My name is Cristian Bitter, intern at Continuum Crew. I have worked with the Crew for four months now and I have been enjoying myself within the group. After seeing the great work Lori and the associates do on a day-to-day basis, I was inspired to start the Social Responsibility initiative at Continuum Crew. This is a passion of mine and I am thankful to Lori for encouraging me to take on this project, and for the enthusiastic response I have received from my fellow Crew members. Creating and developing relationships with various senior initiatives around the country were among my first tasks.

Next month we start our community involvement with the Memory Walk for Alzheimer’s in San Francisco on Saturday, September 11, 2010. With 5.3 million people living with Alzheimer’s and it being the 7th largest cause of death, Alzheimer’s has had a personal effect on a few of the Crew members. Continuum Crew EVP, Amy LaGrant has said, “John LaGrant is my grandfather. I watched Alzheimer’s change my grandfather from a man who loved life, was always full of energy, was busy completing tasks and always fixing or creating something to a shell of a man who suffered from paranoia and never could settle his own mind. I miss the grandpa I had grown to love and admire. I walk in memory of him.” And CEO, Lori Bitter also had to deal with this debilitating issue, “My Grandma Mary was a vibrant, colorful lady. She loved to laugh and socialize. She was the kind of grandma who gave you little presents that mom didn’t quite approve of – like dangly earrings, red nail polish, and cute patterned hose – all with a fun&ndsah;loving wink and a smile.”

We will walk and fight to carry the legacy of those who’ve touched us in the past, and work to find answers for the future.

Please feel free to support this event and the fight against Alzheimer’s by safely and securely donating on the Memory Walk website.

After 12 years of working in the aging consumer space, I believe that in 2010 we have reached a tipping point. From the health care debate to the adoption of the iPad, people are focusing on the aging of our country’s citizens, and the rest of the developed world. At conferences nationwide experts are talking about the implications of an aging population; the concept of aging in place; and caregiving. At Continuum Crew, we follow these conversations and help our clients translate the trends and data into actionable product and marketing strategies.

I am pleased to present to you our latest issue of C2 magazine. The contributors in this issue are some of the smartest analysts, entrepreneurs and businesspeople focusing on aging consumers and their needs. They understand the intersection of technology and innovation in serving older adults and their caregivers, and they are on the cutting edge of understanding the power of social media.

This aging majority is shaping the zeitgeist of the country and creating a seismic shift in our worldview and approach to all types of goods and services. We have arrived at the tipping point.

Enjoy the issue!

>>Download the magazine here.

Title: National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) Know Your Consumer Conference
Location: Lighthouse International, 111 E 59th Street, New York, NY 10022
Date: September 28, 2010
Time: 10:00 AM – 6:00 pm EDT
Register: here

Description: Are you struggling to find research on Boomers? Are you overloaded with data on the high school demographic but still at odds with how to most effectively market to them? Delve deep into the minds of this consumer group during our live consumer panels. Live consumer panels will discuss music discovery and purchasing behavior, social media usage and music gifting. Also slated for the agenda are research and best marketing practices presentations, including a presentation by Lori Bitter, President of Continuum Crew, offering fresh perspectives, facts and figures.

The essay below was provided by a friend, colleague and veteran Dick Ambrosius. For those of us who study mature adults and motivation, understanding the nature of the generational cohort effect is one of the keys to interpreting experiences and understanding behavior. While this is a lengthy piece for this blog, please give it a read. It presents an alternative way to think about the entirety of the Boomer generation, not just the stereotypical “Summer of Love” segment who have come to represent this diverse generation. It also speaks to the nature of the “generation gap.”

The essay is authored by James Webb, the Senior United States Senator from Virginia. He is the Former Secretary of the Navy and was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, and Bronze Star medals for heroism as a Marine in Vietnam. His novels include The Emperor’s General and Fields of Fire. That’s what makes this essay so compelling to me. I grew up in a small town in Missouri and was ten years old in 1969. My best friend had a brother in Vietnam who returned&emdash;but with severe physical and emotional scars. I wore three POW bracelets and I prayed each day for the safe return of my guys. I was honored to send one bracelet to a returning veteran and his family when I was twelve. The other two remain stored in a “memory box” forever.

