How is a market entrant doing? I have spent much of the past year looking at websites of tech companies in the aging-tech or digital health-tech areas. As part of this look, I am always trying to figure out how these companies are doing. Talking to the company executives is interesting, but the website, to me is very revealing and sometimes contradicts verbal descriptions of momentum. To me, these are visible indicators of company health:
Small Publisher Targets Big Senior Citizen Book Market Denver, Colorado November 1, 2009 Publisher launches new brand of non-fiction books for senior citizens—The Senior Sleuth Guides—with plans to publish fifty-five titles in next five years. Senior citizens buy books—a lot of books. According to a 2001 survey, senior citizens bought more than 1/3 of all books sold in the US for roughly $8 Billion in sales. And that was in 2001. Since then more Baby Boomers have entered the senior marketplace. On average, 7000 US citizens turn 55 each day.
This was an interesting week if you want to think about living to 100. Evercare offered up its 2009 Evercare 100@100 Survey -- which included survey results from college seniors. Dr.
So I've said it: Technology access for senior housing residents (along with financial counseling on how to sell their homes) should be a differentiator now -- while facility unutilized capacity is so obvious and painful. Swapping out aging infrastructure could even save them money in their operations.
It's been a long winter -- between the news, the weather, and news about the weather. As spring has sprung (or nearly so in blizzard-bombarded regions), let's think about excellent spring-time opportunities for seniors, families who care about them, and the residential environments in which they live.