For more than a decade ‘transformation’ has been used to describe many societal shifts. However, for this author, and authors who have been more focused on it, there exists one particularly dramatic demographic transformation waiting around the corner. An older population is something that will affect all of us across the United States.
By 2030, there will be 73 million Americans over the age of 65, up from 56 million in 2020. But this demographic shift comes with a twist. As elaborated by Bradley Schurman in his heavily researched 2022 book entitled, The Super Age, “Rather than focusing on tailoring products and services exclusively for the longevity economy (i.e., people over the age of 50), {we} … should be more focused on leveraging generational diversity.”
In other words, the development of new products and services will need to focus on a multigenerational audience.
Furthermore, in her book titled The AgeTech Revolution, Gerontologist Keren Etkin asserts
“We’ll also debunk three major myths and misconceptions about older adults and technology:
- First, that older adults have no interest in technology.
- Second, that older adults aren’t using technology.
- Third, that you can’t make money building products and services for older adults.”2
Important to note is that nearly five years ago, firms were already making considerations for this future. In a story published by Jason Knott in CE Pro, an integration company by the name of Casaplex merged with Encore AV to create a project centered around technology systems that could accommodate families at all stages of their lives.
The Case for a Multigenerational Line of Thought in CI
As further dramatic example of this impending shift in just the past few weeks, we’ve witnessed some of our long-term manufacturer representative friends – who have been foundational in this market’s development – deciding that it’s time to move on from their legacy businesses. As part of our new generational diversity, we need to support the new market builders who are coming in.
However, given the predicted increased and healthy longevity of the Boomer generation, it is also very likely that these foundation-building representative principals may be moving into new transitional roles and not going away entirely. New possibilities for cross-generational learning and training are now therefore possible and critically enabling our industry’s ongoing success.
Our industry’s most significant changes have come via the increasingly complex systems being integrated within residential systems. This is one of the reasons why via the CEDIA Governmental Affairs Working Group we are focusing on the use of the term integrator or residential integrator.
We started with multiroom audio, home theater, and home control and automation, then we moved into home health, color-temperature adaptable lighting systems, and even artificial skylights that created new ways of intermingling and controlling the functions of our electronic technology systems. Over the years, this author has certainly been invested in many how-do-we-do-that moments in our growing market.
Despite all that we thought was so challenging during our earlier years, it appears we are at a new juncture in building the road ahead.
That is, in whatever way you might imagine this dramatic shift will challenge us, given the new inevitable permutations and combinations of system integration possibilities, we’d be wise to find new connection points for merging both veteran and new generational skills, capabilities, and disciplines together as we proceed.
About the Author
Andrew Ard is a longtime industry rep and is chief marketing officer at Maxaware.
Sources
1 Schurman, Bradley. The Super Age (p. 208). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
2 Etkin, Keren. The AgeTech Revolution: A Book about the Intersection of Aging and Technology (p. 15). New Degree Press. Kindle Edition
Another version of this article originally appeared on our sister site CE Pro.
