The Business of Aging

The Business of Ageing (in New Zealand). Yes Folks, it's Global.

Dr. Keith Johnson, an Independent Economic Consultant in New Zealand was kind enough to send me a new report, "The Business of Ageing: Realising the economic potential of older people in New Zealand".

In 2011 the first of the baby boomers have reached the age of 65. Baby boomers expect their later years to be very different to their parents' generation.  More are working into their 60s, they enjoy better health, are better educated and have more money to spend.

The report focuses on two opportunities for New Zealand's future growth. These are to:

1.     increase the number of older people who choose to remain active in the workforce; and
2.     tap into the growing mature consumer market.

Key findings

The report presents the results of new research on the projected future economic contribution of the growing older population.  The report finds that:

•     more older people will participate in the workforce;
•     the economic value of older people's paid and unpaid work will increase;
•     older people's contribution to tax revenue will increase; and
•     the mature consumer market will become more important.

Where to next?

The report highlights the potential of older people and aims to encourage discussion amongst business groups, employers, NGOs, individuals and government agencies.  It offers an alternative perspective to the often negative portrayal of the effects of population ageing on the economy.

Download it today. It's good.

The Airlines and the Aging Population: We're Sorry Old Man, You Can't Use This Bathroom. Please Return to Steerage.

I was recently on a coast-to-coast @UnitedAirlines flight where an older man in his mid 80s who was sitting a few rows behind first class needed to use the bathroom but the drink cart prevented him from walking to the back of the airplane. So he walked into first class to use the bathroom. A flight attendant turned him away.

I was shocked.

When I googled the topic it didn't surprise me to find plenty of similar stories.     Here is one I read on an online travel site:

"Sunday night, on American Airlines, I watched a flight attendant rush to stop an elderly gentleman (who was sitting directly behind First Class), and send him allllllll the way to the back of the plane to stand behind 8 people to use THAT bathroom. Several people in First Class smiled or gave a thumbs up to the flight attendant."

I'm not sure what shocked me more. The story or the user comments such as "You get what you pay for. When someone pays 10-20x more for a ticket, they should have their own bathroom. Plus, once the old man gets to use it, others inevitably will try to bend the rules."

Wow.

That 85 year-old man likely fought wars to preserve the freedoms the young stewardess enjoys - the same stewardess who denied the man access to the bathroom. I felt so bad for the man. And I felt tremendous anger toward the airline.

But I realized that my anger toward the airline was an emotional response to a policy I did not agree with. Yet, the airlines have every right to have such a policy.

But it's a bad policy that reveals just how ill prepared most businesses are for the changing demographics of this country. 

Here are some facts about the aging population (in the USA):

- The older population--persons 65 years or older--numbered 39.6 million in 2009 (the latest year for which data is available). This is about 13% of the U.S. population - roughly one in every eight Americans.

- By 2030, the older population--persons 65 years or older--will number about 72.1 million older persons (more than twice their number in 2000). This will be about 19% of the U.S. population.

Lets assume an airplane has 200 passengers on board. If the demographics of the passengers matches the USA then by 2030 we can expect that nearly 40 "coach" passengers will be over the age of 65. And many will have some sort of physical limitations. And some will have some sort of bladder control issues (10% of people over 65 do). So clearly the airlines will have to adapt to the needs of what is going to be an important customer base - older passengers.    

I'm not alone in recognizing this marketing fact. Here is what Stephen Shaw had to say about this topic in his book Airline Marketing and Management: 

"Clearly, the product that airlines offer will have to evolve, with more provision being made for disabled passengers and those needing help at airports. In terms of subtler changes, the travel industry may have to adjust its promotional policies. In advertising to promote leisure travel, the industry still focusses on images of fun-loving younger people……."

Even airports need to adapt - from changing the physical layout of airports (you can't expect a 65+ year old to run to a gate a mile away on a short layover) to providing more accommodating procedures and seating at security screenings (e.g., more benches where people can sit down to remove and put on their shoes).

