Over-50

Hey, Remember When We Used to Do Facebook ...

Facebook can't catch a break.

In so many circles of influence it's been the night of the long knives. Those range from regulators in the EU to thought leaders in the U.S.

The latest blade aimed at its heart is the new book by former insider Roger McNamee. The title is "Zucked." Here it is covered by Axios. And, here is an excerpt in Time. Here it can be ordered from Amazon pre its February 5th official publication date. Already on Amazon it ranks 6,584.

Among the most damning assertions McNamee makes about Facebook is that, overall, it is responsible for more bad than good.

After all that has been alleged about Facebook's machinations during Campaign 2016, McNamee might be, well, on the money. 

In addition, there is the issue of the supposed increase in narcissism and decline in the ability to interact in-person, especially on job interviews. How many of us felt forced to unfriend a friend who posted way too many selfies and photos of cutes their grandchildren were up to!

The future of Facebook will be shaped by how much reach hatchet jobs like McNamee's have. If Congress and regulatory agencies are all-ears, Facebook could be nearing the expiration date on its shelf life.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

How Not to Do an Attempted Comeback

The dark drama of the Les Moonves alleged sexual miscount gets a sequel. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that instead of going away, Moonves is challenging the CBS board of directors' decision to deny him the possible $120 severance package. He is taking the option, specified in his severance package, to have the dispute submitted to arbitration. 

This was expected. Moonves' lawyer - Andrew Levander of Dechert - denied that his client was guilty of any inappropriate sexual behavior.

The revival of the Moonves show is an ugly development for CBS. As it searches for a new CEO it wants a fresh start. 

But this move by Moonves could also impair his own comeback. He could be perceived as an obstructionist. Who wants that type in their business? 

The usual first step in a comeback after a scandal is to lay low. 

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Student Loan Debt Overwhelming Older Americans Too, Not Just Millennials

Student loan debt totals about $1.5 trillion. 

No surprise, The Wall Street Journal, whose major niche is business, has focused on the implications of that growing number. Its primary focus are the findings of the Federal Reserve research. Here you can read the study.

The two key findings are:

The debt is correlated with the 9% decline in home ownership among those 24 to 32 years old during the time period 2005 through 2014. That percentage could increase now that housing market has softened in myriad locations.

Students carrying student loan debt also feel forced to leave rural areas in order to have the earning opportunities to meet their monthly nut on the loans.

Of course, none of this is a surprise. Everywhere we older professionals go we encounter new graduates whose life choices are being determined by the loan debt. In addition, they are nervous about holding on to their jobs so they won't have to default on their loans. 

When it comes to youth, this is a national emergency.

But youth isn't the only category overwhelmed with this burden. The December feature in The Wall Street Journal discussed how those over-60 have taken on student loans to study for degrees later in their careers. If age bias prevents employment or dooms them to low-paying jobs they are really in a financial pickle.

Those older Americans who aren't keeping up with student loan repayment could find their work checks and Social Security docked.

What many articles on the impacts of student loans don't mention is that some degrees, by time they are completed, are unmarketable. After the financial crash of 2008, a significant number of new law graduates couldn't land jobs practicing law. What else was available during those hard times usually paid peanuts. Meanwhile some had to deal with a monthly repayment of $700. 

I had my own dark night of the soul with a degree that couldn't be marketed. In the early 1970s, the demand for college humanities professors tanked. When I had begun my doctoral studies the government had projected growing need for those kinds of professors. By time I was doing my dissertation, everything had changed.

Of course, I had student loan debt - and an academic credential employers outside academic didn't respect. It took me about five years to pay off the loan. It was about six years before I was hired by an energy corporation for a communications position that paid well.

When it comes to the combo package of student loans and not highly marketable degrees there should be this takeaway: Treat every decision about enrolling in a degree as an investment one. The ROI has to be calculated in strict terms of what is the likely payoff in earnings.  

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

 

Everything Changes, Including Popularity of a Sport

In the mid 1990s, we ambitious professional women were encouraged to learn how to play golf. Sure, it was a difficult sport and not cheap. But the networking opportunities were positioned and packaged as growing and growing. 

