My Photo

About Brent Green

  • About Brent Green
    This blog is about Baby Boomers and our impact on business, society, and culture, today and in the future. Here I explore many themes relevant to those of us on a thoughtful journey to reinvent the future of aging. I am a consultant and author of six books, including "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions." I present workshops and give keynote speeches about the intersection of the Boomer generation, business, aging, and societal transformations. My company, Brent Green & Associates, Inc., is an internationally award-winning firm specializing in building brands and forming successful commercial relationships with Boomers through the unique power of generational marketing. Marketing to Boomers I welcome your comments and questions here. This blog is a continuing conversation that began in June 2005, and I'll appreciate hearing from you.

Building Boomer Business


  • Media relations, media interviewing, public speaking, and leadership training for senior executives provided by veterans in PR and news reporting

  • Discover the future with Brent Green's new book, "Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and The Future."

  • Internationally award-winning direct response marketing for Boomer-focused companies

  • Brent Green & Associates is a leading marketing company with specialized expertise in selling products and services to the Boomer male market, comprised of over 35 million U.S. adults. Click here to visit our website.

Well Read Boomer

Business Experts

  • Lee Eisenberg
    Lee Eisenberg is the author of "The Number," a title metaphorically representing the amount of resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by visionary advice from the former Editor-in-Chief of "Esquire Magazine," Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living. This is an important resource for companies and advisors helping Boomers prepare for their post-career lives.
  • Kim Walker
    Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in Asia Pacific, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. His newest venture is SILVER, the only marketing and business consultancy focused on the 50+ market in Asia Pacific. He has been a business trends and market identifier who had launched three pioneer-status businesses to exploit opportunities unveiled by his observations.
  • Hiroyuki Murata
    Hiroyuki Murata (Hiro) is a well-known expert on the 50+ market and an opinion leader on aging issues in Japan and internationally. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, Murata introduced Curves, the world’s largest fitness chain for women, to Japan and helped make it a successful business. He is also responsible for bringing the first college-linked retirement community to Japan, which opened in Kobe in August 2008. Hiro is the author of several books, including "The Business of Aging: 10 Successful Strategies for a Diverse Market" and "Seven Paradigm Shifts in Thinking about the Business of Aging." They have been described as “must read books” by more than 30 leading publications including Nikkei, Nikkei Business, Yomiuri, and Japan Industry News. His most recent book, "Retirement Moratorium: What Will the Not-Retired Boomers Change?" was published in August 2007 by Nikkei Publishing. Hiro serves as President of The Social Development Research Center, Tokyo, a think-tank overseen by METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology, and Industry) as well as Board members and Advisors to various Japanese private companies. He also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kansai University and as a member of Advisory Boards of The World Demographic Association (Switzerland) and ThirdAge, Inc. (U.S.).

Photo Albums

Boomer Marketing Updates

    follow me on Twitter

    Hospice Feed

    How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Hospice Industry...For Good

    “Life is a journey from beginning to end, measured not in time but in quality.”

    This is the first sentence in a pamphlet produced by The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, the largest hospice in the United States, based in Clearwater, Florida. With an average of 2,400 patients and a staff of 1,500, this exemplar organization has played a major role in the evolution of hospice since the movement became popular in the U.S. shortly after introduction of a trendsetting book in 1969: On Death and Dying, by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., an eminent psychiatrist. Her book demystified death and the dying process, making the final stage of life more comprehensible and manageable — for those who are dying and their caretakers.

    Many prefer not to think about the inevitable conclusion to life, but for Baby Boomers, the end of life is becoming more concrete and palpable. Boomers are losing their parents, and a surprising number of their peers have begun to succumb to fatal illnesses, including high-profile personalities such as newsman Tim Russert, folk-rock-star Dan Fogelberg, and Carnegie-Mellon professor Randy Pausch.

    I addressed marketing professionals for hospices from around the nation under the auspices of the National Hospice Work Group (NHWG) and then the leadership team of the Suncoast Hospice.

    NHWG is “a professional coalition of executives from some of the largest and most innovative hospices … committed to increasing access to hospice and palliative care.” These compassionate leaders want to eliminate “bad deaths”: dying in pain and in places other than in accordance with the wishes of the dying person. NHWG hospices strive each day to fulfill one overriding promise: that each patient may die with dignity — as each person defines it.

    This association’s members take care of about 12 percent of the nation’s hospice patients every year. It’s not merely coincidence that many of the CEOs of the nation’s hospices are Boomers who have pursued this profession with passion since the 1970's and 1980’s — another tangible testament to the beneficent values of the “sixties generation.”

    Hospice provides care for those who have terminal medical conditions. Either in free-standing, often home-like facilities, in patient homes, or in hospitals and nursing homes, hospice practitioners deliver palliative care. Services include pain control, nursing care, spiritual counsel, and many other nurturing services. One major goal of hospice is to help patients experience maximum possible peace and comfort during the final months, weeks or days of life. Hospice also provides bereavement counseling and support groups for family members of those who are dying or have passed away.

