Though the Boomer Business Summit and American Society on Aging annual conference happened almost two weeks ago I am finding myself able to sit down and publish this note only now.

Perhaps this is a testament to how much activity is happening in this space, since I still have not even caught up on all the contacts made in Chicago! Still let me try and highlight a few most interesting points.

First, for those of you not familiar, ASA is the nation's premier association of aging professionals(healthcare and beyond) and "What's Next" Boomer Business Summit is a pre-conference focused on business opportunities in serving the boomer / aging markets.

I was a speaker at What's Next and accredited as press at ASA, being the first ever blogger to get press credentials there.

The driving force behind What's Next is Mary Furlong, who was involved in senior markets for decades as a researcher and came to prominence as entrepreneur for founding SeniorNet in the 80ies and ThirdAge Media in the 90ies. By now she has been producing What's Next for four years and recently published a book that can be called "entrepreneur's Bible" for the new aging market: Turning Silver Into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace

I read the book on the plane to Chicago and glad I did. Not only did it give me a bird's eye view on the emerging senior marketplace but prepared for what is to come at the conference. I felt like people from the pages of the book came alive and I got to meet quite a few of them in person.

There is no shortage of nuggets to mention, but let me just highlight the key themes shared by the book and the conference.

Mary breaks down the trends shaping needs and wants of boomers into five major categories, described in the book and represented at the conference:

• Global markets
• Longevity
• Lifestage transitions
• Technology
• Spirituality

The sense you get from reading the book and listening to speakers is that there are plenty of myths about boomers that need to be dispeled. To name a few:

• Computer and Internet usage for are really underestimated
• Boomers is a key growth target markets in (gasp!) computer gaming
• Retirement is becoming much more active
• Healthcare innovation will drive lots of change in boomer lives
• Boomers are easily insulted by marketing that stereotypes them
• Advertisers do not put enough premium on this demographic that actually does have significant money to spend (unlike college kids)
• Not enough newspapers have "age beats", but the reporters covering aging have plenty of camaraderie

Social networking kept getting mentioned plenty of times as the "New New Thing" coming to this marketplace. Of course, that was the focus of my own presentation, talking about what Trusted.MD can do from the healthcare perspective.

To set the stage for "What's Next", at the Summit we announced our plans to engage boomer market community: Mary Furlong & Associates Launches Silver Marketplace Community; Teams with Trusted.MD to Bring Social Networking to Boomer Market, accessible here.

With this news in hand plenty of people wanted to find out how they too could create presence on Trusted.MD Network. 

Stay tuned till we can announce who else we will be working with!