Changing Aging

Costco Connection, the publication for Costco members nationally, recently interviewed Ecumen CEO Kathryn Roberts in an article about how technology is transforming aging and aging services.  You can read it here.  (Note: you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader)

The Sunday New York Times featured Ecumen customer Helen Trost in an interesting article on technology enhancing independence, seniors being able to stay in their own home and involving family members across long distances. You can read more about technology Ecumen is using to enhance customers’ independence here.

Family Caregiving and Technology - an essential collaboration when you look at demographic realities and people’s desires to live as independently and empowered as possible.

Next Wednesday, May 14th, in Washington, D.C., there’s going to be a great Congressional briefing led by the National Alliance for Caregiving.  It will be held from 8 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in the Rayburn Office Building, Room B-339. 

Entitled “Technology to Support Family Caregiving,” speakers will include Ecumen’s Chief Operations Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations Kathy Bakkenist, as well as:

- Gail Hunt, President and CEO, National Alliance for Caregiving.

- Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI)

- Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)

- Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA)

- Carol Smith, RN, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center

- Sara J. Czaja, Professor, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

- Adam Darkins, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

- Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)

- Pramod Gaur, Ph.D., President Healthanywhere

- David L. Whitlinger, Continua and Intel Corporation

- Thomas Carey, Vice President Sales & Government Business WebMD Health Services

- Charles Hillman, PE, CEO, GrandCare Systems

- Kevin Sypniewski, CEO, AGIS Network

- Hal Chapel, CEO, Lotsa Helping Hands

There are a lot of senior housing and aging services professionals in a whole bunch of different professional sectors from journalism to technology to health care to development, but there are few online resourcs to bring them together. I want to share with you a new resource called Mature Market Experts.

It’s a free networking group connecting investors, bankers, real estate developers, consumer goods companies, health care professionals, journalists and marketing experts who are interested in serving the senior marketplace. In short, if you serve, market to, or write about people who are 50+, this is the group for you. The goal of this group is to help members:

- Reach other members of Mature Market Experts

- Accelerate networking/careers/business through referrals from Mature Market Experts members

- Know more than a name - view rich professional profiles from fellow Mature Market Experts Group members

To join, go to group founder and moderator Tom Mann’s LinkedIn profile, http://www.linkedin.com/in/trmannconsulting and scroll down until you see the Mature Market Experts badge. Just click on it and send an email explaining that you’d like to join and what your connection is to the 50+ marketplace.

In addition, the group has a blog (http://maturemarketexperts.wordpress.com/). The goal of the blog is to keep you up to date with current senior trends and profession news and serve as a collection point for profession related events. Contributors will include:

-Mark Miller writes Retire Smart, a weekly newspaper column syndicated by Tribune Media Services, and publishes RetirementRevised, the online companion to the column. He also has a wonderful blog 50+ Digital.

- Dan Rexford, Partner, Equity Partners Inc. Dan is the former Executive Vice President of Marketing at Erickson Retirement Communities, with over 18 years in the retirement community industry.

-Jodi Rudick, author. Jodi is putting the finishing touches on a book to be published by Human Kinetics focused on programming/marketing recreation services to baby boomers.

- Tom Mann, President, TR Mann Consulting, which is an independent marketing consulting firm focused on real estate, media and the senior marketplace.  His clients include 50+ communities, health care companies and media outlets, including GRAND, a magazine written for today’s active grandparents.

I also will occasionally contribute, and the group is also looking for bloggers from other areas to contribute (i.e. doctors, bankers, social workers, etc.) If you are interested, contact Tom Mann at trmann@verizon.net.

The Villages of North Branch, an Ecumen community pictured above just north of Minneapolis has been named as one of the country’s top designed senior housing communities by a panel of judges convened by Design Magazine. 

The 14-member panel of judges, which included a number of leading national architects, selected The Villages of North Branch as one of four winners for top design in the March issue of Design.  Thirty-seven senior housing designs from across the nation qualified for the judging process. 

The Ecumen community was honored for its focus on empowering residentsm its use of technology, household-based care philosophy and interior design.  The Villages of North Branch provides assisted living, memory care, rehabilitation and nursing services.

To see what senior housing and care services looked like in North Branch before The Villages, go here.  Talk about a new day.

. . .  Enough with the headlines that depict seniors like neanderthals who live in a cave.

Here’s one today from the Hartford Courant:  Seniors Unexpectedly Receptive to New Technology.

 HELLOOOOOOO  . . . . yes, seniors do use technology, they work out, they work, they breathe, they have sex, they’re human beings.  And pretty soon America’s going to have more people with seniority than we’ve ever had. 

Time for media, policymakers, businesses and every aspect of our society to get real to America’s new reality.

If you want to read how technology is changing aging services, download our technology whitepapers or visit our technology section, where you can find other resources such as the Center for Aging Services Technologies.

 Keep it Real.

The SmartSilvers Alliance is an thought-provoking Silicon Valley group that sees technology as key to active, successful aging.  They’ve compiled a 10 Things to Know About The Silvers Market llist below.   While many Baby Boomers aren’t representative of these stats, these are interesting figures around the large wave of Americans who have seniority next.  To read more about technology in aging services, we invite you to visit our whitepaper library.

