Forming An Opportunity Belief

          

Beginning Point:

In reviewing my current beliefs, there is one that sits paramount at the forefront on my mind. The belief is very near and dear to my heart, as it involves our elder relatives. My belief is that elder care is essential and that some way, some how adequate care or provisions for our elderly should be provided. This creates an opportunity. While options currently exist, none appear to be efficient models to assist the vast majority of our seniors in ways they need it the most. 

Belief Description:

The unmet need I see is in assistance, direction and consultation for life planning and long-term changes. The need is vast, as it occupies one of the largest subsets within our population, our baby boomers.  

Who has the need:

While my first thought is that the baby boomers themselves have the need, after some deep considerations, I now believe it to be the children of the baby-boomers / soon to be retirees who have the need. My thoughts changed when I realized most soon to be retirees, at least the one’s I come in contact with, while aware of their impending needs, do not have the where-with-all to digest the challenges they are soon to be facing. For the children however, they become more and more acutely aware as their parents grow older and began to change. 

Where did need come from:

This need of having assistance available for the older cross section of our population has always been present. The problem is most options available only meet the needs of those who are well to do or have already for the most part prepared for their coming of age. The children of our aging parents are more aware than our previous generations, that if some help isn’t provided than they are liable to endure a very difficult path of confusion, and ultimately a difficult passing on. The need is more dire as the children of these individuals are becoming more and more consumed with their own day to day lives.

What is being done now:

Within our current society, there are many measures being undertaken to care for our aging adults. The problem/ needs however are due to multiply as our baby boomers – now 25% of the population, began to require additional assistance. I do not believe society is prepared for what is due to come. While some of these aging adults have made preparations in the way of retirement savings, pensions and the like, there is a large cross section of Americans that have found themselves either incapable of saving due to income constraints, or have worked on jobs that do not offer adequate employer funded contribution options. Additionally, all needs are not always financial. Some need direction on decision making.  Due to the lack of direction many individuals are continuing to work in hopes that at some point they will be in a better position to retire. Instead of retirement being at age of 65, many are finding themselves working an additional 10 years to this end. I believe more should be done by way of assistance from the children (input), as opposed to any government led intervention. The children for the most part were the investment these aging adults have made when unable to invest in their own savings/ life planning.

Prototypical customer reflections:

Because of my current job, I was able to speak with more than the requested three prototypical customers. Many of my clients, peers, and employees fit into my population subset which is that of Generation X. Those that were born in the 60’s and 70’s and grew up in the 80’s. Our parents comprise the current population of baby boomers. From my conversations the consensus was that everyone agreed there to be an unmet need. While some as I expected had planned for aging, there were still concerns on direct assistance with decision making during this period. Alternatively, many became aware of the unmet need through interacting with their parents and feeling the increase questions on areas of their parents lives they had not been invited to assist in previously. The lack of preparedness for this task on behalf of the children was noted to be scary for all. Some because of their busy schedules just were able to put the pieces together. Through my conversations with them the consensus was that they should probably be checking in more.  

Initially, the focus had been on the income issue, but as I spoke to more and more individuals, it became clear that a need for advisory, in addition to life planning was necessary. It was agreed some individual or entity who would qualify and work to understand a soon to be, or retired individuals’ current trajectory would work best. The children all agreed on the importance of being involved in perhaps the funding of the campaign and were all frustrated by the lack of time they currently had set aside to assist. At the time of the interviews, many of those I spoke with were not satisfied with the solutions of allowing their parents attempt to work through their life planning with auxiliary assistance from websites, talk shows, and consultation with other aging seniors. Everyone agreed more should be done on a larger scale. 

Summarize:

After completing this assignment, I felt comforted that I was not alone in understanding there exists an unmet need, and opportunity to assist our aging boomers. While I still feel the opportunity exists, I found myself floundering with where exactly the concentration should be. At this time, I feel it should be in consultation and life planning. At this time though, the funding aspect from the children impacted by these changes are were I am having difficulty rolling it up. I continue to agree there lies an opportunity and do believe the level of opportunity has been clarified by this exercise. Feedback was essential in honing in on the who, what and what I should be directing my energies on in determining my opportunity. In my observation, my opportunity would have gone on without any actual actionable items had there not been feedback from those directly affected.