That was then.

Millennials never took to the sport. Maybe it's too slow a game, without enough of comprehensive workout. Maybe it's too complex to learn. There is also the cost. It's a generation born into stagnant wages.

Whatever the reason, golf is no longer a must-do for business or a recreational activity looked forward to.

As Candace Taylor reports in The Wall Street Journal, since golf became not cool, there have been lawsuits against members of golf-oriented social clubs who stopped paying their steep dues. Initiation fee can be as high as $70,000 and monthly dues $1,000 or more. 

Way back then when golf was popular and a prime business networking tool, it make good professional, social, and recreational sense to buy a house in a development surrounding a golf course. Usually the house was sold at a premium price and membership in the "club" was mandatory.

However, not only has the popularity of golf changed. So have people, their interests, and their budgets. Some have stopped paying dues. They are being sued. Others have requested a refund of their initiation fee. They are being put on a waiting list. That can number 60 applicants. 

In addition, if they want to or have to sell their houses they are facing a perfect storm. Mandatory membership in the club is demanded as a term and condition of purchase. That limits the pool of buyers significantly. In addition, there are fewer buyers to begin with since fewer want to be based around a golf course. If that golf course has been closed down, usually the property is neglected. That's an eyesore in terms of the appearance of the development.

The bottom line has been a plunge in market values. Many had paid a premium price to buy in. Now they are coming to the reality that they have to sell below what they paid - sometimes a lot below. 

Playing golf was not a fad. It was a long term trend. Therefore, those caught up in this legal and financial pickle can't be blamed for recklessness. What is happening more and more simply happened to them: Lots changed.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Promoting Our Businesses/Our Personal Branding - Owned Media/Social Networks Losing Reach

Everything changes. Especially in how to promote products, services, brands, causes, points of view, ideas, and oneself.

Now, it's back to the soul-wrenching experience of getting placements and being quoted in third-party media.

Yes, those are media outlets with gatekeepers. They range from old-line print like The New York Times to digital natives such as TechCrunch.

We have to get back nurturing relationships with the gatekeepers, then figuring out how to pitch. Leveraging our own media/social media has less and less reach. 

Once we succeed with third party media, then we have to repurpose, in OCD manner, that content - through our own media platforms, social media, curated sites, and email. We can also use that clip to pitch to other third-party media. Members of the media pay attention to what other members of the media have published. 

Here is the must-do I published on Odwyerpr.com today on how to get back into the third-party media game - and win, despite the odds.

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Japan's Model for Economic Growth: Retain Aging in Workforce

The aging.

Are they a challenge to developed economies or a catalyst for GDP growth?

In the U.S., those over-50 continue to be positioned and packaged as a problem demographic.

Not only are Millennials grousing about aging workers blocking the paths to promotions and then eventually sucking up entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

In addition, aging professionals themselves live in high angst about their ability to continue to land high-paying employment. That worry frequently evolves into a fear about getting any work. 

In Japan, the phenomenon of The New Aging is playing out very differently.

It's by hiring and re-hiring the elderly that the nation is, as The Wall Street Journal reports, generating its "second-longest economic expansion since World War II." 

Like many developed economies, Japan is experience a birth famine. Rearing children is expensive. Women are finding great satisfaction through careers. And the social pressure to be married-with-children is becoming totally 20th century.

There are fewer traditionally aged workers. That could have left myriad industries short-handed. Japan figured out that gap can be filled with the over-60 employee. They are both provided with incentives to not retire and to return to the workforce after having retired. 

How Japanese companies are recruiting and managing an aging workforce can provide models for human resources leaders in the U.S.

The New Aging story in America is a mixed bag.

On the one hand, some companies are creating strategies to retain skill sets and institutional knowledge which can exit through retirement.

On the other hand, they are perceived as forcing out the over-60 because of their high salaries and/or their alleged decreased productivity.

