Guest Thinkers

MIT AgeLab AGNESAge Gain Now Empathy System Old age is not new, but integrating the demands of older consumers into the design process for products that are fun and fashionable […]

Data dense and seemingly dry, demographic change and transportation are two topics that by themselves do not readily grab the attention of the public. Yet, these are two inter-related factors […]

AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System) was developed atthe MIT AgeLabto provide a tool for students, researchers, government agencies and companiesto better understand, empathize and develop innovations to meet the […]

Old age is hard work. Managing the inherent complexities of aging or caring for those who areolder is both a personal challenge and opportunity for innovation. In a study conducted by […]

Happy Valentine’s Day!Cards, candy and…connecting online? Older adults are among the fastest growing age group meeting and matching digitally.Worldwide more older adults are finding love online. Match.com reports that 22%of its […]

By now everyone has heard (and heard again…and again) thatthe American baby boomers are aging. Even their Canadian cousins are aging – infact marginally grayer then their neighbor to the […]

PC World cried out two years ago – Are Baby Boomers Killing Facebook and Twitter? Younger users were described as losing their digitalplayground to commercialization and (evenworse) to their parents. […]

The scale and scope ofdevastation in Japan from the earthquake and tsunami is only beginning to beunderstood. In coming days and weeks we will have the dismal numbers of liveslost […]

Before chemistry was ‘chemistry’ there was alchemy. Alchemists sought to change gray lead into gold, well, gold. Sounds reasonable. The atomic number of lead is 82. Gold’s atomic number is […]

Joe Coughlin on Businesses Banking on Boomers (click here to view interview) CBS Sunday Morning aired its annual ‘Money’ show today andincluded a segment on baby boomers – The New […]

Old age is not what it used to be.  Pensions were defined and assured. Not for all, but the ‘dream’ of retirement was a sunny day at the beach. The […]

Prognostics is a field within engineering to predict when a system or a component within that system will no longer function as designed or is likely to fail. For example, […]

Face it you like your privacy. But little by little you have given it up for a little benefit here, a convenience there. Your life, home, auto and health insurers […]

Technology and aging over the last decade has made it to the public agenda. It has been the subject of government, industry and university researchers in specialized journals for many […]

Joined by MIT AgeLab‘s Katie Godfrey, Ihad the pleasure of being on NBC ‘s Today Show this week. NBC’s Peter Alexander visited the AgeLab to take a new look at old […]

Images matter. They help us make sense of the world anddefine our reality. Overtime images can become symbols that frame what webelieve – thwarting or facilitating change. Changes in social […]

I was invited by AARP and the Atlantic Monthly to join a forum “What’s Next? How Technology will Revolutionize the Boomer Generation” in Washington, DC last Fall. This is update to […]

Last week the MIT Center for Real Estate convened the MIT 2011 Real Estate Symposium engagingleaders in real estate finance, design, development and management. JoiningAvalon Bay’s William McLaughlin, AC Nielsen’s […]

The telecommunications industry is stumped by the baby boomers.The first cohort to refuse to let products or services define them as ‘old’,one would think the boomers would be quicker to […]

One of the surprising details of the death of Osama Bin Laden since President Obama’s announcement near midnight Sunday night has been the absence of what Shakespeare’s Othello called “the […]

Debate on personality disorders, classifications, diagnoses, and treatments is well worthwhile, and a colorful spokesperson never hurts.

I hate to be a party pooper.  Nor am I natural believer in conspiracy theories. I tend to subscribe to the ‘cock up’ rather than ‘conspiracy’ view, and I’ve rarely […]

During the past weeks I saw more and more interviews, blog posts and discussions on what the return of investment (ROI) of a college degree is these days. It is […]

I do not rejoice in anyone’s death but I am glad Bin Laden has met his maker and grateful to those servicemen and women who put themselves in harm’s way to […]

A questionable (but honest and penetrating) part of HIGHER EDUCATION? by Hacker and Dreifus is its assertive case against TENURE for professors. I have little doubt that tenure is toast.  […]

This post is mostly to show some of the great images that the Daily Mail posted about field work performed inside a crater at Thrihnukagigur* in Iceland – literally, the team […]

Since the birth of mass market advertising, one of the longest standing strategies has been to call a product “all natural.” Today, this key word has been joined by others […]

I heard about the death of Osama Bin Laden the same way a lot of other people across the country did – while I was doing something else on a […]

Ever wanted to travel back in time to your favorite city and imagine how it actually existed hundreds of years ago? Or hear the stories of a city’s residents in […]

Since Dennis Tito became the first space tourist at the beginning of the last decade, the commercial space industry has taken a great leap forward.