to increase revenue and cut costs while increasing life satisfaction of engaged consumers/members. Life’s second half can become a positive and joyful experience…an adventure in personal growth and fulfillment for those involved with empowering organizations. To create empowered cultures, organizations need to develop both innovative and personally satisfying activities, opportunities for new relationships and meaningful civic engagement.

The first step in creating an empowering culture is for community leadership to reconsider what they may have mindlessly accepted as fact earlier in life. If those serving older adults view later life as a time of loss and infirmity rather than growth and enrichment, they will have little success in creating an empowering culture. In the absence of enlightened leadership, organizations can unwittingly but flagrantly encourage dependency by planning every element of the programs, services and activities. In doing so, the organization contributes to the stereotype of older adults as disengaged and dependent.

Identifying Signs of Ageism

To build an enlightened team organizations must do as much as possible to identify signs of real or inadvertent ageism. Due to decades of negative aging stereotypes perpetuated by the media, having a negative aging bias is not uncommon. Still, few organizations attempt to identify bias, incorporate aging self-image as part of the interview process, or require letters of recommendation from older adults not related to them.

The second step in the creation of an empowered culture is to create ‘meaningful’ opportunities for leadership and service. A leadership team that embraces positive aging will always involve older adults in the creation of services and the decisions that affect them. Not just as volunteers, but as respected members of an operating team where their opinions are both respected and encouraged. This can easily be accomplished by asking for resumes that detail experience in the areas where additional help is needed rather than asking for volunteers.

Organizations cannot empower older adults; because they never had their power. While they can attempt to control and manipulate those they serve; the consumers have the real power and choice of how to exercise that power. Recognizing and celebrating that reality is a critical step in organizational change. In our virtual world, the consumer is increasingly in control. News, both good and bad, can be shared instantly. If bad news should become viral it can offset years of positive public relations.

Words Matter – Removing Stereotypes

The third step is to remove barriers to participation by removing stereotypical words and phrases from your organization’s mission, communications and marketing materials. Many people view organizations that use stereotypical, descriptive terms in their branding (Senior Centers, Retirement Communities, Continuing Care Retirement Communities, etc.) as threatening to personal significance and representing a shrinking world – service with restrictive, bureaucratic rules, and limited meaningful opportunities for service.

To move to a “retirement community” or use “senior services” is to accept being classified as failing or dependent. Amenities and a variety of programs are little compensation for perceived losses. Until organizations abandon exclusionary terms and embrace an ageless language of inclusion, they will be working at cross-purposes with later life values and cognitive processing.

The biggest barrier to creating an empowered culture is resistance by community leaders. Over the years, I have observed more than one community leader commenting, “But you seem to be endorsing something akin to letting the inmates run the institution.” The reality is that many consumers of services are capable of running the organization equally as well as current management.

However, most are no longer interested in running a marathon; but would like to be entrusted with a sprint now and then. The key to creating a dynamic, empowered organization is to simply tap by the imagination of both older adults and staff. It is sad that organizations with access to thousands of years of wisdom and life experience available to them at no cost fail to capitalize on it.

Adapting to Change

As Darwin once observed, it is not the strong that survive; but those that can adapt to change. What is true in nature is also true in creating empowered organizations. The senior living industry in specific and aging services in general is currently riding a tsunami of change. It is both and exciting and treacherous time. To adapt, leaders must remember that creating community does not end with the construction of buildings; it is an ongoing process…or should be. In Japan, this process is called Kaizen (finished never is). [1] Creative, empowered communities are growing in number and will quickly gain a market advantage wherever they exist.

Through the mindful creation of empowered organizations, later life will again become celebrated as the crown jewel of the human experience. Embracing positive aging celebrates the uniqueness and worth of each individual and encourages older adults to discover the joy that comes from giving—from using their time and talents to improve the lives of others and make a difference in the world around them.

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[1] Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from the CEO to the assembly line workers.

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Senior Living Professionals

Words Matter - Paradigms Matter More

aadmin — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 06:16:22 +0000

The difference between the right word;
and the nearly right word;
is the difference between lightening
and the lightening bug.
Mark Twain

Viewing the sudden interest in the terms used to refer to older adults, be they Baby Boomers or older, reminds me of the Rip Van Winkle children’s story.