Heroes of the Vietnam Generation
By James Webb, Senior United States Senator from Virginia.

The rapidly disappearing cohort of Americans that endured the Great Depression and then fought World War II is receiving quite a send-off from the leading lights of the so-called 60s generation. Tom Brokaw has published two oral histories of “The Greatest Generation” that feature ordinary people doing their duty and suggest that such conduct was historically unique.

Chris Matthews of “Hardball” is fond of writing columns praising the Navy service of his father while castigating his own baby boomer generation for its alleged softness and lack of struggle. William Bennett gave a startling condescending speech at the Naval Academy a few years ago comparing the heroism of the “D-Day Generation” to the drugs-and-sex nihilism of the “Woodstock Generation.” And Steven Spielberg, in promoting his film “Saving Private Ryan,” was careful to justify his portrayals of soldiers in action based on the supposedly unique nature of World War II.

An irony is at work here. Lest we forget, the World War II generation now being lionized also brought us the Vietnam War, a conflict which today’s most conspicuous voices by and large opposed, and in which few of them served. The “best and brightest” of the Vietnam age group once made headlines by castigating their parents for bringing about the war in which they would not fight, which has become the war they refuse to remember.

Pundits back then invented a term for this animus: the “generation gap.” Long, plaintive articles and even books were written examining its manifestations. Campus leaders, who claimed precocious wisdom through the magical process of reading a few controversial books, urged fellow baby boomers not to trust anyone over 30. Their elders, who had survived the Depression and fought the largest war in history, were looked down upon as shallow, materialistic, and out of touch.

Those of us who grew up on the other side of the picket line from that era’s counter-culture can’t help but feel a little leery of this sudden gush of appreciation for our elders from the leading lights of the old counter-culture. Then and now, the national conversation has proceeded from the dubious assumption that those who came of age during Vietnam are a unified generation in the same sense as their parents were, and thus are capable of being spoken for through these fickle elites.

In truth, the “Vietnam generation” is a misnomer. Those who came of age during that war are permanently divided by different reactions to a whole range of counter-cultural agendas, and nothing divides them more deeply than the personal ramifications of the war itself. The sizable portion of the Vietnam age group who declined to support the counter-cultural agenda, and especially the men and women who opted to serve in the military during the Vietnam War, are quite different from their peers who for decades have claimed to speak for them. In fact, they are much like the World War II generation itself. For them, Woodstock was a side show, college protestors were spoiled brats who would have benefited from having to work a few jobs in order to pay their tuition, and Vietnam represented not an intellectual exercise in draft avoidance, or protest marches but a battlefield that was just as brutal as those their fathers faced in World War II and Korea.

Few who served during Vietnam ever complained of a generation gap. The men who fought World War II were their heroes and role models. They honored their father’s service by emulating it, and largely agreed with their father’s wisdom in attempting to stop Communism’s reach in Southeast Asia.

The most accurate poll of their attitudes (Harris, 1980) showed that 91 percent were glad they’d served their country, 74 percent enjoyed their time in the service, and 89 percent agreed with the statement that “our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let them win.” And most importantly, the castigation they received upon returning home was not from the World War II generation, but from the very elites in their age group who supposedly spoke for them.

Nine million men served in the military during the Vietnam War, three million of whom went to the Vietnam Theater. Contrary to popular mythology, two-thirds of these were volunteers, and 73 percent of those who died were volunteers. While some attention has been paid recently to the plight of our prisoners of war, most of whom were pilots; there has been little recognition of how brutal the war was for those who fought it on the ground.

Dropped onto the enemy’s terrain 12,000 miles away from home, America’s citizen-soldiers performed with a tenacity and quality that may never be truly understood. Those who believe the war was fought incompletely on a tactical level should consider Hanoi’s recent admission that 1.4 million of its soldiers died on the battlefield, compared to 58,000 total U.S. dead.

Those who believe that it was a “dirty little war” where the bombs did all the work might contemplate that it was the most costly war the U.S. Marine Corps has ever fought, five times as many dead as World War I, three times as many dead as in Korea, and more total killed and wounded than in all of World War II.

