Having trouble reading this message? Click Here

Mary Furlong & Associates' Boomer/Senior Market Report
Exploring the 10 Trends Powering the Age Boom
May 2007 - Vol. 4, No. 4

In This Issue:

Look for us on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams on Monday, May 14.
In a segment on "Boomers in the Year 2017," Mary shares insights from her book, Turning Silver Into Gold, and discusses business opportunities in the boomer marketplace.

LETTER FROM MARY

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It's that exciting time of year when we start the official first round of judging of business plans for the 4th Annual Silicon Valley Boomer Business Plan Competition. I just took a look at the list of companies, entrepreneurs and business ideas, and the countries of origin of the founders. We have a very nice mix of entrepreneurs from the top universities in the U.S. as well as mid-career entrepreneurs. Again, our strategy to target the market through online relationships in portals such as Facebook seems to have worked: Entrepreneurs from as far away as Israel, Germany, India and the Philippines entered business plans.

Our first-rate team of screening judges reviewed the plans this week in Round 1 of the selection process, providing feedback to the entrants and choosing 21 semifinalists. Congratulations to the following boomer businesses on making the first cut of the Boomer Business Plan Competition:

Health, Wellness & Eldercare Category
CellThera - cell-based transplants for severely disabled stroke patients
ColoGlow - noninvasive tool for colorectal cancer screening
Curant - patient-centered, device-based therapies for urinary incontinence
cVision Medical Solutions, Inc. - noninvasive way to measure central venous pressure using ultrasound
DigitRx - remote monitoring for cardiac rehabilitation
LifeXtend - GPS technology delivering medical attention to heart attack victims
Optimal Vision - noninvasive procedure to correct presbyopia (loss of near vision)
SeroNostics - point-of-care diagnostic device capable of diagnosing disease in minutes
Tivra - medical device for remote health monitoring
World Hearing Organization - comprehensive affordable health care services for the hearing impaired

General Category
AmeliaPlex - medication reminder software
Ancient Stones - all-natural mineral makeup
Apsora Corp./Enclavez - enables families and friends to build their own private relationship network
Blue Hair Action Wear - Internet retail store selling high-quality action wear
CareerSpice - online employment matchmaking services
Ernest Lamberts - provider of self-administered estate planning, management, and settlement solutions
My Celery - computer-free email exchange system
NavGate Technologies - online knowledge base for planning short-term or long-term care
OurCoupleSpace - online relationship management/enrichment application for couples
Prime Footwear - footwear for consumers with joint problems
Sute International - gourmet functional food to prevent or improve health conditions

Our finalist judges include the top leaders in the nonprofit world in aging:

At our upcoming event in Silicon Valley, you can hear the finalists present their ideas. At our Authors, VCs and Influentials Luncheon, you can sit down and have lunch with leaders and experts in the boomer marketplace. Author Gail Sheehy will be among those hosting a lunch table at this event. We are also featuring a media panel so you can learn what the writers who cover this marketplace are looking for. Media panelists will include Mark J. Miller, President/Founder of 50+ Digital; Paul Kleyman of Aging Today; Sara Solovitch of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal ; Kristen Gerencher of MarketWatch; and Susan Ayers Walker, Managing Director, SmartSilvers Alliance.

Mollie Katzen, winner of a 2007 James Beard award, is planning the menu once again. You will have a chance to learn from Mollie about the latest trends in healthy living and weight loss. You can also meet and engage with our corporate sponsors AARP, Posit Science, Hewlett-Packard, MetLife Mature Market Institute and Morrison & Foerster.

The highlight will be keynote speaker Safa Rashtchy, Managing Director and Senior Internet Analyst at Piper Jaffray, speaking on "The User Revolution and the Boomer Generation."

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Online Community Business Forum produced by Forum One Communications. Even though I have been following the trends in online community and social networking for over 20 years (SeniorNet in l986, ThirdAge Media in l996), there was much to learn. Bill Johnston and Jim Cashel do a brilliant job of assembling the right thought leadership and providing a venue for discussion. There were representatives from the following companies attending the conference: eBay, Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, Dell, AARP, Salon, Lithium and LiveWorld, just to name a few. In a provocative session to cap off the event, Peter Friedman and Jerry Michalski led a discussion on looking forward in community and looking back. What hasn't changed over the past 20 years is that people still value the experience of connecting with one another. Communities of customers can provide valuable insight to the company or organization, but they need support and resources to grow.

