and as if by magic…

This is Part 1 of a series called “Age, Money, Performance, Speed, Reform“. As I mentioned in the prologue, these posts form a a build on the “get fat quick chicken” post and are part of my central argument for something very exciting that will be hopefully happening soon.

Part 1, is about Age, and as the original post was very, very long, I have decided to split it up into a series of posts that will appear throughout this week.

So this is Age II (Age I can be found here).

A while back I was reading this article in the Süddeutsche about the youth of today. It’s an interesting article about how, in the past, “the youth” were easily definable (mod, rocker-metal, hippies etc.) and organised themselves into groups of opposition. This, it would seem, has changed and “the youth of today” is considerable more pragmatic than any other generation before.

What I found particularly interesting is that children/young-adults have very little to rebel against. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to get angry at. It means, and it would seem that the Shell Study supports this theory, that as a whole our children find it hard to rebel against us, their parents.

It would seem that adults around my age are clearly reluctant to grow up. They not only listen to the music they listened too when they were younger (blip.fm anybody) but they continue to follow “what’s hip” instead of doing the sensible thing and tune into Terry Wogan. If I look at pictures of myself as a student and compare them to what I look like today then I look they same. I just have less hair.

As most of you know, I have three daughters. The eldest is 13 years old. I fully approve of what she wears, her personal politics, the music she listens too and what she plans to do with her life. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was 13 years old and well into puberty we would get on like a house on fire. If she wanted to rebel against me she would have to join the conservative party, the army and start going to church.

I’m 37 years old now - the same age as my dad when I was 13 years old, which also means when my eldest daughter is my age now, I’ll be the same age as my dad today (does that make sense?). If she has a child when she’s 24 then I’ll have a 13 year old grandchild. So I have a question for you : if

• my daughter’s generation can’t rebel against me because my generation doesn’t seem to want to let go
• then it’s likely that her generation will do the same
• and her kids won’t have anything to rebel against either

will we have three identical generations in twenty years time?

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This is Part 1 of a series called “Age, Money, Performance, Speed, Reform“. As I mentioned in the prologue, these posts form a a build on the “get fat quick chicken” post and are part of my central argument for something very exciting that will be hopefully happening soon.

Part 1, is about Age, and as the original post was very, very long, I have decided to split it up into a series of posts that will appear throughout this week.

So this is Age I.

One of the worst jobs that I have ever had was back in the summer of 1989. I was a young art student in my summer holidays and in desperate need of some cash and Jason, a fellow Student from my days at Portsmouth college of arts, had given me a tip off that one of the best paying summer jobs going was mopping floors at our local general hospital. He’d done it the summer before and assured me that apart from the ridiculously early start (which doesn’t seem so early now) the job was an absolute doddle. So I went along and got the job (I was qualified because I was halfway sober and could hold a mop). The job was potentially simple; mop the floors, clean the toilets, make cups of tea for the patients and supply biscuits as and when needed. An edge of difficulty was only added depending on the ward that you were given to work on. I can’t remember what ward Jason worked on but I sure as hell know what ward I got given.

I got the geriatric ward.

The six weeks mopping floors on the geriatric ward of Southampton General hospital changed me completely and it is the only job I have ever had that I have properly despised. Not because of what it was menial labour - my mother was a cleaner right up until her retirement and what was good enough for mum was good enough for me and it was openly discussed amongst the full time cleaning staff of the hospital that the job of cleaning on the geriatric ward was particularly “challenging”, no, I despised the job because I had never and have never since been in such a place of complete and utter despair. It was the parking lot of death. Worse still, it was a place completely void of all respect.

Everyday I would quietly clean the floors, supply cups of tea and give an extra biscuit here and there to adults who had stepped over the threshold of being grown up and old into the twilight zone of old and a burden only to be shooed away to clean the toilets by the over zealous senior staff nurse when visiting time came.

I wasn’t supposed to be seen by “the relatives” and I wasn’t supposed to see them, and the way they treated there former parent like a child. It seemed to me that, without exception, the children of our patients were punishing there parent for all the sweets that they never got, for all the evenings they had to be in before ten o’clock at night and for the fact that they were still alive. Yes, they were pretty angry that dad hadn’t just pissed off out of it - like Mr. Jones had the day before (I’d found Mr. Jones the day before. Dead, in the toilet.)

When the relatives had gone the nurses swarmed out into the ward and placed those high back chairs that you can only find in hospitals at the foot of each of the patients bed facing the window. One by one the patients where plucked skillfully from there beds and placed into “the sunny seats” where they were to spend the rest of the day staring out of the window. Day in, day out; tea and biscuits from the spotty art student, a visit from the psychopathic offspring and an afternoon in the sunny seat.

It was heartbreaking. It is still heart breaking.

Now, as we all know, the world is getting older and we’re not having enough kids. This is what the United Nations “World Population Ageing 2007” report has to say:

Population ageing is unprecedented, a process without parallel in the history of humanity. A population ages when increases in the proportion of older persons (that is, those aged 60 years or over) are accompanied by reductions in the proportion of children (persons under age 15) and then by declines in the proportions of persons in the working ages (15 to 59). This leads to the big reduction in the support ratio.

In 2000, the population aged 60 years or over numbered 600 million, triple the number present in 1950. In 2006, the number of older persons had surpassed 700 million. By 2050, 2 billion older persons are projected to be alive, implying that their number will once again triple over a span of 50 years.

Globally the population of older persons is growing at a rate of 2.6 per cent per year, considerably faster than the population as a whole which is increasing at 1.1 per cent annually.

Today the median age for the world is 28 years, that is, half the world’s population is below that age and the other half is above it. The country with the youngest population is Uganda, with a median age of 15 years, and the oldest is Japan, with a median age of 43 years. Over the next four decades, the world’s median age will likely increase by ten years, to reach 38 years in 2050.

So what does my little story have to do with the UN report, fast strategies, marketing, advertising and business?

• Respect
• Culture (young vs. old - west vs. east)
• Shortsightedness

Tomorrow, I’ll try and explain why.

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I’ve been quietly working on a series of posts which you will be able to read here as of Monday next week around performance, speed, age, money and reform. These posts are a build on the “get fat quick chicken post” and form part of the central argument for something that is currently being organised. It’s a very special something – a something that I’m secretly very excited about and if you live in London will hopefully excite you too.

If you haven’t read “get fat quick chicken yet” please do.

The series starts on Monday and looks at age, which, for me, is one of the most important issues of our time.

Before we get going I’d like to ask you to do something. Look around the place where you work, look at the people you work with, and how old they are – and how old you are.

What do you see?

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