Also, they are seemingly playing dirty tricks in recruitment. Among the growing number of lawsuits had been the class action filed against Darden for alleging discriminating against hiring older wait staff. That had been settled with the restaurant chain for millions of dollars.

As The Wall Street Journal documented last month, almost eight million older Americans who want to work are jobless or are stuck in what could be called "the gray ghetto" - that is, low-paying/low-status jobs.

No surprise, those rejected begin to participate in creating their unmarketability. They become breeding pools for dysfunctional mindsets.

Here, free to download, is my book on those monsters of the mind - and how the aging can slay them. Too often, the aging shoot themselves in the foot.

The new game, at least in America, is to embrace the realities of aging and figure out how to transcend them in a search for not only work but better and better opportunities. Here is my book, also free to download, about the rules of that new game Download Outwitting ageism

Get amazing results through out of box communications strategies/content. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com. I help, not sell.

Trusting Ourselves, Not Markets

December job figures crushed it. The Dow is up over 500 points. 

And, older professionals I speak with all sort of shrug.

They and I have come to ignore markets. Instead we have developed a trust in our instincts to figure out what we have to do to make a good buck. 

This might be the number-one blessing of being in the work world a long time. We have had the go-round with hot experts who predicted X and told us to do Y. 

If we followed their dictates usually little or nothing happened. My career took off when I depended on myself to connect the dots. That was when I was laid off from a middle management job in a large food company. Headhunters called with interviews for other jobs. My colleagues called with other job leads.

Instead, I made the decision to launch my own business. Everything went on an upward trajectory - from earnings to the kind of content I was producing.

Perhaps a new kind of child development should be tried: The world tells the child not to trust it and hands them the tools to put together their own take on reality. That might be called Lego Parenting. 

It was the extreme adversity of losing a big job that handed me my first Lego Kit. I wish I had had one in college when I had been choosing a major. I went in the direction I did because "they" told me that was what I was good at. 

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.

So, You Plan to Retire Before Age 60 - HaHa

In the 21st century, a life of work gets played out in dog years. 

So, it's no surprise that MassMutual's 2018 State of the American Family survey found that 40% of those interviewed intend to retire before age 60. Some financial and mental health experts, reports MarketWatch, view that as a reckless decision. 

Those of us way beyond that 60 marker smirk when we hear such a nutty idea.

Sure, there are those who can do a FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) and live comfortably without crisis - not a financial one, not an emotional one. 

But, in general, most underestimate how much it will cost to make ends meet when not working and how retirement could render them socially invisible. 

Already, found the Federal Reserve, one-third of retirees have returned to working.

That was common in supposed Retirement Paradise of southwestern Arizona. A growing number of those I met were being squeezed financially. They couldn't put off the inevitable of returning to work. But, by that time, there wasn't much available to them that paid well and didn't offend their dignity.

They would have fared better had they not stopped working entirely. The Wall Street Journal details the pickle they are in. Fortunately, if they adopt a strategic approach to working they can re-build their ability to improve their earnings. Here, free to download, is my book on that Download Outwitting ageism

The other monster which gains the upper hand in retirement is that without work many lose not only their sense of self. They also experience being treated as irrelevant by society. America is the global headquarters for capitalism. We are our job titles. That's just the way it is. No title, no respect.

A communications client who recently retired recounted her shock. In a medical doctor's office, the receptionist took first the lawyer who had arrived after her. She asked why. Without apology, the receptionist answered, "Well, you are retired. He needed to return to work."

The hedge against winding up in a financial shortfall or invisible is to embrace semi-retirement. Currently, that is a broad umbrella term to mean any departure or downsizing from a traditional career path. The semi-retired partner from the law firm works 30 hours a week in a legal non-profit or reviews the leases for a real estate firm. 

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.

The Dignity of Work - Increasingly Unavailable to Aging Professionals

Here in Ohio, U.S. Senator (Democrat) Sherrod Brown is staring opportunity in the face.

Whether the GM Lordstown, OH plant idles, shuts down permanently, or remains operating, he has a high-profile platform for the dignity of work meme. He has been hammering that since he ran for re-election as U.S. Senator in the midterms.

