The Business of Aging

IPhone Apps to "Medical Homes". A Lot of Senior Care and Boomer News This Week!

We just sent out our weekly Business of Aging newsletter. The news stories covered in this issue are listed below and you can view the newsletter/details here. You can subscribe to this newsletter here.

I'm sharing the stories of this week's newsletter below because there are so many great stories - each one is a blog post itself :-) 

• HAPPYneuron releases iPhone Brain Game
• National Economy Threatened By Baby Boomer Retirement Boom 
• Medical home' concept may lead to better health care
• Intel Announces Increased Momentum for Personalized Care Management at Home
• Stages of Senior Care: Awareness is Key for an Industry Poised for Major Growth
• New Technology Drives Therapies For Older Patients, Those With Alzheimer's
• Study: Elders happier with long-term in-home care from families 
• CareMinds.com Announces CareSite, an Innovative Feature for Families and Friends to Manage the Care Needs of an Elder Loved One
• Why Long-Term Care is So Hard to Provide
• Baby Boomers boost tour bus business
• Not Taking 'Not Hiring' for an Answer
• Baby Boomers at Work: Met Life Study Finds Boomers Extended Working  Despite warnings, US companies remain unprepared for Baby Boomers' exodus

Technology and the Aging Population

Included in a recent issue of our Business of Aging newsletter was an article from Katie Kline titled Psychologists Suggest Ways To Include The Aging Population In The Technology Revolution.

Katie writes that for the aging population technological progress can in fact be more limiting, and the key to including the aging population in information technology is to adopt design principles that are age sensitive.

According to the researchers, there are several age-related changes that affect technology use in older adults, including difficulties with vision, audition, motor control and cognition.

Specifically, older adults experience reduced visual acuity, color perception and susceptibility to glare. They also encounter a greater difficulty hearing high-pitched sounds and perceive a greater interference from background noises. As for motor skills, ailments such as arthritis can limit a person's use of technology as well. Aging is also associated with a general slowing of cognitive processes, decreased memory capacity and attentional control, and difficulties with goal maintenance. It also takes older adults twice as long to learn new information compared to younger adults.

There is hope that some technological advances may ultimately be able to boost technological abilities in the aging population.

The source of the article is Katie Kline from the Association for Psychological Science. If interested read it here.

Caring.com Raises $10 million In 2nd Round. Total $16 million Raised Since 07.

In September 2007, Caring.com raised $6 million led by DCM and Split Rock Partners.

This week Caring.com announced a 2nd round funding of $10 million led by a new investor, Shasta Ventures, with participation from previous backers DCM and Split Rock Partners.

The company has raised $16 million in total.

Caring.com says it will use the money for new hires, as well as an expansion of the core Caring.com site, and Gilbert Guide, the eldercare services directory it acquired in October.

Caring.com runs display ads and sponsorships; co-founder and CEO Andy Cohen said about half of the site’s advertisers are pharmaceutical brands. As for the recent scrutiny by the FDA around pharma ads, Cohen said Caring.com was insulated because the Agency was focused on search ads and user-generated content—not display ads or curated editorial.

I know Andy Cohen and respect the work he is doing at Caring.com. Raising $16 million in three years is a LOT of money in any economy. But to raise $16 million in this economy is quite an accomplishment - almost unheard of. What this tells me is the investors -- who have had access to all the financials and web analytic data of Caring.com -- like what they see. Tod Francis, managing partner at Shasta Ventures, said the company’s traffic growth and ad performance were what attracted the investment (Caring.com says web site traffic has grown to over a million monthly uniques).

Laurie Orlov, a former Forrester analyst, wrote a post on her Aging In Place Technology Watch blog about Caring.com and their business model. It's quite good.   

She says……(I paraphrase - read the whole post here):

"
"

Like WebMD, Caring.com faces a lot of competition. Time will tell if they achieve the same level of success. 

Our Responsibilities When Marketing to Seniors

Boomer Immersion the corporate blog of boomer marketing firm Immersion Active, posted a blog "Marketing to Older Adults: More Than a Cheap Laugh and a Fast Buck"  which I thought was a well thought out post. 

I particularly liked this: 

"For the first time in history, adults over the age of 40 are the consumer majority. What countries like Singapore, Sweden, and Denmark, (ranked among the top five for Global Competitiveness and also countries with an aging population) know is that (to steal the words of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology) “demography is destiny.