1. An American turns 50 every 8 seconds — that’s over 10,000 people every day (AARP).  That makes it the fastest growing population segment.  
2. 78 million Americans who were 50 or older as of 2001 controlled 67% of the country’s wealth, or $28 trillion (U.S. Census and Federal Reserve). Adults 50+ account for an estimated $2 trillion in total expenditures for 2005.
3. The 50+ have $2.4 trillion in annual income, which accounts for 42% of all after-tax income (U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey)
4. One-third of the 195.3 million Internet users in the U.S., 50+ silvers represent the Web’s largest constituency  (Jupiter Research) — that means  2/3 of Americans age 50-64 use the Internet (SeniorNet).
5. Email is the most popular online activity among 50+ users, followed by web browsing, research, and shopping  (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).
6. 72 percent of baby boomers have broadband Internet in their homes (ThirdAge and JWT Boom); they watch more TV than any other group.
7. Adults 50+ spend an average of $7 billion online annually (SeniorNet). Silvers Account for 40% of total consumer demand
8. The Internet is the most important source of information for baby boomers when they make a major marketing purchase, such as automobiles or appliances (Zoomerang).
9. 82 percent of adults aged 50+ who use the Internet research health and wellness information online (Pew Internet and American Life Project).
10. Contrary to popular belief – Silvers are not fanatically loyal to brands in fact 96 percent of baby boomers participate in word-of-mouth or viral marketing by passing a product or service information on to friends (ThirdAge and JWT Boom).

The Silvers  purchase:  41 percent of all new cars,  buy 25 percent of all toys (spend over $29 Billion annually on gifts for grandchildren),  go on 80 percent of all luxury travel trips , buy 60 percent of all healthcare products,  74 percent of all prescription drugs, and 51 percent of all over-the-counter drugs.  Plus they visit malls more often than any other age group and dine out 4-5 times per week.   (various sources)

Andrew Carle, founding director of the Program in Assisted Living/Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University, will hold an online keynote webcast next Wed., March 26th at 10 a.m. central as part of the McKnight’s Online Expo.  Registration is free.  You can reserve your spot here.  You can read more about technology in senior housing and aging services by visiting our white paper library here.

The Nitendo Wii video game was originanlly designed for young consumers, but we’re finding that a number of our customers are also enjoying it.  Several Ecumen communities use the Wii for bowling (which seems to be the most popular Wii sport)m tennis, baseball and boxing.  It also is being incorporated into Ecumen physical therapy sessions.

The photo above taken by Brian Basham of the Detroit Lakes Tribune is from Ecumen’s Emmanuel Community in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Rossman Elementary School’s 4th and 5th graders have twice monthly Wii sessions with their friends at Emmanuel Community.

 Emmanuel Community customer Suzy Rogstad is a former college field hockey player.  Now she’s trying tennis via the Wii and says “it’s fun.”  It’s interesting . . . just five years ago, there weren’t any Wiis.  Now seniors are using a variety of technologies in their daily lives.  And it’s only going to continue increasing.

Will baby boomers always be known as boomers, or will they take on the moniker “seniors” when they become 80, 90, 120 . . . . ?   Hmmmmmm  . . . . In our Age Wave Study, most boomers said they were fine with the term senior, but we didn’t ask them if they’d be called boomers or seniors . . . that would have been interesting . . . what do you want to be called when you’re in your 90s or 100s? 

 - Mary Furlong, the entrepreneur who started the SeniorNet program, will be holding her informative  “What’s Next?” Boomer Business Summit in Washington, D.C.   Several people have attended these in the past from Ecumen and have found it interesting. 

As a preview, here is a Q&A conference organizers did with Wall Street Journal technology columnist, Walt Mossberg:

 Q. What are the trends and products in personal technology that will assist the senior population with loss of vision, arthritic hands, etc?

A. I think that speech recognition and text speech recognition are becoming more common and are more in demand. The industry is slowly beginning to respond to this need; however, it is not widespread. Cell phone companies have produced phones with larger buttons that are in greater demand today. For example, Verizon Wireless has a new phone aimed at seniors. The primary focus is on simplicity and clarity, and this is not just for seniors, this is what everyone wants. A cell phone trend that is aimed not just for seniors is the development of bigger and clearer phone screens.

Q. Based on questions you receive from readers, what are the unmet needs that technology manufacturers need to pay attention to in order to address these needs?

A. The primary unmet need within the technology industry is simplicity and readability across the board, for all age groups. All people care about is that their technology works. Manufacturers claim they are addressing this unmet need but they often have mixed agendas and priorities. They often add the latest feature before it is ready.

Q. How important is design in creating products for the baby boomer population?

A. Design is important for every population, from the college student to the retiree. Design in every sense of the word is crucial. Hardcore techies may not appreciate how things look, but themainstream population of all ages appreciates beautiful design. They want products to be both functional and attractive and fit into their lifestyle, home, car, office, etc. In the last 5-6 years, there has been a resurgence by Apple in the music and phone arenas on designing beautiful products. They know how to package together fantastic design with power.

Q. What, in your view, are the most critical issues shaping technology as they relates to the boomer market?

A. Baby boomers have the most money. They buy a lot of technology, web subscriptions, etc, so they are big spenders. As long as the technology products and services they want to buy have the right features and are at the right price, they will continue to buy these products and services.

Q. What do you think will shape the national conversation about boomers this year?

A. The major national agenda item will be about the generational transfer. A large cohort of the population will be reaching retirement age, which will have a tremendous impact in many facets of life in this country and around the world. There will be competition for resources and jobs, and elder care and healthcare issues will play a larger role in the future.