What has changed is the bandwidth, the growth of mobile devices, and the fact that community is becoming an increasingly important part of the organization. A big change of late is the way in which companies are turning to the online community to provide market insight. Sean O'Driscoll from Microsoft spoke of the more than 4,000 Microsoft community leaders who provide peer help and support in the communities. Sean has managed to meet personally with over 2,500 of these leaders, gleaning amazing insight into the customer and his/her needs. Yahoo! spoke of corporate branded communities inside their company. Another change today regarding online community relates to the digital natives and how wired or wireless the next generation is. Media events such as the tragedy at Virginia Tech were covered by hybrid media -- the social networking perspective via Facebook and You Tube reporting in addition to the national news.

One topic that inspired a lot of conversation was the shared learning about how to grow the online community. What is working: strong peer recognition that secures the installed base and turns the base of most valuable community contributors into evangelists; strong search engine marketing for the community without a lot of images and graphics that are not picked up by the search engines; direct mail that points the non-community members toward community; portal placement where aspects of one community fit inside another portal; and cause-related marketing. The Forum One conference organizers walk the walk and talk the talk. They provided a wiki to capture the results. Several members of the conference group suggested valuable books for summer reading, including Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers; Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins; and finally Don't Bother Me Mom -- I'm Learning! by Marc Prensky.

In the final keynote at the What's Next Conference, Larry Keeley of Doblin spoke about the characteristics of online community. It is not enough to do justice to Larry's ideas in this newsletter as he is so profound -- best to hear him in person. He is one of the best speakers on the planet! But since we are on the topic of community, I did want to list Larry's six aspects of authentic community:

  • effort - what people put into the community
  • purpose - why has the group gathered
  • identity - what is intrinsic to the community that gives it its identity, or why we affiliate with a group
  • organic - how is the community balanced and rich through its diversity
  • adaptive - how resilient, flexible, scalable and responsive is the community
  • freedom in the community - allowing for choice and access and empowering its members

As the founder of SeniorNet, we aspired to have this kind of community; so too when we created ThirdAge Media. Now, we are creating community offline through our What's Next and Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit events -- as well as through our community of readers. We will move into some kind of social networked connection in the future so it will be easier for our readers to participate in the discussion.

So…what does all this have to do with the Boomer Marketplace? Well, I think "choosing community" is primary on the minds of the boomers in their personal lives as well. Many boomers are "rightsizing" their lives (see Ciji Ware's book), cashing out of the their homes and moving to other communities. One friend told me that after his wife took a big job as a CEO in a large company, she realized after a year that she did not want to do that anymore. They wanted to find a new community, a place to settle in and build roots. The major factor in their choice was access to their grandchild. It is the fact that we have a bonus round of up to 30 years that gives us many choices. For those of us who spend a lot of time at the computer all day, events give us a time to come together and to share perspectives. I am now a member of the Golden Gate Yacht Club community -- and on the membership committee, so let me know if you want to join in. I go every year to the Sonoma Jazz Festival on Memorial Day weekend, and increasingly feel a part of that community up there. There is an academic community at Santa Clara that is very rich and rewarding. And there is the community of those of us who are building businesses aimed at the boomer marketplace and beyond.

We are going to choose a mosaic of communities to engage in -- some will be intellectual, some social, some spiritual and some focused around play and health. As we morph our identities from the key roles in the work world to our next phase, it will be important to think hard about the people and communities in which we want to participate. We will have our home place, our online place, our work place and our third place.

I'd like to take a final moment to honor the late David Halberstam. Six years ago I had the rare privilege of being on a panel with him at the "Technology and Us" conference at Santa Clara University. He had a brilliant mind, dancing eyes and a curiosity and warmth that were to be remembered. The meticulous way he researched his topics, the trilogy of stories about war and humanity, the deep understanding of sports and the role it plays in our culture, and the gifts he gave to others were inspiring. As I reflected on his life, it made me want to study harder the ideas that matter -- to research in a more detailed way, to ask the right questions, and to inspire and take the time to encourage others to lead in a courageous way. He was simply, the Best and the Brightest. Am going to add a few of his books to my summer reading list as well. I hope you might too. Do write and stay in touch.

