On the 10th of this month, my baby sister Jayne celebrates a
birthday. Why is that important? Well, Jayne and the 300,000 or so
other kids who were born in December 1964 are the last of the baby
boomers to hit the big 4-0. This, in many ways, marks the end of an
era. The generation that for so long has dominated American
mind-sets and habits, that has permanently influenced fashion
(think casual Fridays), cars (it's no coincidence that the
Mustang was born the year the first boomers turned 18), music, and
so much more is now "officially" all grown up. Sort
of.
Actually, one of the legacies we boomers have contributed to our
nation is: No one acts their age anymore. A survey I saw a few
years ago said that Americans aged 35 to 85 acted 10 years younger
than their chronological ages. And for entrepreneurs, that's a
good thing. It gives you a wider market to sell your products and
services to. Younger boomers like my sister have much in common
with older Gen Xers. They share many of the same concerns and
lifestyles-raising families, saving money, trying to balance work
and home.
But I think one of the baby boomers' biggest contributions
to our world is the entrepreneurial surge that has overtaken
America since the late 1980s. Of course there were entrepreneurs
before there were boomers—great ones, but they were the
exception, not the rule. Today, kids going to business school
aren't necessarily learning to become corporate-ladder
climbers; they're studying entrepreneurship.
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I'm not trying to hog credit for my generation. Indeed, our
ability to embrace entrepreneurship was embedded in us by our
parents, who tried to give us everything we needed and much of what
we wanted. And we, in turn, passed this trait on to our kids and
grandkids. Today, entrepreneurial thinking is not confined to
business owners—it's not even restricted to business. We
have teachers, artists, scientists and doctors (among others) who
now embrace what were once conceived of as unconventional—and
in some cases, unacceptable—behaviors.
It's now OK (well, more than OK) to be an entrepreneur. It
didn't used to be. I've mentioned before that one of the
early studies of entrepreneurs equated their traits to those of
juvenile delinquents: don't follow orders, don't go along
with the crowd, have their own ideas about how to do things. These,
to be sure, are entrepreneurial characteristics, but they are also
qualities largely associated with baby boomers.
Boomers are so large a generation (there are 77 million of us)
that, as I said above, we've always affected the marketplace.
And now that we're aging (the first round of boomers turn 60 in
2006), that will create more opportunities and challenges for
entrepreneurs. We're demanding products and services for
ourselves, for our aging parents, and for our kids and grandkids.
And smart entrepreneurs are filling those needs. "For an idea
of what will be hot, check out "Fever
Pitch." It's our annual look at the ideas, trends and
businesses that will dominate in 2005. I'm certain you'll
find it useful.
The past year has been a transitional year for many
entrepreneurs. Hopefully, 2005 will bring prosperous times for all.
All of us at Entrepreneur wish all of you a safe, happy and
healthy holiday.