And it is not just the travel industry.

It is  very clear to me is how unprepared most businesses are - especially services businesses - for the growth of the aging population.

Every industry needs to adapt to the needs of older customers - from product design to customer service (patience). Not doing so will alienate this important (and large) customer group and result in significant lost revenue.

On the flip side, businesses that start NOW to accommodate this demographic group will reap the rewards and gain a competitive advantage. And those that delay will find themselves falling further and further behind.

Gentiva buys Odyssey. Convergence and Consolidation in the Care for Aging Americans.

Last week Gentiva Health Services (GTIV) paid $1 billion to purchase Odyssey Healthcare (ODSY).

This Investors.com article gives an excellent analysis of what this may mean for the broader senior care marketplace.  In particular, the home health care, assisted living, long-term health care, nursing home care and hospice markets.

Read the article here.

New Twitter List - The Business of Aging

I recently (I know, late to the party) started a Twitter account for SeniorCareMarketer.com to share timely news on the senior and Boomer marketplace so I invite you to follow us on Twitter. 

I quickly realized there are some really fabulous Twitter accounts on the subject of Aging, Boomers and senior care. So I am building a Twitter List that aggregates these various Twitter accounts.  The List is The Business of Aging and I invite you to follow the list.

If you know of any Twitter accounts that I should add to this list please let me know. I tend to favor non promotional Twitter accounts that provide useful news on the space. Check it out here.

Opening Day - Aging in America 2010 & Boomer Summit

SeniorCareMarketer.com is at the annual Aging in America conference and Boomer Summit this week. We are exhibiting, sponsoring and speaking. I will try and give a daily update as time permits.  

As I have said before, any company that markets products or services relating to the aging population must be at these events.  They are two of the best.

This morning I participated in a panel discussion/workshop titled Entrepreneurship & New Career Opportunities within the Boomer Market. Other panel members included:

Mark Miller, President, 50+Digital, LLC
A.D. Frazier, COO/Co-founder, BOTH
Beth Sanders, Founder & CEO, LifeBio.com
Jeff Williams, President, Bizstarters.com LLC

This was a great session that provided a lot of practical information for anyone doing business in or thinking about doing business in the "senior care" marketplace.

Mark Miller did a fantastic job moderating this event and summarizing  the opportunities in this growing market.  Mark also reminder everyone that the 55+ demographic posts the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity.

Jeff Williams, an expert on starting a business after 50, says "In the corporate world, one person can fire you. But to be truly "unemployed" as a self-employed person all of your customers would have to "fire you", and I don't think most of us are so stupid as to let this happen." Jeff discussed how boomers who have been downsized will have to accept the new reality that they may never again be employed with another Fortune 500 company - and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. 

A.D. Frazier, the CEO of a very interesting start-up called BOTH (Back of the House) spoke about how his company can help any solo practitioner (the majority of businesses) get started (incorporating, business plans, web hosting, billing, etc.) by outsourcing all non revenue producing activities. I wish I new of BOTH when I started my business ten years ago!

Finally, Beth Sanders took us through the early days of her start-up, LifeBio. LifeBio simplifies the publishing process so that anyone can create their own book of life's adventures. Customers create an autobiography or the biography of a loved one by using LifeBio's carefully-crafted questions or by using our Memory Journal or other reminiscence products. Beth discussed how she created a scalable business by utilizing innovative distribution "partnerships" - something any business, regardless of size, can benefit from.   

 

Event Review: 2009 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit

I attended the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit & Business Plan Competition this week .  We (SeniorCareMarketer.com) helped sponsor the event.

How was it?

In a word, remarkable. In two words, highly worthwhile.

This year's event had record attendance (how many events can say this these days?) and Mary Furlong and Associates puts on the event and does an extraordinary job. Their next event is in March  after the Aging in America conference. Block off the date and attend both.

