Monday, June 30, 2008
Of Common Denominators
The other day, I learned that when I renew my driver’s license in Colorado (mercifully not until 2012), I can do it only for five years instead of the ten before that magic 65th birthday and that a letter from a licensed optometrist or opthamologist certifying that I have had an eye examination in the previous six months must accompany me. I guess that the Motor Vehicle Division no longer trusts their own tests to determine that I can see. Now they want corroboration.
This doesn’t really bother me—after all, it could be worse--I could have reached the age where I have to submit a doctor’s report that I am physically able and mentally alert enough to be trusted on the road—but it does make me reflect on how one day I am competent and to be trusted and then, come the magic 65th, next day everything has changed. It makes me understand the angst of the airline pilots who are suddenly grounded in their fifties. It also makes me understand what my late husband used to call the lowest common denominator, in this case the clear worse-case scenario that EVERYONE over a certain age is in the early stages of Alzheimers or about to stroke out and thus is a potential hazard on the road that must be removed before the damage can be done.
Now, I don’t deny the inevitable effects of aging. No one—least of all me—denies it or the physical problems it brings. I’ve blogged about some of them. Nor do I oppose extra requirements for older drivers any more than I oppose them for very young ones. What bothers me is the arbitrary line beyond which competence has to be proved based on the assumption that an aging population necessarily means an increasingly incompetent one. It’s a matter of pride and perhaps a little fear. If I can’t drive, given the way that American suburbs are dependent on the automobile, I would be a prisoner in my own home. Fortunately, I can’t see any reason that would happen, but the idea has been planted.
While I will follow whatever requirements I must to renew my license when the time comes, I hope I can do it with a slight smile and shake of the head as some bureaucrat reads the letter on my eye exam to see if it meets her standard. I hope my optometrist has the grace to smile and shake her head when she signs the letter for me. I want to believe that these requirements are silly when it comes to me, even if society is doing everything possible to make me part of a group of people aged in a spread between 65 and 100 all of whom have been classified as pretty much over the hill.
Over the hill? Last week I took my grandson white-water rafting. We signed a release about the inherent dangers of the activity—these included banging into rocks and falling out of the boat and drowning. Thank God, they didn’t have anything about the additional dangers of white-water rafting while being over 65. I was just another thrill-seeker with the upfront bucks to pay for it. I got the same instructions as everyone else. There were no special precautions, and everything was fine. It was a lovely day in the mountains, the river was running high, and while paddling madly, I was able to forget my age and everything else and just have fun.
This doesn’t really bother me—after all, it could be worse--I could have reached the age where I have to submit a doctor’s report that I am physically able and mentally alert enough to be trusted on the road—but it does make me reflect on how one day I am competent and to be trusted and then, come the magic 65th, next day everything has changed. It makes me understand the angst of the airline pilots who are suddenly grounded in their fifties. It also makes me understand what my late husband used to call the lowest common denominator, in this case the clear worse-case scenario that EVERYONE over a certain age is in the early stages of Alzheimers or about to stroke out and thus is a potential hazard on the road that must be removed before the damage can be done.
Now, I don’t deny the inevitable effects of aging. No one—least of all me—denies it or the physical problems it brings. I’ve blogged about some of them. Nor do I oppose extra requirements for older drivers any more than I oppose them for very young ones. What bothers me is the arbitrary line beyond which competence has to be proved based on the assumption that an aging population necessarily means an increasingly incompetent one. It’s a matter of pride and perhaps a little fear. If I can’t drive, given the way that American suburbs are dependent on the automobile, I would be a prisoner in my own home. Fortunately, I can’t see any reason that would happen, but the idea has been planted.
While I will follow whatever requirements I must to renew my license when the time comes, I hope I can do it with a slight smile and shake of the head as some bureaucrat reads the letter on my eye exam to see if it meets her standard. I hope my optometrist has the grace to smile and shake her head when she signs the letter for me. I want to believe that these requirements are silly when it comes to me, even if society is doing everything possible to make me part of a group of people aged in a spread between 65 and 100 all of whom have been classified as pretty much over the hill.
Over the hill? Last week I took my grandson white-water rafting. We signed a release about the inherent dangers of the activity—these included banging into rocks and falling out of the boat and drowning. Thank God, they didn’t have anything about the additional dangers of white-water rafting while being over 65. I was just another thrill-seeker with the upfront bucks to pay for it. I got the same instructions as everyone else. There were no special precautions, and everything was fine. It was a lovely day in the mountains, the river was running high, and while paddling madly, I was able to forget my age and everything else and just have fun.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Marketing 101
My book, Every Purpose Under Heaven, is nearing the point when my agent will be presenting it to a publisher. Beyond the fact that I am ecstatic that I won’t have to do that, my illusions about agents have been sorely put to the test.
I thought all I had to do was write an excellent book, get an agent interested, and then sit back. Wrong. Even though my first book, Extraordinary Things, was selected as a finalist for an award, I still can’t rest on my laurels. My agent requested that I work seriously on developing a marketing plan for Every Purpose.
