The Airstream Dream in America
Published January 3, 2012
I was helping a friend move the other day and while unloading the storage space I noticed this beauty sitting in the back of the lot that we were working in. To me, The Airstream represents the American dream that almost became a reality.
Spirit of the Airstream
For almost a decade the Airstream captured the hearts and adventuresome spirits of so many in this country. One trip after another (from the storage space to the Uhaul) I kept thinking how ironic it is that I was loading up a Uhaul to drive across town to unload the Uhaul into a house about 3-4 times the size as this box on wheels. The Airstream has just a little bit more space than an average Uhaul although from the inside it seems exponentially more inviting and welcoming than a Uhaul interior.
Why the Airstream
What is it that draws us towards something like the Airstream but not the Uhaul? For me, it’s the bullet like design and porthole style windows that give it that space aged look. I hope to one day own one of these beauties myself but until then I’ll continue to dream and imagine myself cruising up the east coast with a much better drag coefficient than a Uhaul truck.
Baby Boomers and Social Media Awareness
Published February 1, 2010Source: Center for Media Research
According to a new study conducted by CPH Research on behalf of Continuum Crew, Baby Boomer-aged respondents’ anxiety has shifted from the collapse of the economy to the cost of health care. Most significant is the shift in the media consumption of this age group, as the only media activity to rise dramatically was time spent on the Internet.
This is one of several insights on the emergence of the new ‘social media maven’ among Baby Boomers, and indicates that social media has significantly carved out time generally reserved for traditional media.
Baby Boomers/Boomers are defined as the generation born between 1946 and 1964, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Generation Jones, coined by television director Jonathan Pontell, is commonly considered to be those born between 1954 and 1964, representing the younger segment of Boomers. Generation Ike (Ikes) are those born between 1934 and 1945.
Top Findings on anxiety and life events of Boomers are:
- Anxiety about the economy has decreased in the past year (46% indicated it as the issue they were ‘very nervous’ about in 2008); now the issue of most concern is cost of healthcare, as indicated by 49% in 2009.
- For older parents more adult children are moving back home than are leaving it. This is a previously unprecedented finding within this research series, and markedly shows that Boomers’ lives are in transition.
- Boomers are now re-framing the notion of frugal living into the idea of simplicity. Children moving back in with parents, or delaying leaving their parent’s home, is likely having an effect on the family dynamic and household, which may mean an inclination to the return of the extended family structure of the World War II era.
Top findings on media consumption are:
- Ikes and Boomers still use traditional media more than those of Generation Jones or Generation X, but not all Boomers consume media in the same way, the biggest gap being between older and younger Boomers. This is most striking within traditional print media, with high consumption by older Boomers of newspapers and magazines. Continue reading
Posted in Social Media | 
Baby Boomers, Facebook, Generation Jones, Generation X, Social Media, Social Media Maven, Twitter | Leave a commentApple, the Boomer Tablet and the Matrix
Published July 17, 2009Every once in a while I’ll do a Google search for my own name, as I’m sure most have done at lease once. Its rare that I find any new links or anything interesting besides the occasional new Facebook listings. I ran across this article today and thought that it was blog posting material. The full article can be seen here: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/apple-the-boomer-tablet-and-th.html
I have written here, here and here about Apple’s inevitable assault on the Tablet market. What I hadn’t factored until recently is how symbiotic such a device would be for Baby Boomers.
Why Baby Boomers? Well, for the same two reasons that this demographic is unlikely to embrace the palm-sized iPhone en masse.
One, such a bookish-sized tablet device – I’ll call it the Boomer Tablet – would be tailor-made for home Wi-Fi setups, thereby obviating the mobile access costs associated with iPhone, a significant barrier for a generation that is programmed to keep mobile bills within a tight spending range.
Two, because a larger-form factor device would offer Boomers a bigger viewing screen and “lifestyle” settings, like fatter keys and a more forgiving keyboard to ease input, and wizard-like shortcuts to simplify recurring tasks.
This is key, because with the onset of age, Boomers’ motor skills have become less precise; their vision has become poorer; and their eyes get tired easier.
As such, the premise of them plugging away on tiny keys and peering into the tiny screen of a mobile device like iPhone/iPod touch is a non-starter.
By contrast, the Boomer Tablet offers a superior input, viewing and playback environment for accessing your iTunes library, personal media, syndicated content services, iPhone Apps and presumably, Mac Apps; something that the 70M+ Baby Boomers in the US who are aged 53-73 would likely find compelling.
Continue Reading here: http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/apple-the-boomer-tablet-and-th.html
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