So who attended this Boomer summit?

Prominent Silicon Valley VC firms like Piper Jaffray and corporate VC's including Johnson & Johnson's Business Development Group which is responsible for identifying businesses for J&J to invest in and/or acquire. 

Bloggers, analysts and Authors including Ken Dychtwald from Age Wave.

Innovators (companies)  that develop and market products and services relating to Boomers and the aging population. A very diverse group. Some of these include:

First Street: An online and print catalog of innovative products for Boomers.
GilberGuide:  Senior housing guide and resource database.
Read How You Want: On-demand, optimized alternative format editions of books, etc.
Caring.com: Content and resources for people caring for aging loved ones. 
HeartMath: Products and services that enable caregivers manage stress (some very cool technologies).
CareSquare: Online community/social network for families and caregivers.
Halo Monitoring: Technologies that help seniors live more independently (fall detection etc.).
Silver Ride: Transportation options for the aging population.
Boomers and Beyond: Wellness services for Boomers and aging population.
Immersion Active: Interactive agency for the mature market.
Posit Science: Brain fitness programs (very cool stuff).
The Senior List: Online directory of senior care providers. 
SeniorCareMarketer.com: Marketing and PR software for companies marketing to Boomers and the aging population.
ETR: Help children, young people and adults develop attitudes and behaviors that contribute to optimal health and well-being.
Famililink: Web site that helps families stay in touch.
Magnolia Prime: Telephone reassurance and support system for the aging marketplace.
PharmaSurveyor: Online software to check drug interactions and side effects (very useful). 
Traveling4Health: Medical tourism.

There were a bunch of great sessions . Too many to write about. But four I really enjoyed included:

Jody Holtzmann, SVP of Research at AARP gave an absolutely wonderful keynote presentation on market research relating to Boomers and the aging population. Mr. Holtzmann's information will benefit any company marketing to this sector and AARP has some of the best data available anywhere on this space. Visit AARP's research page regularly if you compete in this space.  I do. RSS feeds here.

Steve Jurvetson from DFJ Global Network (his blog is here - it's a good one) spoke about four market forces that present excellent opportunities for breakthrough innovation and entrepreneurship (IOW, product ideas). These include:

1. Disruption: Without disruption entrepreneurship and start-ups don't exist. Three types;

A.  New distribution channels (Internet)

B.  Technologies 
C.  Structural Changes in Markets

2. Deregulation
3. Financial Turmoil
4. Demographic Shifts (e.g., aging population)

Laurie Orlov, senior care and boomer industry analyst spoke about technologies for aging in place. I was intrigued about her definition of a good analyst - "someone who describes market shapes, identifies and describes participants in the space (vendors), and predicts trends".  Laurie does a good job at this and compares the current Boomer marketplace to eCommerce in 1999.  She presented what she believes are the four categories to aging in place technologies, a sector that will be huge in the coming years:

1. Home and Personal Safety (e.g., alarms, motion sensors, med reminders, etc.)
2. Communication/Engagement  (e.g., email, video, cell phone, etc.)
3. Personal Health - med reminders,  wellness, etc,)
4. Learning (cognitive improvement, social networking, education, distance learning, etc.)

Ken Dychtwald from Age Wave gave a stellar presentation on marketing to Boomers. Ken is amazing and should be on any event organizer's short list of keynote presenters. He presented agents of change that any company marketing to Boomers and the aging population (pretty much every company) must know. Here are four:

