http://www.iconoculture.com/Approach/WhatWeIdentify/Observations/BoomersMatures/index.aspx?DocName=oa_BoomerCohousing_99708
WHAT'S HAPPENING
- Communes didn't die at the end of the '60s. They grew up to be cohousing, a new kind of participatory community that's attracting increasing numbers of Boomers as they enter their 60s.
- Cohousing units are individually owned, like condos. But residents of the eco-friendly communities share communal resources and facilities, which helps them be energy-efficient.
- When we first wrote about cohousing in 2003, there were 60 such communities in the U.S. In 2008, there are at least 100, with 300 more in development (Columbia News Service 5.11.08).
- Properties range from Songaia Cohousing Community's 11-acre spread outside Seattle to the two-block Eco-Village apartments in Los Angeles.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO BUSINESS
- The current senior housing model — from home to assisted living to nursing home — won't cut it for many Boomers, who've had a sneak peak while helping their parents. Cohousing lets them rewrite the future by coming full circle with their youthful ideals.
- No longer a luxury, building green is rapidly becoming a necessity. For eco-savvy Boomers, sustainable cohousing is a big draw.
- Boomers who pool their resources can stretch their retirement funds.
http://www.swin.edu.au/sbs/ajets/journal/V5N2/V5N2abstract_malta.htm
Abstract: This research was inspired by two stereotypes: first, that older adults don’t do computers – and certainly not the Internet and, secondly, that older adults don’t do sex – they are asexual. The results clearly show these stereotypes to be flawed. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted via synchronous computer-mediated-communication (private chat). The sample consisted of older adults (61 – 85 years) who had all used the Internet to meet potential romantic partners, either through their involvement in online discussion groups or via online dating sites. For the most part, the relationships described were meaningful, intimate and long-lasting. The majority were involved in ongoing sexual activity with their partners, and for some, cyber-sex was or had been an integral part of their relationships. Additionally, a proportion enjoyed flirting online with others and some were also involved in extra-dyadic relationships; indicating that sex and intimacy outside of primary, committed relationships was just as compelling an activity for these older adults as for younger Internet users.
Active social life delays memory loss
http://www.iconoculture.com/Approach/WhatWeIdentify/Observations/BoomersMatures/index.aspx?DocName=oa_SocialLifeBoostsMemo_98455
WHAT'S HAPPENING
- Chatting with the neighbors or joining a church group can help stave off memory loss. In a major long-term study by the Harvard School of Public Health, the most socially engaged people had the slowest rate of decline (SeniorJournal.com 6.4.08).
- Researchers analyzed memory assessments of U.S. adults age 50 or older from 1998 to 2004. The results, published in the July 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, showed that memory decline among the biggest social butterflies was less than half the rate of the least integrated loners.
- Interacting with fellow humans is a boon for physical health, too. Previous studies have found that people with many social ties have lower mortality rates.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO BUSINESS
- A cure for Alzheimer's remains elusive, but researchers are making great strides in learning how to stave off dementia. Add social interaction to a list that already includes physical exercise and mind-stimulating games.
- As America prepares for the coming onslaught of aging Boomers, and an ever-growing Alzheimer's population, products and services that keep seniors socially engaged will be in increasing demand.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006416&src=article1_newsltr
Extracts: Many studies in the US have focused on the relationship between online and offline retail sales. Typically, consumers comparison shop and get product information on the Internet before buying the product in a brick-and-mortar store.
However, new data from the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future examines the opposite situation: consumers ages 50 and over who have researched offline before making purchases online.
The researchers found that about two-thirds of consumers ages 50 to 69 had researched their online purchases in stores. More than one-half of consumers ages 70 and over had done so.
"Online seniors are a lucrative consumer segment that Web retailers cannot afford to ignore," said Jeffrey Grau, senior analyst at eMarketer. "They have higher incomes and are more likely to be employed than seniors overall."
From 2006 to 2011, eMarketer estimates that the percentage of Internet users ages 62 and older will increase at a 7.6% average annual growth rate—more than twice the 3.1% growth rate for the entire US Internet population.
Researching in local stores overcomes the main objection to online shopping for all age groups: People like to see things before buying them.
