Changing Aging

AARP The Magazine is looking for the Faces of 50+—real men and women (no professionals, please!) who look and feel great at 50 and beyond. Selected models may appear in fashion and beauty articles in AARP The Magazine throughout 2008. It’s free and easy to nominate someone or yourself online.  The deadline is October 15th.

Two-thirds of baby boomers told us in our Age Wave study us that their ideal situation if they need care as seniors is to have it at home with a mix of family caregivers and professional caregivers. 

Look below at the “language” HouseWorks uses.  It is all customer-focused.  HouseWorks is a Massachusetts-based home care company that has set out to completely differentiate itself from others in their marketplace.  They highlight that they provide the best home care services, whereever “home” is, including one’s condo, single-family home, assisted living community, or nursing home.  I’ve highlighted a few areas below from the “about us” section in their website where they use language differently than most home care organizations and further differentiate HouseWorks for their customers. 

The other day we highlighted a new commercial from Erickson, an innovator in the Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) field.

A few other interesting things from Erickson.  They have a blog called e-chronicles here.  They’ve done some very neat things in reaching out to their customers and beyond.  The Erickson Tribune, which has become a lifestyle newspaper, that goes to 6.5 million people.  They’ve also started Retirement TV, a cable television network.  

In addition Erickson also has underwritten a new undergraduate and graduate school program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.  It’s mission: To prepare a community of leaders who will use their education to improve society by enhancing the lives of older adults.

It won’t be a surprise when , one of the pioneers in developing Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs), enters Minnesota.  They have a lot of appealing features that people would dig here.

Check out this Erickson Retirement Communities  commercial.  It hits directly at what a lot of what people are thinking, . . . they want something different.   

What are your thoughts on the commercial?

Technology is such a tremendous opportunity for the senior housing and aging services professionals in helping people connect and learn from each other.  The applications are endless — and they don’t have to be expensive.  It’s a great area for our profession to be entrepreneurial.  Our Age Wave Study, shows that baby boomers (the next generation of seniors) are all about technology to stay connected.

 On that note, we want to send our congratulations to CaringBridge, which is celebrating its 10th Anniversary. Millions of people have stayed connected with loved ones experiencing injury and illness.

Entrepreneur Berry Brunk and blogger (He blogs at Future of Senior Housing) shares a quote from a new study about aging in place and assisted living from the National Investment Center: “The [senior] housing industry (At Ecumen we call it a profession) needs to change its sales and marketing message to place more emphasis on these communities as places that enable residents to get more from life, rather than places to receive care. It is not being suggested that grandiose promises of entertainment and excitement be made, but rather the elements that provide a sense of community, friendship, belonging, enjoyment, fun, education and continuing life need to be stressed more.” The study isn’t available online, but Berry outlines several highlights from it that are interesting to people working to figure out and innovate in senior housing and services.  You can also read what boomers are thinking about aging here.

Recently we shared top 5 web sites that are changing aging at ProBlogger. We greatly appreciate ProBlogger’s invitation to do this. But there are many more sites that are changing aging beyond the 5 we mentioned and we will continue to share many more them at this blog over time. Here are several others:

The Savvy Boomer: A goal of this blog is to unravel personal technology geek speak for boomers and seniors.

The Ageless Project: Think blogging is only for the young? Think again. You’ll find a variety of senior and boomer bloggers here.

There are few bloggers in the country that focus on aging and senior housing.  Want to share with you another one that is right here in the Twin Cities:  Lisa Dunn’s Real Sage Advice.

Great blog name, but it also great content. Lisa describes her blog as a “Discussion of Aging Issues, Senior Housing, and the Twin Cities Real Estate Market as seen through the lens of a Realtor who is a Certified Senior Advisor, and specializes in working with seniors.”

Because there are approximately 77 million baby boomers in America and 1.5 million in Minnesota, we talk a lot about the baby boomers and their impact on senior housing and services, but the true next generation of seniors is the “Silent Generation.” 

Gene Dolloff, who heads senior dining services at Morrison Management Specialists visited Ecumen recently and shared with us interesting information on the Silents. Morrison serves approximately 400 senior housing communities in the United States and many continuing care retirement communities, which are popular in other parts of the country, but haven’t hit Minnesota. Morisson’s research is qualitative and quantitative.

Eric Schubert, Ecumen’s Director of Communications, was honored as a “40 Under 40” by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal.

The “40 Under 40″ compiled annually, credits accomplished professionals in the fields of business, government and non-profits who have yet to reach 40 years of age.

Says the Journal,

“Schubert began his career with an ambush. After returning to Minnesota following a brief internship with a PR firm in Atlanta, Schubert waited outside the WCCO Radio Building in downtown Minneapolis while ad man Dave Mona and Star Tribune sports columnist Sid Hartman were winding up their Sunday talk show. When Mona emerged from the office building, Schubert pounced and gave a 2-minute sales pitch while Mona walked to his car. Shortly after that, he was hired.”