1. Maturity not what it used to be. Today's "seniors" are active, have money (control more wealth than any other demographic group), are healthier and live longer. The average life expectancy was 25 in year 1000 and is near 80 today - BTW, Ken says the human body has a biological potential of  140 :-). Lessons for marketer's: Be Aspirational, not desperational in your marketing.
2. Demography is Destiny. There were no pediatricians in the 1940s - wasn't considered a necessary sub specialty - until the Boomers arrived.  The point? All modernized countries are about to get hit with this age wave explosion and things will change. Ken's advice - get out in front and dig a big hole. IOW, as marketer's you need to act now.
3. The New Power is Consumer. It is hard to identify a product category where people 55+ don't spend the most. Furniture, health, travel, entertainment, etc. I found this very interesting. 
4. New beginnings. Cycle Lifespan. There used to be distinguished segments. We're born, go to school, work, retire, die. And products were marketed accordingly. No more. Education, work and leisure are no longer separate. IOW, target "mindset" and "lifestage", not age.  Think about this - Ken is saying that age is NOT best way to break up the population. This is very interesting. Careers, marriage, singlehood, caregivng, empty nest, retirement, grandparents - they happen at different times for people. 

OK....who didn't attend this event?

Traditional HR technology, work-life, EAP or wellness companies. Why more human resource professionals and vendors are not focusing on this space is beyond me.  Baby Boomers (born from 1946 to 1964) are planning to work longer and many until they are physically no longer able to do so according to AARP research.  No matter how you look at it, the workforce is going to age considerably the next 10-20 years and this will have profound implications for organizations - on recruitment, talent management, employee wellness, management, leadership development, etc. Within the last ten years we've already seen employers shift benefit spending - they now spend more on elder care benefits than child care benefits but this is only the beginning. But simply offeering employees LTC insurance as a voluntary benefit or access to an R&R for elder care support won't cut it.

Brain fitness is a booming market at the moment (50% of boomers state losing mental capacity as biggest fear). With an aging workforce you can bet that employers have a vested interest in maintaining employee cognitive function - which by the way begins to decrease in your forties. Over thirty published clinical studies show brain fitness software works. What a huge opportunity for talent management software companies, training & development, wellness and other HR vendors.

BTW, another interesting shift may be in outsourcing. With such a vast and educated population (Boomers) we will likely see more "outsourcing" inside America. The Boomers can serve this market. More on that in a future post.

Breadth and Depth of Senior and Boomer Marketplace. And More Trade Shows.

One can often diagnose the health of a market or industry by the number of conferences and trade shows.  And if this is the case, it appears the senior care and Boomer markets (they are interchangeable) are quite healthy - in spite of the economy.

One obvious reason is  that people have no choice when it comes to aging. And when deciding whether to buy another big screen TV or computer gadget versus an emergency response system for mom or dad (or other health care need), the later will always win out.  So a lot of the companies we see doing well these days are companies that produce stuff that people genuinely need.

And as the chart on this page shows there is quite a bit of breadth and depth to the boomer and senior care marketplace.  On an aggregate basis, this $2 trillion+ dollar market appears to be a recession proof - care giving and elder care needs don’t go away in a down economy.

Anyway, back to events.

SeniorCareMarketer.com tracks hundreds of boomer and senior care conferences and trade shows across North America (as well as media outlets, advertising oppourtunities, journalists, associations, direct mail lists, buyers guides, award competitions and more) and three great events that we're going to include the following. We hope to see you there.

NCOA-ASA Aging in America Conference. March 15-19, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV

Boomer Business Summit, March 19, 2009 at Bally's in Las Vegas, Nevada

Design for Living - May 7, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA

Selling to the Senior Market? SeniorCareMarketer.com Formally Launches!

We announced a number of months ago the beta launch of SeniorCareMarketer.com.  This week Fisher Vista, LLC formally launched SeniorCareMarketer (see Business Week article) to companies that market their services and products to the rapidly-growing senior care market. These companies now have a new high-tech tool at their disposal.

I anticipate the product to be well received by healthcare companies due to the success of its sister product, HRmarketer.com that was launched in 2002 and is the largest service of its type in the human resource marketplace.

SeniorCareMarketer.com combines databases of marketing and public relations opportunities with press release distribution, campaign management, and social networking services. A full range of Internet marketing and SEO services are also available.

