Find, acquire and retain customers.

Geezer Geeks Gone Gonzo

 by Lou Washington

Are you sick of hearing about baby boomers?  What they like, what they hate, what they think about this problem and what they are doing about that situation?

Have you had enough of the headlines?
 

Does anyone seriously think of his or herself in terms of being a baby boomer, GenX, GenY or whatever?  Let’s see, I can’t have an iPod because I’m a boomer … woe is me, boohoo.  Give me a break!

I’m a baby boomer myself and I can tell you, apart from a set of qualifying birth dates, baby boomers have very little in common with one another.  I know boomers of all political stripes running from the right of Attila to the left of Lenin (that’s V. I. Lenin, not John).

Boomers are energetic and lazy, tall and short, happy and angry, neat and sloppy, smart and dumb and of course, they are rich and poor.

I would imagine most folks would be happy to be rid of us, which is kind of what this little article is about; that being the impending 15-year retirement party for the baby-boomer generation.

Modest Modifications Will Mock!

We will retire, and when we do, we will be taking a large amount of knowledge with us. I’m not talking about cosmic, universal understanding of the universe-type knowledge - I mean specific knowledge.  I mean knowledge about that subroutine that’s embedded in the middle of your payroll system that handles 401-K contributions. 

Or, perhaps it’s that bolt-on addition to your invoicing software that handles currency conversions.  You know, that source-level system modification that was put together when your company went international about 30 years ago. Oh, maybe you don’t know about that little modification?

Lights Out

We also know what that light-switch just inside the executive conference room does, why the special discount was extended to customer X and what the real story is behind the corporate logo. 

We know it all, everything from the critical to the mundane. As my wife occasionally reminds me, “you had better be nice to me because I make your soup.”

Just kidding!  Relax, no threat was intended.  The point is that all of this knowledge is going to walk out the door and once we’re on the golf course or at the beach or waterskiing our way to eternity, we ain’t comin’ back!

Making Babies … Not

There are probably hundreds of strategies for coping with this shift in corporate demographics.  And, it will involve a shift in demographics because we boomers spend all of our spare time playing with all of the swell stuff our parents invented instead of making babies like they did. 

This means that within 20 or so years, our workforce will be seriously smaller.  I’ve seen estimates that show nearly 80 million retirements over the course of the next 15 to 20 years.

Grasping at Geezers?

So, what’s a company to do? How do your keep your geezer knowledge without keeping the geezer?  The answer is, you really can’t.

But, there is good news on both sides of this issue.  First, most of us geezers really aren’t that excited about the prospect of spending 20 or 30 years playing canasta and shuffleboard at the Golden Sunset Paradise Retirement Village, at least not just yet.  Second, most companies aren’t subscribing to the once-common practice of relegating the over-40 folks to the corporate backwaters.

In her excellent CIO Magazine article, “Beating the Boomer Brain Drain Blues,” Susannah Patton identifies three specific areas that need to be addressed in order to successfully meet this challenge.

1. It is necessary to gather good data about your specific vulnerabilities.  This means looking into each functional area within your enterprise and doing a sort of inventory of who knows what along with some cross-linear data regarding what the “life expectancy” is of the identified knowledge bearers.

2.  Her second recommendation is to perform some risk assessment that allows you to prioritize your activities thus assuring the most critical knowledge is the most highly protected.

3. Finally, she discusses a number of strategies to assure that the identified data and knowledge is shared between us crotchety old geezer types and the whippersnapper, wet-behind-the-ears, college kids that are going to be stuck with the mess we boomers leave behind.

More Prune Juice Mentoring?

