Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn told his companies engineers recently that they need to start thinking more seriously about the global aging phenomenon and how it impacts their products. Quoted at the web site Monday Morning:

“There is no doubt that 10 years down the road, the average age of a human being living on the planet is going to be higher”, said Ghosn, who heads both Japan’s Nissan Motor Co and its French partner Renault. “The average consumer on earth is going to be much older. We know also that usually the purchasing power is with older people. [That means] more money in the hands of the seniors and more seniors on earth”, he said. Carmakers like Nissan must therefore develop more speciality cars with devices such as cameras that make parking easier and reduce the risk of a stiff neck, he told a forum of engineers at Nissan’s Tokyo headquarters.

Via The Mature Market.

How to make aging technology palatable to Peter Pan Boomers in denial? Easy: make it cool. The Boston Globe reports on nifty new products that make hearing aids and other stuff into fashion statements. Case in point: the Audeo–not a hearing aid but a “personal communication assistant.” There’s good info here, too, on some of the product design work being done at MIT’s AgeLab and by startup companies like Arlene Harris’ GreatCall, which makes a cell phone for people who want a phone that just … makes phone calls.

Expectations that Boomers are empowered to re-make life in middle age due to their unprecedented good health don’t square with a growing body of data suggesting the opposite. Kristen Gerencher of MarketWatch reports on research from the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that today’s 54-59 year old Americans report “more pain, chronic health conditions and alcohol and psychiatric problems than people who were the same age 12 years earlier.” Perhaps the two worst problems: obesity and diabetes.

Here’s Kristen’s accompanying video on prevention, Northern California-style.

Yes, best line of the week would be better. But I just ran across this in Rachel Johnson’s wonderful July 1 column in The Sunday Times about life reinvention, second careers and Boomers who will work until they drop. Sorry I’m running so late…

“In the future, I reckon, we will always be both too young and too poor to retire.”

That Washington Post study on all those humorless old people is stirring up a firestorm of comment. Many are not amused. Tom Mann, senior vice president of advertising at Erickson Communities and publisher of The Erickson Tribune, wrote today to let me know about a new tv ad the company is testing that relies chiefly on…humor! to attract residents to its senior communities. About the Wash U study, Tom says:

I’m not buying it. Several other experts agree with me. Note today’s posting on David Wolfe’s Ageless Marketing. When we did the rough cuts for this spot, which we did at the WWII memorial in DC, seniors happily volunteered their own scenarios. In fact, we had so many retirees volunteer as they walked by that we had a tough time picking our favorite lines. Which is another interesting fact about this spot, it wrote itself.

So here’s the new Erickson ad:

Erickson is testing the ad on local tv in Chicago this evening and will then decide whether to expand to a major campaign.

Meanwhile, back at the Department of Research on Humor and Aging, colleague John McMennamin of McMennamin Consulting has rapped my knuckles for promoting an ageist view of elder humor, and criticizes Wash U’s methodology:

The two panels had very inadequate sample sizes of 40 each! The age groups were extreme, with the older group being over 65 (the median age not defined), and the younger group composed of graduate students. With these extreme age differences, there was very little, and certainly not significant, difference in comprehension. The headline should have read “The responses to humour changes very insignificantly over a 50 year period from college to retirement! . . . Those who have pre-conceived notions (a large majority of managers) will not read beyond the headline. They will just add this notion to their long list of improperly conceived biases against older workers.”

For the record: I’m not buying the results of the study either…I found it kind of absurd. I am, however, trying to mount an anti-Ferd’nand campaign.

Chuck Nyren points to interesting comment on the study at Time Goes By.

Matt Thornhill’s Boomer Project thinks Wash U has a point..

Comments about the ad on YouTube are here.

BusinessWeek’s Marshall Goldsmith has a good Q&A with management consultant Bill Byham on his new book, 70: The New 50. The interview does rehash alot of the well-trodden issues on retention of older workers–are we facing a major brain drain (not necessarily), will Boomers want to keep working past traditional retirement age (yes). Etc.

But Goldsmith quizzes Byham on two questions that interest me very much–why aren’t companies working more aggressively to retain and rehire older workers, and what are the best practices? Here’s the verbatim:

What’s holding organizations back from actively retaining or rehiring older workers?

There are two reasons: 1) inadvertent discrimination and misunderstanding about the skills, motivations, and attitudes of older workers, and 2) fear that they won’t be able to get rid of poorly performing older workers. This is the big unspoken issue. Up until now, organizations have let many poor performers “coast to retirement.” Given the chance to continue to work, organizations fear that many will want to stay longer and that organizations will have to face up to poor performance.

How are progressive organizations dealing with older workers?

They’re getting select older workers to stay on longer. They are rehiring select people after they’ve retired (sometimes necessary because of how their benefit plan is structured). They are hiring select older workers who have retired from other organizations.

I am emphasizing “select” people—the people who have the critical skills, knowledge, contacts, or wisdom; the people who are successful in their current jobs and wish to continue to work. I am not suggesting that organizations should try to get everyone to work longer. For organizations, retaining successful people is a good bet because it is highly likely that their past success will continue on in extended employment.

All this suggests that companies will do well to develop HR professionals who specialize in recruitment and retention of older workers. This probably will develop into a specialized area of HR practice, not too different from diversity management.