SeniorCareMarketer.com is a direct response to the growing number of companies marketing products and services related to the expanding elder care industry, fueled by the aging of the Baby Boomer generation. An estimated 70 million Americans will be over the age of 65 by the year 2030 - equal to one out of every five Americans.

Included among SeniorCareMarketer.com's vast databases are profiles of journalists and bloggers who cover the industry, media outlets (including advertising information, editorial calendars and list rental information for direct marketing), conferences and trade shows, speaking opportunities, award competitions, and more. All are designed to help companies reach the many buyers and purchasing influencers of products and services relating to the care of older adults--including family caregivers, medical doctors, nurses, homecare agencies, hospitals, geriatric care managers, pharmacists, assisted living facilities, social service agencies, physical therapists, and even seniors themselves.

For more information, visit www.SeniorCareMarketer.comand view a screen tour here.

You can also create a FREE profile if your company in the SeniorCareMarketer Buyers Guide by visiting:  http://www.seniorcaremarketer.com/site/home/community/seniorcaresuppliers.php

Another Way the Aging of America Impacts Employers

A recent poll from LifeCare,  a provider of work-life employee benefits, reveals how the majority of single women who belong to the sandwich generation of caregivers (those caring for children and elders simultaneously) are most challenged by two issues: balancing the needs of their loved ones and coping with the overall stress of caregiving.  Don't bother with the hassle of doing a similar poll of men - trust me, the results will be the same.

When speaking to employers about how the aging workforce will impact them, most talk about attrition and the challenges of replacing the retiring boomers (although given the stock market performance, I think many boomers will extend their careers by a few years).

However, perhaps a greater threat to employers are the costs of dealing with employee stress due to caregiving.

Consider these facts:

• Family caregivers experiencing extreme stress have been shown to age prematurely. This level of stress can take as much as 10 years off a family caregiver's life. - Source: Arno, Peter S., Economic Value of Informal Caregiving.
• American businesses can lose as much as $34 billion each year due to employees need to care for loved ones 50 years of age and older. - Source: Metlife Mature Market Institutes.
• 44.4 million caregivers (or one out of every five households ) are involved in caregiving to persons aged 18 or over. - Source: National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.

For these reasons, expect a surge in the popularity of workplace programs (employee benefits) that help employees not only cope with stress (Employee Assistance Programs) but also deal with the complexities of caring for aging loved ones (Work-Life Counseling, Resource and Referral Programs).

These are inexpensive employee benefits ($10 - $20 per employee per year) that deliver a huge value to both employees and employers.

Cool New Cell Phone for Seniors. And Smart Product Development.

A collegue sent me information on a new "Senior Cell Phone" called Jitterbug.

The company GreatCall created Jitterbug to "provide Baby Boomers and their parents with perfectly simple cell phones and services that work the way they want them to".

The company's mission is to "simplify technology and make it available to everyone. Jitterbug's products, services and systems are centered on simplicity, personalization and ease of use".

The company was founded by Arlene Harris (45-year veteran in wireless and creator of the SOS emergency phone) and Martin Cooper ("Father of the first mobile cellular phone.").

This is a great idea. I remember shopping for a cell phone for my aging mom a few years back and could not find anything even close to user friendly at Verizon Wireless or any other major wireless company.

Case and point. The results for a  Google search (today) for "Verizon cell phone senior"  mostly returns information on Verizon "calling plans"  for seniors.  This confirms how the folks at Verizon think - it's not about the product, it's about the calling plan.  And for most cell phone users this is correct - the products are all pretty much all the same - shoppers are really buying calling plans. But the senior care market is different.   The only user-friendly senior cell phone in the search results is the Jitterbug phone.

Kudos to GreatCall for developing such a phone.  This is a great example of a company who undertands our country's demographics and their needs. 

By the way, an interesting and related blog post our readers may find interesting is Sony confirms that they are tuned out.  Not to pick on Sony but this blog post offers some interesting perspectives on "identifying new products that consumers actually want ."