Another article I read discusses the development of mentoring relationships between pending retirees and younger workers.  This seems like a natural idea.  Contrary to the experience of Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie “About Schmidt,” I think most of the younger fellows around our offices seem to be receptive to any good ideas.  Even ideas proposed by those of us in a chronic stupor induced by washing down our daily handfuls of cholesterol and blood-pressure meds with gallons of prune juice each morning.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the ubiquitous nature of COBOL programs and the dearth of knowledgeable programmers to maintain and sustain these systems over the next few decades.  Here is a ready-made mentoring application.  Get your younger guys teamed up with older COBOL-literate types.  This is how you get COBOL working for you instead of threatening your very existence. 

Other suggested alternatives include the establishment of consulting relationships with retirees or to simply take them to part-time status rather than showing them the door with their gold watch and department send-off party. 

Leaping Legacy Language Lizards!

Again those companies with large and complex legacy systems built around languages that are not considered current will need to keep some connection with the people who built them or at least who are familiar with them.

If you think the COBOL knowledge market was tight during that scary movie we referred to as “The Y2K Crisis,” just wait until us geezers start to get used to sleeping in on Mondays, playing golf on Wednesdays and finally driving off into the sunset in our Winnebago Land Yachts on Fridays.

Personally, I have my jumpsuit all pressed and ready to go.  My white moccasins are polished in addition to my white belt.  However, I’ll be wearing Sans-a-Belt/Expand-o-Waist slacks, so I can put the white belt back in the drawer. 

Hocus Pocus Micro Focus!

These guys may not care much about “American Idol,” Britney, Paris or those guys in the sink, but they can still write code and they can debug a COBOL program faster than you can say “Hocus Pocus Micro Focus!”

Their knowledge and experience is not limited to COBOL and other Jurassic programming languages; they actually have worked through a time of significant change.  The workplace of today is radically different from the workplace of which most of us started out.  Those changes are not limited to technological improvements; many are cultural in nature. 

My grandfather was a sales executive with the Westinghouse Corporation’s Steam Turbine Division.  His office was virtually all male and he kept a bottle of Scotch, (Teacher’s Highland Cream) in his desk drawer.  Their idea of office automation was a water cooler and the telephone.  As foreign and unfamiliar as that world might seem today, I think I could still learn a little something from that  guy.

Us boomers helped change the workplace from what my grandfather worked in to the workplace of today, so I think we know a little something about change.

I think the ability to weather change, to embrace change, to drive change and thrive in an ever-changing world is the most important factor in long-term business success.

END:

Currently I am in the midst of designing a new line of Geezer-centric customized high-fashion wear.

To compete against some of the really wacky and imbecilic (donkey) lines out there

I started my career in information management from the somewhat misunderstood field of Records Management. Following four years of working for the University of Missouri System's Office of Records Management, I joined Tab Products Co. in 1980. Shortly thereafter, I became interested in the software business, PCs and how those systems would shape the enterprise of the future. We were transferred to Tab's then corporate HQ in Palo Alto, CA. I was the first Product Manager for Tab's Tracker systems software products that utilized a PC-based bar-coding system to track the movements of everything from files to capital assets. I believe it was the earliest example of workflow automation available on the market. I was also peripherally involved in Tab's Laser Optics division, which brought to market one of the earliest business systems employing CD-ROM and WORM technology as an information storage media.

In 1990, I returned to Cincinnati and joined Cincom Systems where I began to learn about and work with mainframe-oriented products and systems. In those days, there was a real "split" between the mainframe forces and the desktop proponents. I always found this to be amusing since both had so many positive things to offer an enterprise. I could never understand why anyone would offer one at the exclusion of the other.

My present role at Cincom involves a number of things including product security, pricing, finance packaging and industry research.

My wife, Barbara, and I reside in Park Hills, KY. I am a member of Blessed Sacrament Church and I am active in a local car club, Cincinnati Cruisers. We are a group of PT Cruiser owners who enjoy tricking out our cruisers and driving around annoying people who have to drive boring cars. I am the Webmaster for the Cruisers and I invite everyone to visit www.cincyptcruisers.com and check out our awesome rides! Barbara and I both enjoy photography, travel and our two four-legged canine children, Chloe and Cookie.