All the best,

Mary

back to top

WRAP-UP

Word of Mouth Marketing Panel at the Boomer Summit
By Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

One of the more popular panels at the What's Next Boomer Business Summit in March was about Word of Mouth Marketing: how to get people talking about you and your business. As the moderator, I was joined by Paul Rand of the Zócalo Group, a word of mouth marketing company; Steve Curran of Pod Digital Design, a viral video company; and Matt Spiegel of Resolution Media, a search marketing company.

The panelists each had a different take on a single message: Consumers are in control of the conversation, and if you earn their respect, they will do your marketing for you, for free. Much of the discussion centered on different strategies to get customers talking about you, and how to encourage them to share their recommendations. Paul and I focused on creating long-term, sustainable recommendation programs. Steve showed how to use viral video as an easy-to-forward tool to encourage conversations, and Matt showed how increased word of mouth conversations result in improved listings in the search engines.

The panel dispelled the myths that podcasts, blogs and social networks are only for teenagers. People of all ages and interests are engaging in these media, and they are rapidly moving towards adult demographics. Even MySpace, the home of the teens and their favorite bands, is now 41 percent over age 35. Marketers need to carefully examine each blog and community to understand who is talking, and who is reading. There is undoubtedly a community for your market.

My book shares many hands-on marketing tips that you can use to implement a word of mouth campaign, such as "The 5 Ts of Word of Mouth Marketing." Here is an excerpt that gives you a sense of how to get started:

In the end, marketing is pretty easy: If people like your stuff, and if they trust you, they will tell their friends to do business with you.

Sometimes great word of mouth is an accident. Sometimes it's a well-planned campaign. Either way, there are certain basic elements that need to be in place for word of mouth to spread like crazy. Andy Sernovitz has studied hundreds of great word of mouth successes, and every single one has the Five Ts.

Each time you start a word of mouth campaign, take a few minutes to go through these five steps and figure out how they fit into what you're selling. It's simpler than you think, and it will guarantee that you'll create word of mouth that's ready to spread.

Talkers: Find The People Who Like To Talk
Are they your customers? Neighborhood moms? Doctors? Bloggers? Think about the people who are most likely to tell a friend about what you are doing. Make sure they know about your new topic of conversation.

Topics: Give Them a Reason to Talk
Give people a reason to talk about you. It doesn't need to be fancy. A special sale, good service, a neat new feature, a better flavor, a funny package. (Remember the Gateway computers that came in cow-patterned boxes?)

Tools: Help the Message Spread Faster and Farther
Do everything you can to make it easy for talkers to pass along your topic. Include postcards and stickers in the box when you ship a package. Put up a chat room so people can talk to each other. Join a blog conversation. Hand out samples. (Did you ever get one of those emails with a "secret" coupon that was supposedly for employees only? Did you forward it?)

Taking Part: Join The Conversation
Conversations die out when there's only one person talking. When people are talking about you, answer them. Reply to their email. Comment on blogs that write about you. Send a lot of thank-you notes.

Tracking: Measure and Understand What People are Saying
The word of mouth conversation is the best feedback you're ever going to get. It's far better than any other kind of market research, because it is the authentic voice of the consumer. Hear what people are saying, learn from it, and use it to be a better company. It comes down to this: Satisfied, interested people will say good things about you. It doesn't take much more than that. Understand this concept, devote yourself to it, and you will be a successful word of mouth marketer.

From Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking by Andy Sernovitz. Learn more at http://www.wordofmouthbook.com

back to top

NEW MARKET FINDINGS

The Retirement System in Transition: The 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey
By the Employee Benefit Research Institute

The 17th annual wave of the Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) suggests that American workers may be slow to recognize how the U.S. retirement system is changing, and those who are aware of these changes may not be adapting to them in ways that are likely to secure them a comfortable retirement.

