The Right Word To Describe Work For Boomers? Try 'Work'

Engage:Boomers has an interesting post about the attitude of Boomers to continuing work. 

What makes the post really interesting is the array of comments that it has attracted from US Boomer marketers.

I am probably grossly simplifying the main point of the article but as I read it is says that in reality Boomers will continue working for an array of reasons that are not that much different from other generations. OK, we might give the reasons and type of work different names but the bottom line is that most Boomers will need to keep ... 'working'.

What made the article even more interesting is that I had just finished reading a blog post on one of the Harvard web sites titled ' Boomers, Stop Yelling at Gen Y to Get Off Your Lawn'. The theme of this was that Milennials attitude to work is fundamentally different to that of Boomers who have no idea how this young age cohort think and behave. I know - a gross simplification.

One of the comments on the Engage:Boomers web site said that too often us observers of market behaviour unconsiously think the rest of the world is 'people like us' - you know moderately well educated, middle class types who have done OKish.

I am the first to put my hand-up and say that too often I extrapolate the attitudes wants and needs of my age cohort from a tiny base of people. I know it is wrong and I make a great effort not to do it.

So for me the bottom line is this - often the difference between generations are far less than is reported and too often we let our own narrow experience shape our attitudes to what is an amazingly hetrogenous generation, just like the one before and the one after. Dick Stroud