I see Rip played by the media, advertisers and business and their fascination and preoccupation with the youth market. In spite of the coming reality of a maturing marketplace, they were too lazy, apathetic or ageist to attempt an understanding older consumers and the values that guide their decision making. They ignored the warnings by a few visionary consultants, such as the late David B. Wolfe, attempting to help them understand how older and younger consumers differ.

Just as Rip awoke from a 20 year nap and was shocked by the changes, American businesses and the mainstream media are waking up to the fact that the median age of adults in the US increased by over a decade while they were asleep at the wheel.

Today, articles and conference topics on boomers, a new word for ‘senior’, or retiring the term retirement are proliferating. However, many of these articles and presentations are accompanied by warnings from paradigm keepers, now often disguised as SEO specialists, arguing that ‘senior’ is the term used most often to search for programs for older adults and therefore should not be abandoned. Clearly, understanding older consumers has a long way to go.

To exacerbate the problem, the fascination with Baby Boomers continues, mostly because advertisers and businesses think they understand them. As the market potential becomes more and more obvious, consultants, authors and trainers are pontificating on how to capture this elusive, boomer beast using adaptations of traditional tools and approaches…simply applying the new technologies using old paradigms is not producing results.

During a 1991 magazine interview, I warned that “large numbers of qualified consumers will not respond to terms like senior, senior or other terms used to describe the older consumer.” I further encouraged organizations serving older adults to “ignore age in promotions and communications and just talk to the person.”

During numerous presentations in the early 90’s, senior living industry professionals were advised that “terms like retirement community, continuing care retirement community and nursing home limited their market potential.” This advice was generally ignored as the numbers of older adults continued to swell and participation in “aging programs” declined. For retirement communities, the average age of people entering “continuing care retirement communities” rose from 72 to age 82.

Over the last three decades, I have moderated many focus groups with older consumers and concluded that, although many people over the age of 65 find the term senior citizen to be acceptable, they do not associate themselves with that segment of the market. In one memorable group of adults in their 70’s and 80’s, participants were discussing the positive and negative aspects of words used in advertising copy such as senior, elder, senior citizens, mature adults, older adults, etc.

When asked to come up with a new term, one participant responded simply, “Bill has served me pretty well thus far so I will stick with that.” Based on the simplicity of this response and my responses, the author titles the article, The Best Label for the Elderly is No Label at All!

Why Words Matter – It’s Not Just a Preference

To keep our conscious minds from being overloaded with unimportant information, our brains screen what messages reach our consciousness. The brain sorts through billions of bits of information each moment to select information for the conscious mind to think about based on their life experiences, world view, habits and personal preferences. Clearly, the process is more involved in the 70 year old consumer that a thirty something.

The brain does not process words; it processes pictures and sensory data in context with the circumstances. If there is a perception that "senior" means old, frail, dependent, bingo player, or other traditional stereotypes, the mind of a the targeted customer may "exclude" whatever is associated with that word from conscious consideration if the targeted consumer does not view themselves as fitting the stereotype. For example, the current stereotype that frustrates marketers in the senior living industry is the perception that “retirement community” means a place to go when your health is failing…a place for the frail – the elderly.

A targeted older consumer’s eyes and ears may detect what you are trying to tell them, but unless the context allows their brains to sense personal relevance, little if any of the message content will reach their conscious mind. The challenge therefore is creating messages that resonate with the values shared by older adults to make it past the mental screening process – values like autonomy, altruism, connectedness and spirituality.

Those organizations seriously interested in adopting a new paradigm must begin by sensitizing all team members to the power, both positive and negative, of the words they use. They must also emphasize the value to be gained by using more inclusionary terms to describe older consumers, communities and services while avoiding the use of exclusionary terms (words shrouded in stereotypes that could be perceived negatively). Inclusionary/ conditional terms allow people to screen marketing messages based on their expectations, aspirations, needs, values and life experience rather than preexisting stereotypes. Inclusionary terms are more likely to be positively perceived than the terms traditionally used in communications targeting older consumers.