  • Half of workers less confident about pension benefits. The RCS finds pension-plan changes by employers have left nearly half of workers less confident about the benefits they will receive from a traditional pension plan, but that those experiencing a decline in retirement benefits often fail to react constructively. Moreover, although Americans will rely increasingly on 401(k) retirement savings plans and other personal savings and investments to fund their retirement security, data suggest that many may not follow professional investment advice when it is offered to them.
  • Many workers counting on benefits that won't be there. Many workers are counting on employer-provided benefits in retirement that are increasingly unavailable. Only 41 percent of workers indicate they or their spouse currently have a defined benefit pension plan, yet 62 percent say they are expecting to receive income from such a plan in retirement. Likewise, workers are as likely to expect as retirees are to receive retiree health insurance through an employer, even though the number of employers offering this benefit to future retirees is declining.
  • Many workers unlikely to heed investment advice even if they get it. More than half of workers indicate they would be likely to take advantage of professional investment advice offered by companies that manage employer-sponsored retirement plans. However, two-thirds of these workers say they would probably implement only some of the recommendations they receive and 1 in 10 think they would implement none of them.
  • Americans overestimate long-term care coverage. One-quarter of workers and more than one-third of retirees report they have long-term care insurance (separate from health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid) to help pay for care they might need in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or at home. But only 10 percent of Americans age 65 and older are estimated to have had private long-term care insurance in 2002, suggesting that many are counting on coverage they do not actually have.
  • Most savings levels are modest. Almost half of workers saving for retirement report total savings and investments (not including the value of their primary residence or any defined benefit plans) of less than $25,000. The majority of workers who have not put money aside for retirement have little in savings at all: Seven in 10 of these workers say their assets total less than $10,000.
  • Continued ignorance about Social Security coverage. Despite the longstanding increase in the eligibility age for Social Security, only a small minority of workers are aware of the age at which they can receive full retirement benefits from Social Security without a reduction for early retirement.

Read the full report.

back to top

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

See Mary Furlong on NBC News

On Monday, May 14, be sure to tune into the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams for a special report on boomer business opportunities. The NBC segment features Mary Furlong as an expert and explores what the boomer business landscape will look like 10 years out. Mary discusses her new book, Turning Silver Into Gold, and offers insights from the annual Silicon Valley Boomer Business Plan Competition. The segment also includes interviews with two companies developing products for the emerging boomer marketplace.

Save the Date!

The Third Annual Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit and Fourth Annual Boomer Business Plan Competition
Meet at the Crossroads of Market Opportunity, Entrepreneurial Talent and Leading Investors: The Power of the 40+ Market
June 19, 2007, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California

  • Learn where and why VCs are investing heavily in the boomer market -- hear from VC portfolio companies
  • Learn from key analysts -- how they segment the market and evaluate opportunity
  • Each company that provides a solution for boomers will need to have a digital strategy -- learn what's working
  • The Silicon Valley Boomer Business Plan Competition has two categories of $10,000 Grand Prizes -- Health and General. Hear all finalists present their business ideas to the blue ribbon panel of judges and to the Summit. Be there when the two $10,000 Grand Prize Winners are selected.
Co-produced by Mary Furlong & Associates and the Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business. Sponsors include Bridge Bank. Marketing partners include SmartSilvers Alliance.

For more information on the Silicon Valley Boomer Business Plan Competition, visit www.BoomerVentureSummit.com/competition or email competition@BoomerVentureSummit.com.

For more information on the Summit, please visit: www.BoomerVentureSummit.com or email inquiries@BoomerVentureSummit.com.

back to top

NEWSWIRE

Muscular Metaphor
A few years back, before the company now known as Posit Science even had a product on the market, its founders considered how to position just what it was they were aiming to sell. "When we talked about it as 'brain fitness,' people got it instantly," recalls Jeff Zimman, Posit Science's chief executive.

AirTran supports retirement rule change
AirTran Airways has come out in support of the Federal Aviation Administration's proposal to increase the mandatory retirement age for commercial airline pilots from 60 to 65, a plan the agency wants to implement within the next two years.

Woman, 95, to be oldest college graduate
When 95-year-old Nola Ochs graduates next month, she will be the world's oldest college graduate.

Kohl signs on to positive aging act
U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, today signed on as a cosponsor of the Positive Aging Act of 2007 (S. 982), a bill that would help reduce depression, substance abuse, and suicide among older Americans.

The long and winding road
From their Beetles to their boxy SUVs, Americans who grew up in the '60s and '70s defined themselves by what they drove.

Winning the nutrition game, with help from a coach
Mariam Noorzai struggled with obesity for 20 years, but it wasn't until she hired a personal nutrition coach last fall that she finally lost the excess weight.
Continue to page 2 of the article for a mention of Mary!

Read more articles here.

back to top

 

Boomer/Senior Market Report

Published by Mary Furlong & Associates 3527 Mt. Diablo Blvd.
#128, Lafayette, CA 94549 Telephone: 925-283-7698
http://www.maryfurlong.com

SUBSCRIBE HERE