Significantly, these sacrifices were being made at a time the United States was deeply divided over our effort in Vietnam. The baby-boom generation had cracked apart along class lines as America’s young men were making difficult, life-or-death choices about serving. The better academic institutions became focal points for vitriolic protest against the war, with few of their graduates going into the military. Harvard College, which had lost 691 alumni in World War II, lost a total of 12 men in Vietnam from the classes of 1962 through 1972 combined. Those classes at Princeton lost six, at MIT two. The media turned ever more hostile. And frequently the reward for a young man’s having gone through the trauma of combat was to be greeted by his peers with studied indifference or outright hostility.

What is a hero? My heroes are the young men who faced the issues of war and possible death, and then weighed those concerns against obligations to their country. Citizen-soldiers who interrupted their personal and professional lives at their most formative stage, in the timeless phrase of the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, “not for fame or reward, not for place or for rank, but in simple obedience to duty, as they understood it.” Who suffered loneliness, disease, and wounds with an often-contagious elan. And who deserve a far better place in history than that now offered them by the so-called spokesman of our so-called generation.

Mr. Brokaw, Mr. Matthews, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Spielberg, meet my Marines. 1969 was an odd year to be in Vietnam. Second only to 1968 in terms of American casualties, it was the year made famous by Hamburger Hill, as well as the gut-wrenching Life cover story showing pictures of 242 Americans who had been killed in one average week of fighting. Back home, it was the year of Woodstock, and of numerous anti-war rallies that culminated in the Moratorium march on Washington. The My Lai massacre hit the papers and was seized upon by the anti-war movement as the emblematic moment of the war. Lyndon Johnson left Washington in utter humiliation.

Richard Nixon entered the scene, destined for an even worse fate. In the An Hoa Basin southwest of Danang, the Fifth Marine Regiment was in its third year of continuous combat operations. Combat is an unpredictable and inexact environment, but we were well led. As a rifle platoon and company commander, I served under a succession of three regimental commanders who had cut their teeth in World War II, and four different battalion commanders, three of whom had seen combat in Korea. The company commanders were typically captains on their second combat tour in Vietnam, or young first lieutenants like myself who were given companies after many months of “bush time” as platoon commanders in he Basin’s tough and unforgiving environs.

The Basin was one of the most heavily contested areas in Vietnam, its torn, cratered earth offering every sort of wartime possibility. In the mountains just to the west, not far from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North Vietnamese Army operated an infantry division from an area called Base Area 112. In the valleys of the Basin, main-force Viet Cong battalions whose ranks were 80 percent North Vietnamese Army regulars moved against the Americans every day. Local Viet Cong units sniped and harassed. Ridgelines and paddy dikes were laced with sophisticated booby traps of every size, from a hand grenade to a 250-pound bomb. The villages sat in the rice paddies and tree lines like individual fortresses, crisscrossed with the trenches and spider holes, their homes sporting bunkers capable of surviving direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells. The Viet Cong infrastructure was intricate and permeating. Except for the old and the very young, villagers who did not side with the Communists had either been killed or driven out to the government controlled enclaves near Danang.

In the rifle companies, we spent the endless months patrolling ridgelines and villages and mountains, far away from any notion of tents, barbed wire, hot food, or electricity. Luxuries were limited to what would fit inside one’s pack, which after a few “humps” usually boiled down to letter-writing material, towel, soap, toothbrush, poncho liner, and a small transistor radio.

We moved through the boiling heat with 60 pounds of weapons and gear, causing a typical Marine to drop 20 percent of his body weight while in the bush. When we stopped we dug chest-deep fighting holes and slit trenches for toilets. We slept on the ground under makeshift poncho hootches, and when it rained we usually took our hootches down because wet ponchos shined under illumination flares, making great targets. Sleep itself was fitful, never more than an hour or two at a stretch for months at a time as we mixed daytime patrolling with night-time ambushes, listening posts, foxhole duty, and radio watches. Ringworm, hookworm, malaria, and dysentery were common, as was trench foot when the monsoons came. Respite was rotating back to the mud-filled regimental combat base at An Hoa for four or five days, where rocket and mortar attacks were frequent and our troops manned defensive bunkers at night. Which makes it kind of hard to get excited about tales of Woodstock, or camping at the Vineyard during summer break.