Even if you believe that 70% of your prospective customers have no problem with a stereotypical term like senior, but 30% hate it; why would you choose to ignore 1/3 of the market on purpose? Like Rip Van Winkle, some organizations are waking up to the new reality and modifying brand strategy by creating a new identity: Elderhostel is now Road Scholars, The American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging is now LeadingAge, etc. However, embracing a new paradigm involves more than name changes and the use of more inclusive terms.

To Change Consumer Perceptions – Change Your Paradigms

Dr. Stephen Covey, author of the highly praised best seller 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, framed the problem saying, “No one sees the world as it really is; we only see the world as we are.” In other words, no two people have exactly the same view of the world, but our worldviews can be easily distorted by the categories we create with the words we use and the meanings we have come to attach to those words. It is the use of those categorical terms (senior, retirement, nursing home, facility, etc.) and the stereotypes perpetuated by the media that has resulted in the exclusionary vocabulary of aging.

“Our paradigms are our most deeply held unconscious set of assumptions and values; things we take for granted; that which determines our expectations, frames the questions we ask and structures our approach to what we do,” stated Danah Zohar in Re-wiring the Corporate Brain. “We need our paradigms to make sense of the world around us; but if we do not continually question our views we can become trapped or constrained by them.” Or as Seth Godin observed in a recent blog, “real change is cultural change, and you must go about it with the intent to change the culture, not to merely make the easy change, the easy sale.”

When it comes to designing communities and services for older adults, many developers and managers continue to use operating and management models created to serve a relatively need-driven, under-educated, and frail population of adults who had few choices. While the homes in today’s retirement communities are bigger, common spaces nicer and activity and wellness areas more plentiful, too many operating models and programs are grounded in command and control management and medical model continues to dominate health services.

Since so few have successfully targeted the mature consumer, evidence on what works best is limited. Some have explored the mature market using traditional methods only to conclude there was little potential because consumers failed to respond. They blamed neither the messenger nor the message, but the intended recipient. Likewise, millions of dollars have been spent teaching aging sensitivity without first developing an empathetic understanding of the consumer and their decision-making processes. Unfortunately, this sensitivity training often reinforces rather than correcting aging stereotypes.

As businesses continue to track the elusive elder beast, there will no doubt have varying degrees of success as they begin to embrace the principles of ageless marketing. To increase the probability of success, one must first abandon the paradigms that worked so well in yesterday’s youth market; and adopt an ageless approach more likely to appeal to a maturing consumer base while not alienating younger segments.

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Senior Living Professionals

Ageless Marketing Matters

aadmin — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 07:18:34 +0000

In 2013, the United States ‘celebrated’ a historic milestone that has gone generally ignored by governments, businesses and nonprofit organizations. For the first time in history, those ages 65 and older outnumber those under the age of 15.

This is a change of epic proportion and yet little has been done to adapt marketing materials, hiring policies, sales training or aging programs and services. When the media or politicians do recognize the growth of the older market it is to view it as a growing crisis, problem or challenge rather than an opportunity.

Not only is this the most dynamic demographic shift in history, the members of the new consumer majority are uniquely more informed, better educated and autonomous than prior generations. Yes, the baby boom, pig-in-the-python, phenomenon that fueled yesterdays mass market now are to ‘blame’ for the lack of effectiveness to today’s marketing and advertising messages. While their life experiences were unique, the boomers are developmentally aging just as the generation the preceded them.

In spite of a growing body of evidence that the older brain and mind process information differently than younger minds, ad agencies, marketing companies and aging organizations continue to follow the features and benefits paradigm developed to communicate with yesterday’s youth market. Paradoxically, the members of the New Consumer Majority of age 60 plus consumers and the explosive youth market of yesterday are the same people…but different.

Common Marketing Missteps

For the past two years, I have had the honor of judging marketing materials for a competition sponsored by the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA).