We have a responsibility as marketers. As targeting boomers and seniors becomes increasing popular, it is imperative that we don’t screw it up. There are all kinds of stereotypes that surround the elderly. Frankly, some of them are funny (and I’ll be the first to acknowledge the value of being able to laugh at ourselves). However, adults in the second half of life are more than a cheap laugh or a fast buck. There are many layers of wealth (beyond financial) that our country’s mature population possesses – something we need to keep this in mind as we increasingly focus our marketing dollars on them."

Well said Immersion Active.

Aging Population Faces Caregiver Shortage.

Lisa Gibbs from MONEY Magazine wrote a great blog post titled Aging boomers face caregiver shortage.

She begins her blog post with a mention of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, a provision in the health care debates to create a national long-term care insurance program that would allow people to pay an average $65 a month and, after five years, be eligible for between $50 to $100 a day in benefits.

In Lisa's words:

"While $100 is better than nothing, I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t cover very much. It would pay for about six hours of daily care from the home aides I hired recently to help my mother recover from surgery. It certainly wouldn't cover assisted living or nursing homes, which run into the tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Whether through private long-term care insurance or a public plan, it’s clear this country needs to do a better job thinking about how we’re going to care for ourselves (and our parents) as we get older and frailer. Few of us have saved enough money or bought insurance to cover whatever care we need in our later years. But there's another aspect of the long-term care problem that people have overlooked: A looming "caregiver crunch," in the words of Ken Dychtwald, a gerontologist and president of the consultancy Age Wave.".

Lisa nails it. She is absolutely right.

Census Bureau Provides First Profile of Baby Boomers in 13 Years

The U.S. Census Bureau has releases an outstanding PowerPoint presentation that provides a look at a variety of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the baby boom generation (the population born between 1946 and 1964 ), such as geographic distribution, marital status, educational attainment and income, and compares them with adults in younger and older age groups.

To access the PowerPoint presentation visit this page (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/age/general-age.html#bb) and near the top of the page under the Baby Boomer header you'll see a line "Selected Characteristics of Baby Boomers 42 to 60 Years Old in 2006 [PPT] | [PDF 2.3M]". Just select PPT.

The USA Today does a nice job summarizing the findings but I highly recommend you download the PPT. 

Enjoy.

7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit Announced

Mary Furlong & Associates, the nation’s premier consultancy for marketing and business development strategies for the 50+ market, announced today the dates for the 7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit. What’s Next, taking place on Friday, March 19, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, will focus on the most effective strategies for selling products and services to the post-recession baby boomer market.

Visit the event web site and REGISTER here.  We attended this event last year and I verify it is OUTSTANDING. If you sell a product or service relating to the aging population, go to this show.

Every year, What’s Next brings together the country’s leading baby boomer strategists and marketers at an event designed to introduce new research, products and services that truly represent what is next in the boomer market, and this year is no different. The 2010 event will emphasize integrated, social and mobile marketing; innovative distribution channels and will provide a profile of business segments that have moved into the rapidly growing sector of care giving, an $800 billion market 1.

The 2010 Summit boasts premier participants such as AARP, Abeo Partners, Caring.com, firstSTREET, Forum One Networks, HeartMath, iVillage, Microsoft Corporation, SeniorCareMarketer.com, Southwest Airlines and Zillow.com discussing their latest baby boomer marketing strategies. 

Confirmed speakers to date include:
    

•     Kevin Donnellan, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, AARP
•     Mark Graham, Senior Vice President, iVillage.com
•     Dr. Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow.com
•     Catherine Calarco, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, HeartMath
•     Andy Cohen, Founder and CEO, Caring.com
•     Steve Cook, Chief Marketing Officer, Abeo Partners LLC
•     Brandon Daniell, Chief Innovator, Abeo Partners LLC
•     Dr. Mary Furlong, CEO, Mary Furlong & Associates
•     Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President, Research and Strategic Analysis, AARP
•     Bill Johnston, Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks
•     Mark Miller, journalist and consultant
•     Gary Moulton, Aging Coordinator/Product Manager, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group
•     Bud Myers, Senior Director of Merchandising, firstSTREET
•     Mark Willaman, Founder of SeniorCareMarketer.com and HRmarketer.com

The What’s Next Boomer Business Summit is an official post-conference of the NCOA-ASA National Aging in America Conference taking place March 15-19 in Chicago.

Related Posts:

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 1.

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 2.

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 3