This Boomer Connections site focuses on how Baby Boomers – the generation born between 1946 and 1964 – are impacting and being impacted by the world of social networking and social media.
Choosing a name was a bit of a challenge. No, Boomer Connections is not a dating site. It’s a site about how the Boomers are the fastest growing group on social networks – at least in the West – and what that can mean for career management and business opportunities.
The site had its genesis back in November 2007 at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I met a very genial, very savvy San Franciscan, Carlos R Hernandez, who was at the expo and conference to learn all he could about social media. Since then, Carlos and I have been for most of the time separated by the Pacific Ocean, but in a continuing conversation, mainly courtesy of Skype and email, about ways to show interested companies and individuals how to use social media effectively. Carlos’ particular focus is on the Baby Boomers.
For a while I thought this was not of great direct interest to me, more of an interesting mission Carlos was engaged in, to help Baby Boomers get over their indifference to social media or anxiety about it, or both, and learn to use it effectively for their career advancement and the enhancement of their businesses. Not that I was not interested in the general topic: on the contrary. Just that I hadn’t focused on the Boomers.
Much too gradually it dawned on me that Carlos was in fact just ahead of the thundering herd, otherwise known affectionately as Baby Boomers, who had been in the past such a boon to so many marketers and were about to shake, rattle and roll again, this time in the field of social media and social networking. I’d known about the Boomers historically, with Mustang cars and all the rest. Just hadn’t joined the dots.
Now the reports are coming out and we are seeing the headlines about the Boomers as the fastest growing group in social networks. As for example in the USA Today piece from which the banner pic above is taken, Boomers zero in on social networks.
Which is all very timely, because, a few months ago Carlos and I started talking about putting together a proposal for a workshop session for BlogWorld Expo 09, this coming October.
We were very fortunate to have two very smart women, Toby Bloomberg and Barbara Rozgonyi, respected practitioners in the social media space, agree to join our venture.
In a half hour session on Toby’s online radio program Diva Marketing Talks, the four of us shared some perspectives on the Boomers and social media and announced to the world our intention to submit a proposal for a “rock the house” panel session on the topic at BlogWorld & New Media Expo this year. You can listen to the session on the player below or on BlogTalkRadio where in the program notes Toby asks the tantalizing question “will the Woodstock generation be as open to naked conversations as they were to dancing in the rain sans clothes?”
As we go along, we will share the links that we are gathering for information about the Boomers and social media and we are keen to discover what others think about how we should tackle the topic, what we need to know about, case studies, the good and bad aspects of the whole deal. Yes, we are into crowdsourcing!
We believe we have lots to share. We know we have lots to learn.
So hit us with your ideas and suggestions. Let’s have a conversation here.