A few examples of marketing missteps in many entries along with suggestions for improvement follow:

Excessive use of sans serif fonts (aerial, Calibri, etc.), which are harder to read and slow the processing speed and comprehension of older readers. Sadly, younger creative directors who grew up in the computer age have embraced sans serif as it now dominates web sites and emails. Interestingly, sans serif was created because the first computer printers could not print serifs; not because it was easier to read on computer screens.
Printing on enamel paper stock which creates glare bothersome to older eyes. A quality matte paper stock should be the standard with a 12 pt. serif font such as Times New Roman. To create more depth in color photos, try using spot enamel on the photos only.
Focusing on objective appeals using features and benefits rather than emotional appeals that connect with life experiences, later life values and experiential desires. An objective appeal with excessive details is more likely to be dismissed as so much hyperbole by experience older consumers. The presentation of a product, service or idea should be done in a manner that is more suggestive than descriptive since the older mind is context sensitive. When using an emotional appeal, enough is said to get general interest, and enough left unsaid that each person’s brain can complete the picture by drawing on their own life experience rather than that of the copy writer.
Using stereotypical, exclusionary terms such as senior, elderly, boomer, zoomer, etc to segment consumers. Older consumers are not always conscious of their frame of reference (negative stereotypes), but disregard information that does not fit their reality. The brain is context sensitive and fills in the missing pieces of a picture with a bias toward one’s world view, values and life stage. Before publication, review all materials and delete all terms that could conjure up negative images of aging. Then, re-read the copy and realize how little impact these descriptors actually have.
Using sedentary stock photo images rather than older consumers involved in meaningful pursuits. Pictures that tell a story will have a greater appeal that posed stock shots.
Talking about perceived consumer needs rather than the values of targeted consumers using a language of exclusion. As stated, appealing to emotions is essential for gaining an older consumer’s interest. When your message is relevant to the prospect’s interests and grounded in their internal life stage values, the message is more likely to survive the brain’s screening & reach the conscious mind. Objective appeals require first gaining the prospective customer’s interest; however, reason will not fully kick in until the emotions have given the green light to think about your offer.

What is confusing to those of us who have spent our careers trying to convince businesses, nonprofits and government agencies of the potential of an aging market place is why they refuse to accept what author Tom Peters might call a “blinding flash of the obvious.” For example, Dove challenged ageism through its award-winning Campaign for Real Beauty. One advertisement and billboard featured a 95-year-old model and posed the question: “Withered or Wonderful? The campaign resulted in a 700% rise in product sales in the United Kingdom and 600% in the U.S. within the first two months of the campaign’s launch; and yet few companies followed suit by embracing positive aging.

The Dove campaign chose to present aging in a positive context and were rewarded by consumers of all ages. This campaign clearly demonstrated that consumers do not see what you want to them to see, but what their brains want them to see by filtering with an unconscious set of assumptions, perceptions and aspirations. In other words, they did not just want to know Dove wanted their business; but understood the importance of a positive aging self esteem.

Last year, I opened a statewide conference for aging network service providers with a 3 minute, 2011 commercial for Taiwan’s TC Bank created by Ogilvy and Mather Taiwan that asks the question, "What do people live for?" The commercial is based on the true story a group of older men seeking purpose and adventure in spite of a variety of physical infirmities and concludes with the Bank’s positioning line, “For Ordinary People with Extraordinary Dreams.” Spontaneous applause followed the viewing, which has happened every time I have shown the spot as part of a presentation.

The failure to embrace and expand on this approach no doubt stems from a lack of understanding of later life values. As the late David B. Wolfe observed in a 1998 article in American Demographics magazine:

There is no better way to begin dealing with those challenges (marketing to older adults) than by making a concerted effort to learn more about adult development. Few consumer researchers and marketers have any grounding in adult development psychology. This is a costly deficiency. Knowledge of adult development can provide critical information about consumers that is not available from traditional survey and focus group research.

If you believe the old adage that the majority rules, organizations are foolish to ignore the power of the aging marketplace. In less than 7 years, one in five consumers will be over age 60 and that number will continue to grow. To hold onto the marketing paradigms of yesterday’s youth dominated marketplace is simply fool-hardy.