We had been told while training that Marine officers in the rifle companies had an 85 percent probability of being killed or wounded, and the experience of “Dying Delta,” as our company was known, bore that out. Of the officers in the bush when I arrived, our company commander was wounded, the weapons platoon commander wounded, the first platoon commander was killed, the second platoon commander was wounded twice, and I, commanding the third platoons fared no better. Two of my original three-squad leaders were killed, and the third shot in the stomach. My platoon sergeant was severely wounded, as was my right guide. By the time I left, my platoon I had gone through six radio operators, five of them casualties.

These figures were hardly unique; in fact, they were typical. Many other units; for instance, those who fought the hill battles around Khe Sanh, or were with the famed Walking Dead of the Ninth Marine Regiment, or were in the battle of Hue City or at Dai Do, had it far worse.

When I remember those days and the very young men who spent them with me, I am continually amazed, for these were mostly recent civilians, barely out of high school, called up from the cities and the farms to do their year in hell and then return. Visions haunt me every day, not of the nightmares of war but of the steady consistency with which my Marines faced their responsibilities, and of how uncomplaining most of them were in the face of constant danger. The salty, battle-hardened 20-year-olds teaching green 19-year-olds the intricate lessons of the hostile battlefield. The unerring skill of the young squad leaders as we moved through unfamiliar villages and weed-choked trails in the black of night. The quick certainty when a fellow Marine was wounded and needed help. Their willingness to risk their lives to save other Marines in peril. To this day it stuns me that their own countrymen have so completely missed the story of their service, lost in the bitter confusion of the war itself.

Like every military unit throughout history we had occasional laggards, cowards, and complainers. But in the aggregate, these Marines were the finest people I have ever been around. It has been my privilege to keep up with many of them over the years since we all came home. One finds in them very little bitterness about the war in which they fought. The most common regret, almost to a man, is that they were not able to do more for each other and for the people they came to help.

It would be redundant to say that I would trust my life to these men. Because I already have, in more ways than I can ever recount. I am alive today because of their quiet, unaffected heroism. Such valor epitomizes the conduct of Americans at war from the first days of our existence. That the boomer elites can canonize this sort of conduct in our fathers’ generation while ignoring it in our own is more than simple oversight. It is a conscious, continuing travesty.

That is just one of the findings from our most recent survey. Through this research we wanted to understand the joint and individual habits of mature couples in making a range of purchasing decisions on technology products and services.

Ten years ago when we were more focused on the WWII cohort as the senior consumer, we made many assumptions in our targeting about who led the decisions in a household and who influenced decisions, and therefore how to talk with those consumers. In most categories, we were targeting a male head of household with influence from his wife. We have seen a shift as the financial power of Boomer women has grown—they have something their foremothers didn’t have—access to education, opportunities and careers. The balance of household power is shifting and with this survey we wanted to understand if couples are really shopping for big–ticket items together or acting as individual consumers, particularly as electronics have become more personal, and how and what couples will spend individually without consulting their spouse.

Among the findings are that Boomers report independent purchase behavior, many mature consumers self–identify as being tech–savvy, and Boomer women report the important role technology plays in their lives.

The reports for this research are available for download on this blog, under the ‘Resources’ column on the left. These documents are:

• Research Slides – Mature Consumers & Personal Tech/Consumer Electronics
• Fact Sheet–Research Highlights – Mature Consumers & Personal Tech/Consumer Electronics

An important implication for marketers is that men and women are likely to respond differently to consumer electronics and personal tech device product advertising. While men may be early adopters and have a lot of interest in product features, women are much more likely to care about the product benefits and the way those benefits are conveyed. Women need to understand more explicitly how a technology product will make their life better or easier. The supposition, although it stills warrants further testing, is that once that product becomes integral to their lives, women are more reliant on it and may be more inclined to upgrade or remain loyal. The difference in use and importance of technology in older consumers’ lives has valuable marketing implications. When coupled with the willingness to make separate purchase decisions this information enables marketers to create a powerful sales model for their target consumer.

We were honored to learn that we received a Gold in the National Mature Media Awards in the Marketing / Advertising Campaign (Marketing Communications) category for our client work for an Integrated Launch Campaign for client work for Clark – Samara Woods.

The National Mature Media Awards is the nation’s largest awards program that annually recognizes the best marketing, communications, educational materials and programs for adults age 50 and older.