Pew Internet & American Life Project researchers released data in February 2008 indicating that older consumers were less enamored of retail e-commerce's benefits than were younger consumers. So it makes sense that many of them use a multichannel approach to get the best possible retail experience.
The Internet is growing in influence for all parts of retail, both online and offline. Web-influenced sales will account for 28% of total retail sales in 2012, up from 18.7% this year.
Cafes+ for Seniors (in 'Being spaces for seniors')
http://springwise.com/weekly/2008-07-09.htm#matherscafe
Extract: Originally launched back in 2004, Mather's—More Than a Café is a chain of three Chicagoland cafes operated by Illinois-based Mather LifeWays, a nonprofit dedicated to helping seniors age well.
Offering a combination of restaurant, gathering place, fitness and educational center, each Mather's locale is essentially a neighbourhood being space for seniors that aims to help older adults remain connected to the community while living at home. The modern cafés serve free coffee and reasonably priced food, and aim to provide a vibrant alternative to large, regional senior's community centres. Services designed for older adults include cardiovascular and weight lifting machines, health screenings, walking groups, computer workshops, wellness seminars and more than 116 low-cost fitness classes per month. A variety of social and cultural lectures and programs are also held at the internet-connected cafés, making for a schedule that's packed with offerings ranging from pilates to digital photography.
Website: http://www.matherlifeways.com/ Contact: www.matherlifeways.com/root_contact.asp
Despite rejection, FKP still in sight as Lend Lease tries to retire
http://business.theage.com.au/despite-rejection-fkp-still-in-sight-as-lend-lease-tries-to-retire-20080622-2v0u.html
Extract: RETIREMENT villages will drive growth at Lend Lease as the traditional builder and property developer shifts its attention away from commercial construction and seeks to cash in on Australia's ageing population.
With one hand on the demographic charts and the other on the ledger, Lend Lease chief executive Greg Clarke said the company had public and private retirement businesses in its sites.
One listed target is Queensland's FKP Properties, Australia's biggest retirement accommodation owner and operator. Lend Lease's $5-a-share bid was rejected by the FKP board on Friday, but Mr Clarke said his company was cashed up and would continue to shop around.
"We've been looking at four or five different potential acquisitions over the past six months. If the deal doesn't happen with FKP, we've got four others on the go," Mr Clarke said. "We've been saving our cash for when valuations were more reasonable."
The Boomers' Different Approach to Retirement (useful US trend research)
http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/erickson/2008/06/circular_discussions_do_boomer.html
Extracts: The McKinsey Institute just issued an analysis of Boomers’ savings. The release says, “The net effect is that boomers carry far more debt than other generations. Because of inadequate saving, two-thirds of baby boomers are unprepared for retirement, defined as able to sustain 80% of their spending as they age. The solution is to work longer. If the median age of retirement were to rise two years, from 62.6 today to 64.1 in 2015, the number of 'unprepared' households would be cut in half.”
In a study funded by HSBC, money was one of five nearly equally rated reasons that people in more than a dozen countries gave for wanting to continue working. The other reasons were to keep mentally stimulated, keep physically active, connect with others, and have something meaningful and valuable to do with your time.
A study funded by Merrill Lynch found that 71 percent of adults plan to work in some capacity post-age 65. Almost half of all those adults never plan to stop working completely. Among those who expect to work in retirement and eventually stop, the average anticipated tenure of their "retirement career" will be over nine years and the average age at which they will stop working completely is over 70.
Real Estate Branding
http://www.brandchannel.com/papers_review.asp?sp_id=1379
Extract: Businesses that are planning to be the real estate development for a long period of time should always build a strong master brand and not only projects. The master brand is where the value resides and travels once projects are finished and sold out. The gain in equity and value every time we have a successful project will feed the image of the project and the image of the master brand simultaneously. However, the equity of the project itself stays in the project and contributes to its value on secondary markets, while the value that goes to the master brand could be transferred and injected in new projects.
Frugals can live a darn good life
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23728122-5007146,00.html
By Bernard Salt
May 20, 2008 12:00am
FORGET the Fockers. Meet the Frugals.
