For this week’s show we speak with Kathy Dragon, CEO of TravelDragon.com, owner of The Dragon’s Path, & VP of Dragon Consulting Inc. Kathy has spent the past two decades in the center of the active, adventure and sustainable travel industry. As a tour operator and guide she has personally escorted over 3000 guests on small group tours around the globe and created programs in conjunction with local guides and properties. Kathy is a frequent international speaker and consultant in the travel industry specifically focusing on authentic/responsible travel and the influence of the Boomer & Beyond market…those who expect and are willing to invest in this new type of travel. A contributing author of BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer—The Baby Boomer Woman, Kathy is a frequent speaker and creator of content for industry blogs, newsletters, podcasts and articles.

Listen to the show →

Later this week I’ll be at the The Educational Travel Conference (ETC), Jan. 19-22 in Orlando, Florida. ETC is the founding conference for Alumni, Museum, Zoo, Conservation, and Nonprofit Educational Travel. It hosts 450 delegates who are a highly-qualified international group of nonprofit travel planners, suppliers, specialty tour operators and destinations. They assemble to focus on the development, operation and marketing of group educational, experiential and affinity travel worldwide.

I am looking forward joining Kathy Dragon, Doris Gallan and Heather Hardwick Rhodes for several agenda sessions there on Friday Jan. 20:

• Going Past 40: How Today’s Baby Boomers are Traveling and Making their Buying Decisions, 9:30 – 10:50 a.m.
• Boomer Product Development: Go Broader, Go Deeper by Appealing to Core Values of the 40+, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
• Prime Time Travelers: Diving Into The Digital/Social Component Of the Boomer Marketplace,  4:15 – 5:30 p.m

Learn more about The Educational Travel Conference (ETC) here.

No sooner do we begin the New Year, then we hit the ground running with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week (Jan. 10-13). As you create your agenda for the huge event, your must-attend ticket is the Silvers Summit.

For this week’s show, The Business of… Brain Fitness, we have guest Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science, the leader in clinically proven brain fitness software. Their software is scientific brain training designed to improve memory and cognitive skills.

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For this week’s show, The Business of… Assistive Listening Devices for Older Consumers, we have guest Michele Ahlman, President of ClearSounds Communications, a Chicago-based privately held company that provides high-quality sound enhancing products for the boomer, senior and caregivers market. As a leading provider of niche telephone and communication products, ClearSounds is the leading manufacturer and distributor of ClearSounds branded products including amplified phones, signaling devices, TV listening systems, clocks, audio accessories and cellular products.

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On stands now is the print edition of Forbes magazine (December 2011, Investment Guide). It features the story Boomers: Reinventing the Next Chapter, by Deborah L. Jacobs. Lori was interviewed for this article about her success in building a business that helps others to understand the needs and wants of the Baby Boomer and Senior consumers, and effectively reach them.

Lori’s latest blog post for MediaPost Communications Engage Boomer blog, discusses the drumbeat of the ‘Move Beyond Age’ movement has grown louder throughout this year, with conversations ranging from how to “re-tool” senior products for Boomers, to how to appeal to the largest demographic in today’s marketplace. Friends and partners are shining a light on human-centered design and the aging population.

Read Lori’s MediaPost Communications Engage Boomer blog post Move Beyond Age – Let’s Talk Better Design here.

In A Brutal Economy, Boomers Rewrite The Next Chapter

11/16/2011
(This story appears in the Dec. 5, 2011 issue of Forbes.)

In the short time since we acquired Eons we have been busy with two main priorities: the planned ‘refresh’ elements to the site, which are based on the members’ feedback, as well as another priority which was a concern for both me and many Eons members, and that was getting a better quality of advertisers on the site.

So much has changed since our last issue of C2! The one constant is that the economic outlook continues to provoke anxiety. Older adults appear to be faring better in some respects than younger generations, though our studies show they continue to live under a cloud of worry. Many are expressing this as the loss of the American dream for younger generations, particularly their children and grandchildren.

Continuum Crew has experienced positive growth as the mature consumer market continues to be able to spend on a number of products and services for themselves and their extended families. In fact, a new MetLife Report on American Grandparents (July 2011) notes that households led by those aged 55 to 64 increased their non-health related spending by an average of $11,700 over the past ten years, when their household income rose just $1,200. Further, in the same ten-year period 55- to 64-year-olds spent $7.6 billion on baby food, infant equipment and clothing, toys, games, and tricycles – a 71% increase. Household spending for the 25- to 44-year-old households with children present saw a far smaller rate of increase indicating that baby boomer grandparents are helping in all new ways. (Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Surveys).

It has never been more important to listen carefully to consumers to understand what they want from products and services, and how they want to be engaged. Continuum Crew launched Crew Media earlier this year to purchase Eons.com – the only baby boomer social network. Founded in 2006 by Jeff Taylor, also founder of Monster.com, Eons has more than 800,000 members who have started more than 1,700 groups focused on their passions and interests. Learn more about it from community manager Ri Regina on page 13.

Also under the Crew Media banner is our partnership with GRAND – the digital magazine for the grandparenting lifestage. As a first-time grandmother to baby Gabriel McClain, I am proud to be GRAND’s new publisher.

Another initiative we launched this past spring is Move Beyond Age, a coalition of individuals and companies who are committed to making smart design a quality of life issue. We are encouraging companies to design better products and services for older consumers, which in turn create better experiences for every generation. Take a look at Jeffrey DeMure’s article on the Bookend Markets, Bill Yates on GreatCall, and Stephen Winner on the Silverado Story, for examples of companies and thought leaders who understand the importance of designing smart products and services.

Also new to Continuum Crew is The Business of Aging radio show on WeEarth Global Radio Network – WGRN. The show is also available here on our blog and on iTunes. In this issue we share our first show of the season, an interview with Patricia Lippe Davis from AARP Media Sales on her view of the mature consumer marketplace. We are currently in our second season and hope you will join our listenership as we talk about successful strategies for engaging consumers over 40.

With that, I am pleased to present to you our latest issue of 
C2 magazine, Issue 27, Autumn 2011

Available for download here.

Thank you for your continued enthusiasm for our market and our work here at Continuum Crew!

Lori Bitter,
Editor-in-Chief, C2 magazine