From Paradigm Keepers to Innovators

Even with the positive, bottom line results that are possible, companies continue to ignore the benefits of embracing a new marketing paradigm. Even as the effectiveness of traditional advertising continues to erode, few have embraced ageless marketing principles. Likewise, a majority of aging service organizations and communities for older adults continue to embrace outdated medical models of operation and programs that inadvertently perpetuate ageism.

When it comes to aging, these organizations are like processionary caterpillars, which move in a long procession, one leading and the others following with their eyes half closed and heads snugly fitted against the rear extremity of his predecessor.

In the late 1800’s, John Henry Fabre, the great French naturalist, conducted a most unusual experiment with some processionary caterpillars. These caterpillars blindly follow the one in front of them, hence, the name. Fabre carefully arranged the caterpillars in a circle around the rim of a flowerpot, so that the lead caterpillar actually touched the last one, making a complete circle. In the center of the flowerpot he put pine needles, which is the preferred food of the processionary caterpillar. The caterpillars started walking around this circular flowerpot.

Around and around they went, hour after hour, day after day, night after night. For seven full days and seven full nights, they went around the flowerpot. Finally, they dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion. With an abundance of food less than six inches away, they literally starved to death. Much like many organizations creating communications targeting older consumers or managing aging services, the caterpillars confused activity with accomplishment.

In spite of the evidence, organizations defend actions as the way it has always been done, tradition, standard practice, regulatory requirements, congressional intent or a variety of other excuses to justify holding on to approaches they understand. Of course, they continue to experience repeated failures despite the untold potential that lies easily within reach. These organizations are blinded by their own limiting beliefs and the inability to consider alternatives.

From wellness centers, to communities for older adults, to ‘senior centers’, to cities and communities …we are in the business of facilitating human connections. And, if we do it well, we create vibrant/magnetic places that are not just active and appealing, but experiential and authentic. In the sea of sameness and other possibilities, organizations need to ask WHY they are worthy of the consumer’s interest. What makes your offer unique AND compelling?

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Senior Living Professionals

Rural police department asks public to report older drivers

aadmin — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:32:25 +0000

Seniors and senior advocates are crying foul after a local police department began asking residents to report older drivers who appear to have driving problems.

As reported by GlobalNews.ca, the The North East Dementia Network Coalition Safe Driving Task Force was established last month in Sudbury, Ontario with the intention of preventing unsafe driving, but opponents say it smacks of age discrimination.

“If [someone] is really erratic, sure, rat people out. The thing is, that’s not what’s happening here,” Susan Eng of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP), told the news outlet. “This is targeting older people.”

But police officers with the task force say they are simply taking precautions, and examining leads when they come in, and not jumping to conclusions immediately.

Sudbury Constable Meghan O’Malley told the news outlet that if there is a call made about an older person, police officers will go to that person’s home and speak to them, and if necessary, investigate further to see if they pose a risk to themselves or others by driving.

What do you think of the task force’s new initiative? Is it a smart way to protect older drivers, or is it unfair to older people? Tell us in the comment section below:

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Ageism

Five ways seniors can fight ageism

aadmin — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:51:58 +0000

Congratulations! After decades of hard work, a long career and efforts spent saving money, retirement has finally arrived. You have all the time in the world to see friends and family, and spend time on hobbies, volunteering, or worldwide travel.

But although you may be happy in retirement, ageism exists, and misconceptions about seniors and retirees exist. To help make a mark, a recent article from USNews.com shares five ways seniors can make a positive impact on their environment:

1. Be positive – Focusing on the negatives brings yourself, and others, down. To put people in a better mood, be positive.

2. Listen – It is human nature to want to speak about themselves, but when someone listens to others without speaking, that goes a long way.

3. Don’t judge – Another trait of being human is looking at others and making judgments about their character. No one can ever know the mind of another person, so it’s best to avoid judging them.

4. Be charitable- Whether it’s with your time or money, being charitable means helping out those less fortunate, and giving them support and encouragement.

5. Live it – ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is not an ideal attitude to win over fans, according to USNews.com. Instead, think of yourself as a role model.

What do you think about these tips? Do you already practice them at home or in your assisted living community? Tell us about it in the comment section below:

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