In the absences of research there is always me.

Reaching conclusions by extrapolating your own experiences is misleading and dangerous.

I have just read a couple of articles about the mindset and motivations of the boomer generation. They both dressed up a few hackneyed generalisations into psycho-marketing speak and dished it up as providing an insight into the way a generation acts. These grumpy comments may be conditioned by the state of the weather that is a cold, wet and dull English morning.

I know that I come from a very small niche of the UK’s population. I know how, and maybe why, I act as I do and expect this is not dissimilar to that of my friends. If I drive my car for 10 minutes I will be in a very different world (in terms of background, education, wealth) and if I sat down with a group of people of my own age I would find their experiences and take on life would be very different. We would all have shared growing up in the UK at the same time but how this helps predicting our marketing behaviour escapes me.

How do you spot the “extrapolate from my experiences” type of article. Firstly, it will contain a lot of “I think”, “I remember”, “We did this…” type of comments. Secondly, the views expressed will be faintly familiar since they are based on the folk-law of what it was like back in the 60s. Finally, the views might be interesting and even amusing but will totally devoid of any practical application. Dick Stroud www.20plus30.com