The other day our cellphone rang and when Lisa answered, the caller on the other end announced herself as Virginia Rohan, a writer for The Record. Virginia went on to tell Lisa that she had found us through a blogpost on Active Rain. Turns out Virginia has a feature in The Record about Baby Boomers. Since our blogpost was about Pascack Valley Baby Boomers she was able to find us by googling Baby Boomers.  As Virginia interviewed us about the Baby Boomer generation, she asked us how we utilized social networking and how it helped our business. Following is the article published today 12-16-08 in the Record by Virginia Rohan. in it's entirety.
Where in this brave new, plugged-in-at-all-times world are we baby boomers positioning ourselves? Do you do MySpace and YouTube? Are you LinkedIn? Have you tried Eons or boomj? Do u text? Have you twittered? Much as I sometimes feel like disconnecting from it all, technological tools, I do recognize, can be invaluable. And though boomers were the first generation to grow up with TV, which often made us passive couch potatoes, lots of us now actively embrace online activities once popular mainly with teens and young adults. According to market research company the NPD Group, 61 percent of baby boomer Internet users had visited sites offering streaming or down loadable video (YouTube and TV network sites) and 41 percent had visited social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
MySpace
YouTube
LinkedInÂ
Eons
Boomj
TeeBeeDee
Boomertown.com
Twitter
Facebook
"Boomers are definitely engaging in social media. There's a real appetite to connect with each other and share their knowledge, gain advice and insights from their peers," says Linda Natansohn, senior vice president, Strategic Development & Marketing for Eons.com, "an online community for boomers" launched in 2006 by monster.com founder Jeff Taylor.
Although many people equate online social networking with romance-seeking - and these sites can be used for that - Eons' 725,000 registered members also meet (in more than 4,000 different groups) to share such passions as gardening and traveling. "One of the interesting things we've seen is the real openness to learning a new way to keep in touch with people," says Natansohn.
Other boomer-specific sites include TeeBeeDee(tbd.com), boomertown.com and boomj (the "j" is for Generation Jones, as some younger boomers call themselves).
Boomj President Wendy Borow-Johnson says the site aims to be user-friendly for boomers. Noting that we, for example, use travel agents more than our kids do, and rely on professionals to install our technology, she says, "We are a concierge generation. ... With social networking, if it's too complicated, I won't do it. We try to make it as simple as possible."
In a recent Money magazine column, boomer adviser Dan Kadlec said it's vitally important for us to keep up on "new techniques that are rapidly emerging as useful, even necessary, workplace skills," to avoid "appearing old and hopelessly out of touch." One he cites is twittering - a free social networking service that allows users to send and follow other users' short (up to 140 characters) text-based posts ("tweets"), all answering one question: "What are you doing?"
Connection overload
"Why does anyone need to know I just went out?" wonders Janet Troy, a public relations executive who lives in Tenafly and one of several Fordham University classmates I've recently reconnected with through LinkedIn, a professional networking site.
Troy has twittered but says, "It's like overkill. I don't want to communicate with all these people all these different ways."
Still, she knows it's important to understand new technology, both for her work and at home. With two daughters, ages 17 and 21, she embraced Facebook early on, before privacy settings thwarted parental snooping. "I would just use it as surveillance ... to see what was going on. That's where you found out what everybody was doing on Saturday night and saw all the pictures of underage drinking," Troy says. "And as everybody in the world started talking about those social networking sites, PR people started to put up their own Facebook pages."
While not fully sold on its effectiveness for work, having observed her elderly parents' struggles with technology, Troy says, "You have to keep up. You don't want to find yourself, all of a sudden, retired and not connected to the world."
Some baby boomers are unequivocally enthusiastic about the new ways to network. Lisa and Robert Hammerstein, a husband-and-wife team of real-estate sales associates in Hillsdale, say they rely heavily on online networking in their business. "I'd say 80 percent of the people looking for homes right now start their search on the Internet," says Robert. Although new to Facebook ("All of a sudden, all the real estate agents are jumping on"), he has, for about two years, been twittering. He describes it as "basically a glorified instant messaging" that can be "a very good learning experience if you network with the right people. ... You get a lot of breaking news on there, so you can be first in the loop." (After the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, news stories chronicled how "citizen journalists" got vital information out of India via twitter.)
Mike McCann of Midland Park calls himself a "relatively light user" of social networking sites. His two adult daughters talked him into getting a Facebook account, which he uses mostly to stay in touch with family. He also belongs to LinkedIn. Working in systems development at a car company, McCann finds it handy "to keep track of people that I work with throughout the global organization ... as a way to personalize the business relationship."
My friend Glenn Vallach, a PR executive in North Jersey, is also LinkedIn, having accepted multiple invitations to join, but asks, "What are you supposed to do with LinkedIn? Am I supposed to be contacting these people regularly? And if so, why?"
When he thinks of his 25-year-old son, who has "hundreds of contacts" on Facebook and MySpace," Glenn says he has "the hopeless feeling of traveling at 35 miles per hour when everybody else is traveling at 55."
Still, he's trying to get up to speed in this brave new world.
"Virginia Rohan"
We were flattered that Virginia Rohan called us and wanted our opinions to add to her article. Of course if it weren't for Active Rain and Twitter and all of the other networking sites that we enjoy using, this probably would not have happened.
Once again we thank Active Rain for it's generosity and google juice of course as well as all the other social networking sites.
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__________________________________________________________________
Lisa & Robert Hammerstein • Sales Associates • Coldwell Banker • (201)218-6802
• Address • 50 Broadway • Hillsdale, NJ 07642 •
If you or someone you know is planning a Move or Sale of their home in the near future, call your Bergen County, NJ experts, Lisa & Bob Hammerstein at (201)218-6802 or visit us on our website at www.HammersTeam.com. We'll be able to help you if you're Moving or Selling in any of the towns located in Bergen County New Jersey.
For more Local Information about the Pascack Valley area of Bergen County, New Jersey, call Bob & Lisa at (201)218-6802or visit us online at www.HammersTeam.com.
Your Real Estate Resource for the Bergen County - specializing in the Pascack Valley!
__________________________________________________________________
Robert & Lisa Hammerstein • Sales Associates • Coldwell Banker • (201)315-8618
• Address • 50 Broadway • Hillsdale, NJ 07642 •
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