    Questions of the Spirit - 3D book cover email sig
    My presentations addressed some boilerplate topics, including an overview of all living generations, the sociological and cultural factors constituting each generation, strategies for marketing to generations, emerging business trends, and current life-stage issues confronting Boomers. I also shared my assessments of how Boomers might challenge the traditions of dying, including hospice.

    For example, healthcare policymakers can expect this generation to test inflexible traditions that reduce the fullest possible expression of life experiences during final months and weeks. A trend emerging now is “slow medicine,” in which those confronting difficult medical choices slow down the process to assess fully the restorative potential of yet another medical procedure.

    Life-prolonging medical intervention has its value when the outcome allows greater life quality if not extension of time remaining, but when medical procedures only promote more pain and weakness without recovery, then many Boomers will reject last-ditch procedures. Many will put the brakes on “heroic medicine.”

    A Boomer neighbor of mine had brain cancer last year, and surgeons recommended a biopsy, which she reluctantly approved without further investigation. She later lamented not traveling to Europe with her husband for a couple of weeks instead of suffering the brutal and lingering side effects of the biopsy. She never regained enough strength and stamina after the biopsy to enjoy any of her remaining time.

    Many Boomers will endeavor to make their final days as meaningful as possible by recording and preserving their legacies. This will lead to dramatic growth of personal historians and online resources for those with terminal diseases to “upload” life experiences, values, philosophies, photographs, videos, insights and hopes for humanity.

    Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have recently isolated the psychoactive compound in the hallucinogenic mushroom psilocybin, one of the drugs some Boomers experimented with during the sixties. Researchers have tested the synthesized drug on adults who have never experimented with recreational drugs to determine the potential impact of psilocybin on spiritual exploration. In various studies, those who have taken the synthesized drug have reported experiencing some of the most profound spiritual events of their lives. Someday, hospice may offer psilocybin or other consciousness-altering medications for their patients who are seeking profound experiences of the divine but who are unable to get to this state of awareness through prayer or meditation.

    Experts predict that nearly half of those who die in another 20 years will choose cremation. This will have significant impact on the funeral industry. Some Boomers will have their carbon ashes compressed into manmade diamonds. Others will choose “green cemeteries,” where remains are buried legally in public parks and inside cardboard boxes with no grave markers. Others will choose to have their cremains buried offshore in artificial reefs. Hospice personnel will likely become involved in helping patients plan more creative funerals and burials.

    We can expect Boomers to transform the final stage of life with as much creativity as they changed the nature of being a teenager, a middle-aged adult and now a grandparent. They will embellish the dying process with new customs that allow people to reach the conclusion of life with the greatest possible dignity and grace — a genuine sense of completion.

    The last slide of my presentation revealed a graying Boomer man holding a protest sign, hearkening back to the sixties and a time of strident protest marches; he bore one possible concluding aphorism for this generation:

    Die the way you lived   


    Powered by FeedBurner

    Your email address:


