Seize Your Leadership Day: The Boomer Force
by Miki SaxonBoomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, have been in the forefront of everything that’s happened in the country from the time they were born and that’s not changing any time soon.
So what’s up with the generation that changed the world, marched to end a war, protested for equal rights, overturned sexual mores, ushered in consumerism and turned on to drugs and rock and roll?
Harvard believes they are still the future and to that end has set up the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative “to lead significant systemic change in education, health care, community development, and the environment.”
Ads may be targeted to 18-34 year old males, but marketers have always counted on Boomer buying power; since the meltdown they may have to rethink that market.
As they age, Boomers are getting more introspective, evaluating their impact—and apologizing for some of their actions and questioning their legacy.
The Millennials love to count the Boomers as Luddites, incapable of embracing social networking in it’s many varied forms, but is that true or just wishful thinking so they can keep their edge.
Having watched them all my life there is only one thing about which I’m sure and that’s that the Boomers won’t go quietly into the night any more than they passed quietly through the day.
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Image credit: nono farahshila on flickr
August 4th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Boomers – or Zoomers as Moses Znaimer, Canadian TV visionary and futurist calls them – are about to do two things: retire & inherit the most widely held and greatest wealth every generated in a generation, in the 20 years following WWII.
We will shape the new world for the next 40 years, even more than we have in the last 40!
August 5th, 2009 at 10:42 am
And that, Don, is a very scary thought. More than that, it would be tragic because it would mean usurping the contributions and value of Gen X and Y, which would be short-sighted to say the least.
Every generation should have the opportunity of screwing things up and, sometimes, fixing them.
I don’t believe that having one generation in control for 80+ years is a good thing.