Congratulations to all the winners! A full listing of all the 2010 National Mature Media Awards available here.

The best opportunity we have to learn is to learn from each other, and this is certainly what I have found being a part of IMMN – the International Mature Marketing Network, a professional organization for those interested in reaching the 40+ demographic. It is the only international resource and professional association dedicated to thought leadership, collecting and sharing information on successfully reaching and motivating mature consumers, and connecting the leaders who are focused on them.

This is an exciting time for IMMN. Its Board of Directors has been working to create greater member value and develop a strong strategic plan for the organization. To that end, we have created an interim leadership structure to support the continued growth of IMMN.

I am honored to be able to assume the position of interim President; Todd Harff, President at Creating Results remains as Treasurer. Kevin Lavery, Managing Director of Millennium, continues as an active board member. The planning process continues and we are seeking to add new board members who can provide strategic leadership and participate in the strategic planning process.

IMMN has its roots in the marketing services space. We encourage members from client–focused companies to participate on our board. Please consider stepping forward and becoming part of a committed board of marketing professionals centered on mature consumers. If you are interested in joining a global network of distinguished peers in the 40+ market space, influencing the direction of the 40+ marketing industry, and shaping the future of IMMN, please contact Corda Murphy at cmurphy@immn.org by Wednesday, July 21st.

If you are currently an Honorary Board member and would like to assume a more active role in the organization, we invite you to contact Corda as well.

We are excited to hear what skills you can share and the vision you have for IMMN!

Not yet a member of IMMN? Join our organization now and take full advantage of all that IMMN has to offer. To learn more visit: immn.org/why-join.php.

Title: Age March
Date: August 8, 2010
Time: 9:00am
Location: Crissy Field at Sports Basement, San Francisco
610 Old Mason Street, The Presidio
Register: here
Directions here Map

The Age March will be the first time in history when people of all ages, races, genders, sexualities and economic walks of life join together to celebrate aging as a positive experience. The Age March’s intention is to raise age awareness and begin to break down the myths, stereotypes and social pressures causing age discrimination, shame and negative attitudes towards aging in our culture.

At a time when we are living longer lives than ever before we need to be free to SHINE ON at 50, 60, 70, 80, and beyond and not be limited by ourselves or others as we continue to seek new experiences and opportunities to make our contributions.

Don’t be ashamed of your age—be proud and celebrate it. Many younger people have missed out on the opportunity to spend quality time with grandparents and other older adults in their lives. There is a special connection between the young and old which needs to be nurtured and supported.

So much can be gained from the wisdom to be shared between generations.

Title: GrandCare Systems’ Weekly Aging and Technology Web Meeting
Location: Webinar
Start Time: 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST
Date: July 8, 2010

Led by Laura Mitchell of GrandCare Systems, I have found these weekly calls to be a great forum for those in the technology arena of the aging space. At the July 8th web meeting I will be sharing more of our latest research just taken out of field, the lifestyle portion of which we were able to tease at the Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit two weeks ago. Here we’ll look specifically at the mature consumer and their relationship to personal tech devices and consumer electronics, and their buying behaviors when it comes to each. During this call, I’ll delve a little deeper into these findings, to uncover attitudes towards adoption and factors in trial and purchase decisions, and what this means for the marketing strategy of your aging relevant technology product or service and in reaching the boomer and beyond consumer. Learn along which lines those autonomous purchase decisions made within couples are drawn. I hope to hear you there!

GrandCare Systems’ Weekly Aging & Technology Web Meeting
July 8th at 11:00 a.m. PT/2:00 p.m. ET
Go to www.dimdim.com, click ‘Join Meeting’ button.

Enter ‘grandcare’ in the field that appears.

Or to receive emails about the Age & Technology Web Meeting with dial in information, sign up at: dealerweb.grandcare.com

A social media program can help your organization take advantage of the opportunities to reach aging consumers online—but how do you start? The Journal on Active Aging approached me to share for their readers a few steps to beginning a social media strategy.

You can view the article (pdf) here. Thank you to the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) for permitting us to share the article on our blog.

If you are a member of ICAA or a subscriber to the Journal on Active Aging, you can access your issue via their website, available online next week. If you would like to purchase a copy, call the ICAA office toll–free at 1–866–3335.