Laurie Orlov's blog

In a non-travel week, I have more time to speak to vendors, both pre-launch and launched.  Here are three launched to add to the list of tech vendors to support caregiving (or 'circle of care' as it is sometimes described). None require any specialized equipment or device in the home. And no doubt each would welcome your contacting them to learn more about their offerings:

There's no such thing as bad publicity.  This study is being reprinted on every website that has even a remote connection to boomers, seniors, or game-playing or is suffering from a slow news day. (Although you have to wonder how senior housing executives will react to seeing it published in McKnight's).

You've got products to improve the lives of AARP members. This week I had a chance to chat with Jackie Berdy, who is 'Exhibition Space and Sponsorship Programs Consultant' for the AARP Orlando@50+ event September 30-October 2.

Assumptions, aspirations, and realism.  In recent here-there-everywhere travels, I was often intrigued by assumptions that were cited as fact.  I heard about barriers to adoption, narrow-cast definitions of broader opportunities, and sweeping generalizations about markets too broad to characterize. That last, of course, is the so-called baby boomer market -- discussed all day at a well-run event in Tampa -- the Florida Boomer Lifestyle Conference.

Groups, groups, and more groups.

Newspaper writers are bored but assigned to the age beat. How lucky. We have yet another entry in the annals of 'why seniors hate computers news' library. This one from the Boston Globe searches for a way to write condescendingly about seniors and their fear and loathing when it comes to using a computer.

MetLife study of working caregivers -- they're not well.  A 2010 study sponsored by MetLife examined the effect on healthcare costs associated with working caregivers who had elder care responsibilities, comparing their responses to non-caregiver employees.

What begins with C?

Thinking about 'recareering?' You and many others.  In April 2009, AARP published a report called 'Older Workers on the Move: Recareering in Later Life', a term the study equates with 'occupational change' and 'career change.' This Urban Institute research noted that 43 percent of Americans working full time at ages 51 to 55 subsequently change employers, an

Event blur -- but non-tech pattern is evident. I spent last week trying to keep up with myself at the ASA/NCOA Aging in America Conference in Chicago and the post-event Boomer What's Next summit. Those who saw me dashing around the exhibit hall and conference locations know that I was well-managed by my trusty BlackBerry, and managed to fully circle the exhibit floor twice.