    Powered by FeedBlitz

    Boomer Resources

    • Senior Forums
      Senior Forums is a very active online community where the issues that interest Boomers are discussed, dissected, derided, defended, or downright denied in an aura of friendly chatter and banter among like-minded people. Bring your sense of humor and join a laid-back, international forum of straight talkers who generously offer common sense to support those who need it and laugh with those who embrace the funny sides of aging.
    • Fierce with Age
      Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., invites readers and followers of her blog to join her for what promises to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding next stage, similar in transformation to earlier chapters of life that the Boomer generation traversed and reinvented over the decades. A respected Boomer business authority and author of 19 books focused on spirituality, Carol trusts that through prayer, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, Boomers have the potential to fundamentally change their lives for the good, experiencing the aging process as “a potent mix of spiritual growth and personal empowerment.”
    • 50plusboomerlife — Boomer life - travel - fashion - facts and more!
      This charming blog is written with purpose and passion by Kristine Drake, a native of Norway. I met Kristine at a magazine launch event in Stockholm, and we've remained in touch. Please keep in mind that this articulate and insightful blog is being written by someone who uses English as her second language. You'd never know it unless I told you so. Norway is a magical country, so Kristine's European perspective about life after 50 enriches us all.
    • Fifty Is The New Forty
      Since 2007, FiftyIsTheNewForty.com has been a dynamic, trendy go-to destination for savvy and successful 50-something women. Interviews with prominent Boomers, articles, guest blogs and reviews. Fun, funny, informative, and relevant.
    • Mark Miller's "Hard Times Retirement"
      Mark Miller, author of "The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security," is a journalist, author and editor who writes about trends in retirement and aging. He has a special focus on how the Boomer generation is revising its approach to careers, money and lifestyles after age 50. Mark edits and publishes RetirementRevised.com, featured as one of the best retirement planning sites on the web in the May 2010 issue of "Money" Magazine. He also writes Retire Smart, a syndicated weekly newspaper column and also contributes weekly to Reuters.com.
    • David Cravit's blog
      David Cravit is a Vice President at ZoomerMedia Ltd. and has over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in both Canada and the US. His book "The New Old" (October, 2008, ECW Press and recommended here) details how the Baby Boomers are completely reinventing the process of aging – and the implications for companies, government, and society as a whole.
    • Silver - Boomer Marketing in Asia Pacific
      The only strategic business and marketing consultancy focused on 50+ in Asia Pacific, SILVER is helping companies leverage the opportunities presented by the rapidly rising population of ageing consumers throughout Asia Pacific. Founder and CEO Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in APAC, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Silver can INFORM with unique research, data and insight reports into the senior market. ADVISE to help companies increase understanding through audit of their ageing-readiness, strategic workshops, training and executive briefings. CONNECT business to the senior market through refined brand positioning plus relevant and targeted communications strategies.
    • VibrantNation.com
      VibrantNation.com is the online destination for women 50+, a peer-to-peer information exchange and a place to join in smart conversation with one another. “Inside the Nation” is Vibrant Nation Senior Strategist Carol Orsborn's on-site blog on marketing to the upscale 50+ woman. Carol, co-author of “Boom,” as well as 15 books for and about Boomers, shares her informed opinions from the heart of the demographic.
    • Entitled to Know
      Boomers better get ready for a deluge of propaganda about why Social Security and Medicare should not be secure and why these programs must be diminished and privatized. This award-winning blog, sponsored by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides an in-depth resource of breaking news and cogent analysis. You've been paying for these programs since inception of your career; now it's time to learn how as individuals and collectively we can preserve them for all generations.
    • Time Goes By
      This is the definitive blog to understand what is happening to a generation as it ages. Intelligent. Passionate. Humanistic.
    • Route 50Plus
      Produced by the Dutch organization Route 50Plus, this website brings news, knowledge, and information about the fifty-plus population. The Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. Partners of Route 50Plus include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.
    • Dr. Bill Thomas
      Under the leadership of Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org seeks to elevate elders and elderhood in our society by taking-to-task the media, government and other interest groups who perpetuate a declinist view of aging.
    • Serene Ambition
      Serene Ambition is about what Boomers can do, and more importantly, who Boomers can be as they grow older. Blogger Jim Selman is committed to creating a new interpretation or paradigm for the second half of life
    • The Boomer Chronicles
      The Boomer Chronicles, an irreverent blog for baby boomers and others, is updated every Monday through Friday, usually several times daily. Host Rhea is a Boston-based journalist and a Gemini who grew up in a small town in New Jersey. She has written for People magazine and The Boston Globe. She was also managing editor of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Gazette. She wrote the “Jamaica Plain (Boston)” chapter of the book WalkBoston (2003; Appalachian Mountain Club) and started a popular series of Jamaica Plain walking tours in 1996.
    • LifeTwo
      LifeTwo is a community-driven life planning and support site for adults who have recognized the speed at which days are passing by. This often begins to happen in-between the mid-30s and the mid-50s. Sometimes this recognition is triggered by a divorce, career change, personal loss or some other significant event and sometimes it is just the calendar hitting 35 or 40. The hosts' goal is to take what otherwise might become a midlife "crisis" and turn it into a positive midlife transition.
    • BoomerCafé.com
      BoomerCafé is the only ezine that focuses on the active, youthful lifestyles that boomers pursue. Instead of a brand new edition every week or every month, BoomerCafé is changing all the time, which means there’s often something new to read each time you go online at www.boomercafe.com.
    • Jean-Paul Tréguer
      Jean-Paul Tréguer is the author of "50+ Marketing" and founder of Senioragency International, the first and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to Boomers 50+ and senior consumers.
    • Dick Stroud
      Generational and 50+ marketing is taking off in Europe, with no small thanks to the author of newly published "The 50+ Market."
    • David Wolfe
      Respected widely for his thought-leading book, "Ageless Marketing," the late David Wolfe established an international reputation for his insights, intellect and original thoughts about the future of aging. This blog carries on ageless marketing traditions in honor of David.
    • Matt Thornhill
      Boomer pundit Matt Thornhill has taken new ground with his path-breaking Boomer research. When you need fresh Boomer insights, contact Matt for original research, both online and focus group.
    • Chuck Nyren
      Chuck Nyren, author of "Advertising to Baby Boomers," is a seasoned creative director and copywriter with talent to match. Ad agencies absolutely need his counsel about any of their clients planning to target Boomers.

    Boomer Questions

    Books about Our Future

    Blog powered by Typepad
    Member since 06/2005