I’m looking forward to seeing you all at LeadingAge annual meeting this month in Washington, D.C. As you prepare your schedules, consider joining me by registering for my session – an Twitter-enabled interactive one for all attendees this year! Here are the details:

Leveraging Social Media and Internet Marketing (159-G)

October 19, 2011
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Track: Marketing, Philanthropy & Public Relations
Speaker: Lori Bitter

• Discover ways you can maximize the use of social media and internet marketing tools to reach your consumers.
• Learn to incorporate these tools into your traditional marketing plan to strike the right marketing mix.
• Realize how to measure the effectiveness of different marketing tools and their return on investment.

From the latest issue of the Journal on Active Aging, is the article Tackling Graywashing: What Drives It, How to  Recognize and Avoid It

Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Central Time)
Speaker: Mark Miller, retirement journalist and author of The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work and Living.
Registration: click here
Cost: free for members; $50 for non-members Fee waived for this webinar!
About the webinar: The huge American baby boom generation is entering retirement just as the economy has pivoted in a direction most didn’t anticipate. The housing crash, high jobless rate, faltering entitlement programs and volatile stock markets have created new challenges for a generation that had been somewhat blasé in its approach to retirement planning in the pre-crash days. Now, Boomers are struggling to adjust to what is shaping up as a prolonged period of economic challenge. Join us as retirement journalist and author Mark Miller discusses his book, The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security: Practical Strategies for Money, Work and Living. He’ll outline the key trends affecting Boomers’ personal finances, career and lifestyle trends.

Last week at the AARP Life@50+ event in Los Angeles, I was interviewed by Boomer Baby Radio‘s host Barbara Beach, where we chatted about my role as the new Publisher of GRAND Magazine – and a new grandparent! Listen here.

Were you at AARP @50+ last week? What was your experience there?

The recent release of “The MetLife Report on American Grandparents,” by Peter Francese with MetLife Mature Market Institute, reveals the changing face of grandparents in the United States. It also provides a roadmap for companies with products and services for children. Increasingly, grandparents are helping young families financially navigate in this tough economic climate, paying for items essential to day-to-day life, and also looking forward to big-ticket items like tuition, cars, and college.

In 2010, there were an estimated 65 million grandparents in the United States alone; households headed by someone over the age of 45 accounts for 60% of the nation’s income. One in four adults in this country is a grandparent.

Today, a grandparent is the head of almost one in ten households and has a grandchild in residence. In spite of recent economic events, consumer spending in households 55+ has risen faster than any other age category, outpacing inflation. By 2020, projections reveal an increase to 80 million grandparents, one in three adults in the U.S.

Booming Grands: Younger, hipper more diverse grandparents

The majority of today’s grandparents are from the Baby Boomer generation; they appear more youthful, vital and active than grandparents of previous generations. In reality…

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I’m pleased to have been asked by Allstate, one of the nation’s largest auto, home and life insurers also known for their “You’re in good hands” slogan, to be a guest blogger on their Allstate Blog.

In my second post, Midlife Crisis or Living the Dream? I’ve written about the reported return of America’s muscle car mania, with baby boomers who lusted after these cars in their teens and early twenties clearly being the marketing target.

According to Jesse Toprak, vice president of trends and analysis at TrueCar.com.“Many Baby Boomers are experiencing another phase in their life, the nest is empty and because they have reached a heightened income level giving them both time and financial freedom, they chose vehicles that provide them with a luxurious, safe feel and youthful, sporty drive,”

To hear about the dreams of the Boomers, why automakers should rejoice and the top cars among the baby boomer generation, read the full post here.

Which is your favorite on the list?

Continuum Crew is proud to announce we are working with ClearSounds!

ClearSounds, along with its founding company, HITEC Group, is a small, women-owned business that has served the needs of people with hearing & vision loss with simple, cost effective solutions for almost 30 years. ClearSounds Communications is the leading manufacturer of cutting-edge assistive listening devices and amplified communication products for individuals experiencing mild-to-moderate hearing loss, which include corded & cordless phones, bluetooth headsets, neckloops, signalers, clocks & TV listeners.

For this article Can Empty Nesters Still Afford to Splurge? in the current issue of SmartMoney, I spoke with writer Missy Sullivan about the empty nesters’ mentality.

For this article Stores Make Changes for Older Shoppers, in AARP Magazine’s September/October issue, on retailers’ changes for older shoppers, I was asked what trends we at Continuum Crew were tracking. Read what I told Christina where the ‘big shift’ was.

Date: Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Time: 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Central Time)
Speaker: David Cravit possesses over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in Canada and the US.
Registration: click here
Cost: free for IMMN members; $50 for non-members

About the Webinar
Canada is looking at aging Boomers with an eye toward opportunity. One of that nation’s media leaders has adopted a coined work called Zoomers. That means Boomers with Zip.  This fundamental branding idea has become the rallying cry and reason for existence for a multimedia organization called ZoomerMedia, Ltd.

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