Booming ‘Z’

May 3, 2016

2014-06-27-SocSeccard.BabyBoomersOvercast and gray this Tuesday afternoon on California’s north coast — a chance of scattered showers tonight, and maybe some isolated thunderstorms, too, but clear skies due by Thursday.

Age is the real weather crusher, not gray clouds, or any rain.
I’m a baby boomer — we currently make-up 28 percent of the US population — about 65 million — way-down from 40 percent in 1964 when we packed a punch.
Supposedly for the next 20 years or so, about 10,000 of us will turn age 65 every single day, and we’re not the happy crowd anymore.
Despite living longer, we running into a shitload of health problems we can’t seem to handle, and we ‘re running out of money. During the past year, 30 percent of boomers postponed their retirement plans, with 59 percent looking to retire at age 65 or older.

Coming behind us cranky boomers, Generation Xers were born from 1965 to 1980, then the so-called Millennials, who emerged from 1981 to 1998, during the optimistic days of the 1980s and 1990s, and has now surpassed us oldsters in population size, now about 83 million strong.
Although millennials get a lot of press, it’s ‘Generation Z’ that’s the coming explosion.
From the Wall Street Journal last week (h/t The Big Picture):

Pew has not officially designated a name for the postmillennial generation — though many analysts have already taken to calling today’s children and teenagers Generation Z — that came of age during the post-Sept. 11, housing-bubble-and-bust era.
The investment bank Goldman Sachs has argued that this Generation Z “matters more than millennials” because it will ultimately be even larger.

Crazy kids — yet ‘Gen Z’ is similar to us boomers.
Via HuffPost last month:

Robert Kennedy, just before his death, said something to describe the boomer generation that also fits Generation Z very well.
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.”
Generation Z, born between the early 2000s through the early 2020s, are surprisingly, the generation most like Boomers (born before 1960).
This means as employers you will have young adults with a strong work ethic — provided that you know how to connect with them.
Gen Z are immersive learners.
The 21st century learning skills are often called the 4 Cs: critical thinking, communicating, creative thinking, and collaborating.
Immersive learning means that Gen Z immerse themselves in technology to make each of these learning skills happen.
Watch them complete homework or manage babysitting — it is all done online — together while each is communicating with others.
Marshall McLuhan was impressed when his children (boomers) could listen to the radio and watch TV, if he could only see this generation managing all four skills at the same time through technology.

Horror or horrors, though, is the future for ‘Z,’ and all of us…

(Illustration found here).

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