At first, I convinced myself that I had no idea of how to develop a plan. I thought of marketing as a catchy slogan and massively repeating ads on TV—sort of like snake oil selling from the back of wagons (the kind that got you tarred and feathered), convincing the gullible that they couldn’t live without whatever you were selling.
It took me a while to understand that wasn’t quite going to work with selling a book unless the author is famous and tantalizes the reader with promises of secrets—usually sexual although massive fraud can also work—to be revealed only within the pages of the book. My book, needless to say, had neither of those, so I was left wondering what marvel of Madison Avenue mumbo-jumbo (remember the book title: “From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor”?) would convince someone to part with the money to buy my book.
I had and have no doubt that Every Purpose Under Heaven is a good book—maybe even a great book. But when it came to convincing people to read it, I was out to sea.
Then it came to me that it wasn’t a problem of marketing that I was stuck on—it was a problem of how I thought about what marketing is. When I took a course from the Small Business Association some years ago, one of the things that the instructor impressed on us was the need to shout our services from the nearest rooftop. Having a great product was very nice, but not as nice as having people know about it. When I thought about that, I could see that I needed to redefine marketing—or more practically—refine how I thought about it. This necessitated my going back to basics of Marketing 101. Marketing, it turns out, is matching product with audience need. Of course, that need sometimes has to be created. It was only then that I adopted an entirely new definition of the field.
I now understand that marketing is when people apply makeup to appear years younger when applying for a job. Marketing is writing a solid and engaging resume to beat out others applying for the same position. Marketing is scenting a house with the smell of baking cookies when it is being shown to prospective buyers. Marketing is dressing in one’s best clothes when going to shop at the mall. Marketing, in other words, is putting one's best foot forward, understanding that the competition is vast and organized, and resolving to offer something that no one else can.
Once I saw this, I was able to write the marketing plan for my book. I rather wished I could use the words “searing,” “passionate,” “unforgettable,” and “seductive.” It’s a little hard to do that when you are writing about learning compassion at the point of death. I suppose I can try: “Every Purpose Under Heaven is a searing expose of what happens at the point of death. Experience the seductive passion of passing on with the help of morphine into the unforgettable experience of life after death.”
For those not quite convinced by my purple rhetoric: you might check out my website at http://www.dmdeluca.com/ in the weeks ahead and see what I did.
I thought all I had to do was write an excellent book, get an agent interested, and then sit back. Wrong. Even though my first book, Extraordinary Things, was selected as a finalist for an award, I still can’t rest on my laurels. My agent requested that I work seriously on developing a marketing plan for Every Purpose.
At first, I convinced myself that I had no idea of how to develop a plan. I thought of marketing as a catchy slogan and massively repeating ads on TV—sort of like snake oil selling from the back of wagons (the kind that got you tarred and feathered), convincing the gullible that they couldn’t live without whatever you were selling.
It took me a while to understand that wasn’t quite going to work with selling a book unless the author is famous and tantalizes the reader with promises of secrets—usually sexual although massive fraud can also work—to be revealed only within the pages of the book. My book, needless to say, had neither of those, so I was left wondering what marvel of Madison Avenue mumbo-jumbo (remember the book title: “From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor”?) would convince someone to part with the money to buy my book.
I had and have no doubt that Every Purpose Under Heaven is a good book—maybe even a great book. But when it came to convincing people to read it, I was out to sea.
Then it came to me that it wasn’t a problem of marketing that I was stuck on—it was a problem of how I thought about what marketing is. When I took a course from the Small Business Association some years ago, one of the things that the instructor impressed on us was the need to shout our services from the nearest rooftop. Having a great product was very nice, but not as nice as having people know about it. When I thought about that, I could see that I needed to redefine marketing—or more practically—refine how I thought about it. This necessitated my going back to basics of Marketing 101. Marketing, it turns out, is matching product with audience need. Of course, that need sometimes has to be created. It was only then that I adopted an entirely new definition of the field.
I now understand that marketing is when people apply makeup to appear years younger when applying for a job. Marketing is writing a solid and engaging resume to beat out others applying for the same position. Marketing is scenting a house with the smell of baking cookies when it is being shown to prospective buyers. Marketing is dressing in one’s best clothes when going to shop at the mall. Marketing, in other words, is putting one's best foot forward, understanding that the competition is vast and organized, and resolving to offer something that no one else can.
Once I saw this, I was able to write the marketing plan for my book. I rather wished I could use the words “searing,” “passionate,” “unforgettable,” and “seductive.” It’s a little hard to do that when you are writing about learning compassion at the point of death. I suppose I can try: “Every Purpose Under Heaven is a searing expose of what happens at the point of death. Experience the seductive passion of passing on with the help of morphine into the unforgettable experience of life after death.”