This is the generation who were born in the 1920s and early 1930s and who are today aged over 76. Unlike their consumerist and some say wastrel baby-boomer children, the Frugals are careful with their money. In fact baby boomers love nothing more than one-upping each other with stories of how frugal their parents were. And it's easy to see why the Frugals were so careful with their money. They were surrounded by catastrophe: their birth was preceded by the Great War and succeeded by the Great Depression. These kids were hemmed in by disaster.
During their Depression-ravaged childhood the Frugals forged and honed the skills required to survive in a hostile world. This training was put into good effect the following decade with the advent of war and war rationing. Many Frugals were 30-something before their economic circumstances improved. But by then it was all too late; they were frugal by name and frugal by nature. In an attempt to transfer Depression values into the hearts and minds of their baby-boomer children, the Frugals organised the handing down of clothes or mended them. Socks were darned. Excuse me for a moment while I explain this novel concept to anyone born after 1980: to "darn" a sock means to patch it with a needle and woollen thread. Get this, Generation Y, you don't throw stuff away because it's got a hole in it or because it's, like, totally unfashionable! Frugals bought new clothes only when their old clothes could not be mended.
"Best" clothes were worn to church or on other special occasions. All family members were drilled to turn off the light when leaving a room, not to save the environment from global warming but to save money. The Frugals are our last link to the way Australia was before the advent of the modern consumer society.
Yet though many have accumulated a substantial asset base (centred on the family home), the Frugals remain quintessentially frugal. The Frugals were never predisposed to the frippery of social groupings such as hippies, punks, dinks or yuppies. Nor were the Frugals seduced by modern fads such as the boomer concept of jogging or the Gen-X invention of extreme sports. Instead, the Frugals preferred spectator events such as the footy or the cricket. It suited their lifestyle; why on earth would men who were hard at work with their bodies all day want to go jogging? And that's why they also preferred meat and three veg for "tea" (meaning the evening meal) - salad and noodles just don't stick to the ribs of a working man. And all the better if topped off with jam roly-poly pudding for dessert. Delicious. Never into fashion, Frugal men wore their trousers where they were meant to be worn: just under the rib cage. Frugal women invented the terry-towelling leisure suit in the 1970s and have ever since steadfastly refused to give it up. Unlike their children, Frugals aren't motivated by money or status. They don't see the need to upgrade their appliances and they regard restaurants as outrageously expensive: "I could buy a week's groceries for the cost of one fancy-pants meal." The one contribution that the Frugals have made to modern subculture is their invention of the life-form we now know and love as the grey nomad. On retirement the Frugals hitched a caravan to their station wagon and "tootled off" around Australia. Isn't it odd: no other generation tootles anywhere. Only Frugals tootle. Toot toot. Baby boomers, on the other hand, were raised in less straitened times.
The good examples of thrift set by their parents were wasted on this lot. After a brief flirtation with back-to-nature counter-culture in the early 1970s (perhaps inspired by their Sunbury rock concert camping experience) the boomers settled down and jumped on board the consumerist bandwagon. And over the closing decades of the 20th century the Frugals looked on in disbelief as their baby-boomer children started buying 4WDs, building McMansions, taking lavish (meaning "aeroplane" as opposed to "caravan") holidays, and incessantly talking about investment properties. Can these generations really have come from the same gene pool? Apparently so. But just as the Frugals were born between great catastrophes, the boomers were born into an era of broadly rising prosperity. So there you have the great boomer excuse for their rampant consumerism: "It's not our fault. The economy made us do it." Australia's fast-dwindling Frugals are happy in retirement. They make little or no demand on the national budget because many (though by no means all) think they're rich on the pension. Boomers, on the other hand, will not be so benign when they start retiring next decade. No matter how much money they have to retire on, it still won't be enough. Stand by for the advent of the boomer-based "grumpy generation" in retirement. And, unlike their Frugal parents, boomer retirees will have something to say about how they, as retirees, have been treated in each and every budget for two very long and very grumpy decades.
Downsized Boomers moving back in with the folks
http://www.iconoculture.com/Approach/WhatWeIdentify/Observations/BoomersMatures/index.aspx?DocName=oa_BoomersampTV_95255
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