The Sandwiched Generation
The blog Money, Matter, and More Musings has a post The Sandwiched Generation.
It begins with:
A few days ago, CBS Evening News ran an article titled “Caregivers Rise to the Challenge” which featured some families that were struggling to keep up with taking care of their aged parents (in terms of time and money)….
Then the commentary:
People who are struggling to maintain their own financial well being, in addition to looking after their parents and their kids, are what I call the “sandwiched generation”.
Notice the sort-of-treadmill effect in the above example? Stacy doesn’t have anything saved for her retirement - which effectively means that her children will probably have to spend their savings towards her post-retirement well being - which very likely means that they will probably have less for themselves in future. It’s an interesting cycle (played out all too well in most developing countries) - one which will not come to an end unless one of the generations takes the additional pains of providing for their parents as well as their kids.
continues…
I guess we would all ask these questions to ourselves at some point of time - whether our parents are in a good financial position or not. With what intensity you ponder over these question probably depends on your culture, temperament, and your personal relations with your parents, but most of you will think about this for sure.
It is an issue that tends to sneak up on most of us. Our parents are independent and our kids becoming so. It is a hard line to think about how you backfill for either.
I helped the younger as best I could.
Now turn to the older… less about finances than health and social support.
They are outliving their friends. A whole different type of sandwich.
A culture for strategy
Fast Company’s November issue has an article on strategy: Analysis of Paralysis
If your strategy doesn’t help employees act, it’s not a strategy.
“Keep it simple, stupid.” That’s the advice every executive has received on how to share strategy with employees. The subtext is often, “Keep it simple, because your people are stupid.” But you don’t need to embrace simplicity just so your people can comprehend your message. The point of simplicity is more fundamental: Simplicity allows people to act….
That is a large distinction. Enable your staff to instinctively know what fits the strategy and how to build on it.
Now, will there be issues when the strategy shifts to match a changing environment? Yes!
But that is always a struggle. Simplicity then will ease that transition as well.
“The point of simplicity is more fundamental: Simplicity allows people to act.”
The World is Flat 3.0
I’ve post about Thomas Friedman’s latest version of The World Is Flat on my other blog.
Forty four pages in and I have 2 pages of cryptic notes.He splits globalization into 3 stages (to date):1. 1492 = 1800 (countries globalize)2. 1800 - 2000 (companies globalize)3. 2000… (individuals globalize)….
The DVD is dead
Someone blogged about this great deal at Amazon.
I have one of a different brand that I use occasionally.
The big deal here is the price - 3 for 24.14 is a hair over $8 a piece!
You can buy a lot of DVDs for $8 but they aren’t very reusable
and they’re clunkier.
Since I have piles of digital stuff to archive,
my choices have been DVD burning or various hard drive copy strategies.
Those remain the long term option, but now there is a flexible short term option too….
maybe…
at least a tool for the toolkit.
Then there’s that new stuff with TV streaming capture
so you can rewind while its still recording the live feed.
I haven’t gone there yet. Still exploring iTunes video, miro and joost.
power to the people
CNET News.com posts a story on What kids learn in virtual worlds
Kids who are active members of virtual worlds are learning how to socialize, how to be technologically savvy, and how to be good little consumers.That’s according to a group of academics and researchers who met Wednesday evening at the University of Southern California to discuss the effects of virtual worlds on children today. Of course, virtual worlds are still so new that researchers haven’t had much time to study their impact on kids. But the MacArthur Foundation, a sponsor of the panel discussion, has invested millions in research over the next several years to ask such questions.Doug Thomas, associate professor at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication, said during the panel that much of what’s happening in virtual environments is informal learning. In many cases, kids are getting an early education with technology, learning how to be members of a citizenship and picking up skills that they’ll need in the future workforce, Thomas said….
Note the phrases “learning how to be members of a citizenship” and “picking up skills that they’ll need in the future workforce.” The world be changing. Or is it? As I remember, there were digital worlds 30 years ago. Virtual even. Kind of. More like two dimensional versions of board games.Meanwhile SearchCIO.com writes about SOCIAL NETWORKING KEY CAMPAIGN STRATEGY, SAYS FORMER SENATOR. Really? (note the uppercase headline, ouch)
Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, a keynote speaker at AMR Research Inc.’s conference Tuesday, had a message for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: Get out of the mainframe age.Asked to handicap the candidates running for president, Bradley dubbed Mitt Romney likely to secure the Republican nomination. He endorsed Barack Obama as the “most interesting” Democratic candidate and the most able to bring about “transformative” change. To do that, however, he will of course have to upend front-runner Hillary Clinton. Bradley’s advice: Use the Internet, specifically Meetup.com, to move away from the traditional model of putting control in the hands of a strong central office (a strategy used effectively by the Clinton campaign) to a more decentralized approach of giving power to the people….
“a more decentralized approach of giving power to the people” - hmmm….So… give them what they got?