More recently, he has been visible in lobbying GM to keep that plant open and the 1,500 well-paying jobs in the state. In terms of publicity, that has been a blessing for Brown.

Local, national, and global news outlets (here is The Guardian account) have been examining the direct and ripple effects of the plant closing.

Just before Christmas ABC local news presented how two mid-sized businesses would have to conduct a massive layoff if there is no more Lordstown plant. In addition, property values would plummet. Of course, the sheriff will be evicting plenty of tenants who could make rent.

As Politico reports and as rumors have been hinting, Brown is exploring a run for the U.S. President job in 2020.

Among his initiatives is looking to Barack Obama for support, hunting for talent to man the campaign, and introducing himself to the nation through the media. 

Hard times, which are predicted to hit us by the end of 2019, would help Brown.

His persona is The Uncharisma. A guy we perceive as sincere and seemingly unscripted could be exactly what we decide we want. He would be the analogue of the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Already he has convinced voters in conservative OH to vote to him. A Lordstown shut-down and a whopper of an economic downturn could push Trump loyalists into his arms. 

He also would have unique appeal to the aging, nationwide.

As The Wall Street Journal outed, we older professionals aren't sitting pretty. The dignity of work Brown champions is less and less available to us.

In general earning power declines after age 35, that is, if we lose a job and finally land another one. The latter will tend to pay less than the job we used to have.

Currently, eight million of us are either unemployed or are employed in situations which pay peanuts. My 62-year-old neighbor earns a bit over eight bucks an hour at Marc's grocery in Austintown, OH. Sometimes her hours are cut. 

In short, age bias is real. Here, free to download, is my guide on how to keep working, no matter our age and how survival jobs can scale into new career paths Download Outwitting ageism

If Brown is wise, he will invite those of us over-50 to volunteer in his campaign. His staff can contact me for assistance with content-creation. 

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.

War on Phonies - Sound Contemporary?

Like Owen Labrie and Brett Kavanaugh, Holden Caulfield had attended prep school. That's where the likeness ends.

The first two were and probably still are achievers eager for traditional success in a white man's world of privilege.

Caulfield considered that tribe a bunch of phonies.

His archetypal journey occurred after he had given up on what prep school had to offer.

Caulfield, as baby boomers will recall, is the protagonist in J.D. Salinger's classic novel "The Catcher in the Rye." Published in 1951, it sold 65 million copies.

His alienation could have been the platform for our embracing the counterculture ethos. My journey was out of a prestigious doctoral program to become an expat in Barcelona, Spain. Eventually, unlike Caulfield, I stumbled back to America to chase traditional success.

However, as the SFGate points out, the character of a Caulfield wouldn't resonate with today's youth. After all, they are digital natives, born into the world of social. Many struggle for the outstanding grades and to participate in the right extracurricular activities to be admitted to prep schools, ivy league universities, and the T-14 law schools. 

But what Caulfield and iGen have in common is a propensity to suicide. Caulfield didn't actually commit it. But he sure thought a lot about it. The CDC reports that suicide among those 10 to 17 increased 70% from 2006 until 2016.

It could just be that, despite social, the current gen feels as fed up with the world as it is as had Caulfield. It might be useful to the national mental health of youth if middle school teachers would re-introduce "The Cather in they Rye" into the curriculum. Caulfield might mirror more of the minds of iGen than it's been assumed.

Incidentally, more and more of my gen has returned to alienation. Our fantasy of the life worth living is the cabin in the woods or the tent pitched in the desert, off the grid. The success we wound up chasing transformed into monsters who often got the upper hand. 

According to the CDC, suicides among those 45 to 64 increased 45% from 1999 to 2016. Among the high profile ones were the dozen suicides among trial lawyers in Kentucky during a brief timeframe and, more recently, that of designer Kate Spade. Here, free to download, is how aging professionals can find the ramp out of their comfort zones. 

At college reunions (which I no longer attend) a mental health professional might conduct a workshop about "The Catcher in the Rye."

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.