For those not quite convinced by my purple rhetoric: you might check out my website at http://www.dmdeluca.com/ in the weeks ahead and see what I did.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Senior Take-Out
The other day, while I was waiting for my Thai food take-out, I picked up a free local newspaper called “The Prime Time for Seniors.” It is an earnest, thick paper (32 pages), that proclaims itself to be “Colorado’s Information Source for the 50-Plus Population Since 1986.” My pot stickers were taking a few moments, so I leafed through it. I was amazed by what I saw, particularly by their definition of market share. Quite apart from the fact that somebody thinks they can make money off over-fifty group, by their defintion, Hilary Clinton is a senior citizen and Barrack Obama, like john F. Kennedy among the youngest of presidential candidates, will be a senior in five years. I was forced to envision a giant vaccum cleaner sucking more and more people into a dust bag labeled “senior” so they can be sold things to.
Sid, ever the rational thinker, isn’t bothered much by this—he’s always gone his own way and done what he wants. He started climbing world-class mountains around the world in his sixties and only gave them up (reluctantly) when he injured himself back country skiing. I’m not so sanguine. I can’t help being bothered on a matter of principle. I hate being labeled and I hate even more having people make assumptions about the label they have applied to me—particularly when it is to make themselves money.
A look through the newspaper itself is fascinating: the kinds of activities singled out for praise include volunteering, foster grand parenting, something called “continued independence,” vision loss, respite care, keeping active, senior housing, adult day care, keeping active, diabetes, and arthritis. For fifty year olds?
I remember myself at fifty. I was assistant to the president of a $300 million a year university. I worked with the state governor’s office, with the media, with legislators, with the state attorney’s office, with faculty and community groups. I was a senior? I was interested in nursing homes? In hearing aids and motorized wheel chairs? Pulleeze, I was trying to keep my boss out of the newspapers, trying to placate the regents, and working with whatever new venture the president had come up with along with writing his speeches.
In recognition that I was just being my usual churlish self, I went back through the newspaper looking for something I could relate to. Where were the people like me who start getting published in their sixties? Who start new and successful businesses? Who run for office? Who hold full-time jobs? Who, like Senator Edward Kennedy, continue to serve their country? I couldn’t find them. I guess they just aren’t the people you can sell things to.
I delicately dumped the paper in the recycle bin, but the aftertaste lingers. I am still astounded at the way that everyone over fifty suddenly gets vaccuumed into that dust bag of decay that implies that those aged fifty are merely in the ante-room of Alzheimers and physical collapse. Maybe some of us are. But a lot of the pictures in that newspaper were of people who looked in their eighties or more, doing things like playing beanbag baseball.
I don’t know why I feel so annoyed over being lumped in with a group that has an age spread of forty years, from fifty to the further reaches of human survival. All I know is that it does annoy me. I have no control over what people think when they hear the word “senior.” But what’s worst to me is that I have no control over who gets labeled that way.
Excuse me while I imagine Senator Kennedy and Senator Clinton playing beanbag baseball in a league of retirement homes.
Sid, ever the rational thinker, isn’t bothered much by this—he’s always gone his own way and done what he wants. He started climbing world-class mountains around the world in his sixties and only gave them up (reluctantly) when he injured himself back country skiing. I’m not so sanguine. I can’t help being bothered on a matter of principle. I hate being labeled and I hate even more having people make assumptions about the label they have applied to me—particularly when it is to make themselves money.
A look through the newspaper itself is fascinating: the kinds of activities singled out for praise include volunteering, foster grand parenting, something called “continued independence,” vision loss, respite care, keeping active, senior housing, adult day care, keeping active, diabetes, and arthritis. For fifty year olds?
I remember myself at fifty. I was assistant to the president of a $300 million a year university. I worked with the state governor’s office, with the media, with legislators, with the state attorney’s office, with faculty and community groups. I was a senior? I was interested in nursing homes? In hearing aids and motorized wheel chairs? Pulleeze, I was trying to keep my boss out of the newspapers, trying to placate the regents, and working with whatever new venture the president had come up with along with writing his speeches.
In recognition that I was just being my usual churlish self, I went back through the newspaper looking for something I could relate to. Where were the people like me who start getting published in their sixties? Who start new and successful businesses? Who run for office? Who hold full-time jobs? Who, like Senator Edward Kennedy, continue to serve their country? I couldn’t find them. I guess they just aren’t the people you can sell things to.
I delicately dumped the paper in the recycle bin, but the aftertaste lingers. I am still astounded at the way that everyone over fifty suddenly gets vaccuumed into that dust bag of decay that implies that those aged fifty are merely in the ante-room of Alzheimers and physical collapse. Maybe some of us are. But a lot of the pictures in that newspaper were of people who looked in their eighties or more, doing things like playing beanbag baseball.
I don’t know why I feel so annoyed over being lumped in with a group that has an age spread of forty years, from fifty to the further reaches of human survival. All I know is that it does annoy me. I have no control over what people think when they hear the word “senior.” But what’s worst to me is that I have no control over who gets labeled that way.
Excuse me while I imagine Senator Kennedy and Senator Clinton playing beanbag baseball in a league of retirement homes.
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