What A Year it has been!

The last one year has been a tremendous journey for all of us here at Boomer411 and for you, our readers as well.

In this one year, we have moved from taking baby steps here at Boomer411 to a lot of valuable content and productive partnerships resulting in a site that is informative, useful and easy to use, based on the feedback we received so far.

Just to recap a few of our milestones this past year:

- In January, 2008 we had just launched a couple of months back

- In March, 2008 Boomer411 was selected as one of the 10 best websites for Baby Boomers by The P C Magazine

- In July, 2008 we started featuring articles from our first guest columnist

- By December, 2008 we have a distinguished panel of guest columnists writing on a variety of topics including, but not limited to, consumer tips and topics, life issues, life stages, coping with loss of loved ones, personal finance, etc.

As we review all this, one thing stands out in our minds. We could not have come this far without your support and patronage. So here is OUR HEARTFELT THANKS TO YOU for a great 2008. And WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND A PROSPEROUS 2009.

Wish You All A Very Happy NEW YEAR!

And working together, we will make 2009 even better.

- From The Entire Boomer411 Family

P.S.: Do let us know if there are any topics you want us to cover more or anything else you want to see on Boomer411

Popularity: 14% [?]

Our present society and culture is so focused on coming up with answers, there is hardly any emphasis on asking good questions. May be there should be a course on coming up with good questions at school. But the importance and impact of asking the right questions can be the difference between success and failure.

Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers
- Voltaire

Popularity: 24% [?]

Continuing our series on interviews, today we are presenting our interview with Susan Levine. Susan Levine is the founder of 50somethinginfo.com, a new and coming site for Baby Boomers that is supposed to be a one stop source of pre-screened information. With a recent surge of businesses hoping to tap this under-served market without much knowledge of the needs/wants of the actual audience they hope to serve, Susan claims to solve the problem meaningfully. She says that her site, launched recently, is designed to deliver reliable 50something information and resources that are not just age-relevant-but more importantly, lifestyle relevant. If you are curious to find out more about Susan and what she has to offer, be sure to checkout her blog here that she has had for a good while now. We at Boomer411 congratulate her on the upcoming launch of her site.

Also, we would like to let you know that Susan has been a very active Boomer411 Trustee, under the user name Ms50SomethingInfo. You can gain instant access to all of her recommendations on Boomer411 here.

So without further ado, here is our interview with Susan Levine…

Boomer411:Tell us about the origins of 50somethinginfo.com.

SL: I was hearing from so many people in my life that the Internet was difficult to navigate. How do you find what you’re looking for? And if you do stumble upon something of interest, how do you know it’s from a good, trustworthy source?

They were having a hard time separating fact from fiction and also complained about the amount of time it took them to sift through all the information out there.

As a trained information professional, I was able to help friends and family members get information on the Internet. And that’s when I had the idea to create a website to help everyone who didn’t grow up with computers and the Internet, but still wanted to use them to enhance their lives.

Boomer411: What makes 50somethinginfo.com different from other search engines?

SL: 50somethinginfo is a human-powered search engine dedicated to delivering the best of the net to adults (both men and women) 50 years old and better.

We are committed to providing a trustworthy, reliable, easy-to-use resource to serve the needs and wants of the 50something audience.

My friends were telling me about their experiences with traditional mainstream search engines. In addition to being directed to cluttered websites and a deluge of advertising, many sites were difficult to read and understand. I even know people who’ve come across medical misinformation – which can be deadly in some cases! 

All the information on 50somethinginfo.com has been sorted and culled by me – a real-life reliable librarian – and my expert team.

Boomer411: What are the benefits of 50somethinginfo.com for users?

SL: Our unique boomer search engine empowers users to find EXACTLY the specific information they need with the goal of shortening their time online. We wanted to create an online destination with concise and dependable information that people could navigate in a jiffy – so they could get on with living their lives!

Our goal is to deliver the best of the net to adults 50 years old and better by assuring our users of an online experience they will trust and enjoy.

Boomer411: How did you make the transition from being a librarian to a boomer web entrepreneur?

SL: I have always loved information and the process of managing, classifying and disseminating it. I have a Masters of Library Science degree from UCLA, and as a librarian I have helped guide patrons through comprehensive volumes of information so they could locate the exact resources they needed. I would also help them extract and organize everything into something tailored to serve their specific information needs. 

What I do now on 50somethinginfo.com is very similar. My friends even call me the “Information Tamer” because I enjoy organizing and sifting through resources so much. Now I extract useful information on the web and deliver it to users in a condensed and easily digestible format! My life as an Information Tamer – both online and offline – is extremely rewarding.

Boomer411: How do you see 50somethinginfo.com serving the needs of its users?

SL: Our site is unique because it applies a 50something lens to every search query – bringing boomers and seniors the best of the net.

One thing I wanted to do was embrace an audience that may have at one time been alienated by the web. So our site is designed to be clean and simple for effortless navigation so visitors can search less, save time, and find more.

We want the experience to be enjoyable, informative and reliable for those interested in using the web to make the most of their lives (online and offline). Our site is geared toward enhancing all aspects of the 50something lifestyle by helping them find the information they need as it relates to retirement, medical, entertainment, eldercare, food, travel, and beyond!

Boomer411: What can our readers expect next?

SL: In addition to being a trustee for Boomer411, I am also very proud of my Boomer blog  http://50somethinginfo.blogspot.com/, which is another great source of useful sites and information. We will be launching the 50somethinginfo.com web site around the holidays and will be welcoming any comments or suggestions from our valued users. You can sign up now for our e-mail newsletter at www.50somethinginfo.com or send your thoughts and feedback to susan@50somethinginfo.com

Additional Resources:

Susan’s profile page on Boomer411.com

Susan’s recommendations on Boomer411.com

Susan’s Blog

Susan’s website for Boomers

Susan’s profile page on blogger.com

Popularity: 18% [?]

It is my pleasure to introduce you to our new guest columnist, Elaine Williams. Elaine is the author of the book “A Journey Well Taken: Life After Loss”. You can learn more about her and her book by clicking here. Elaine wrote this book after recovering from the loss of her beloved husband to cancer a few years ago. Midwest Book Review gave 5 Stars for this book. This book is a finalist in the USA Book News Best Books Awards 2008 (category: Health-Death and Dying). Her articles on loss, grief and recovery as well as other related topics have been published in various websites and eZines.

 We would also like to let you know that Elaine has graciously agreed to be a Boomer411 Trustee. That means she will be sharing her resource recommendations/website recommendations with our users on our search site. You can also get access to all her recommendations by clicking here.

So please allow me to present her maiden article on our blog…

Afraid to Talk About Dying
Elaine Williams copyright 2008
 
When my husband was diagnosed with esophagus cancer, we never talked about him dying, except in the very beginning. I think we were afraid to voice the worst scenario we could think of, him not making it through this disease. He refused to consider taking the traditional route in medicine, which was chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He told me early in his illness he was certain that the chemotherapy would kill him right away. When such a diagnosis is delivered, you begin to carry around with you a heaviness inside. When someone you care about is terminally ill, it dominates your thoughts and every waking moment. Your mind races over the different treatments and the newest drug trials, in the slim hope that things aren’t as bleak as they seem.
 
When the doctors told him he had this cancer, which essentially prevented him from eating, he wanted them to operate and take out the largest tumor at the junction of the stomach and esophagus. His doctor said it would be a major operation, where the ribs would have to be cracked open, and not one that he had the ability to perform. After more extensive testing was done, the doctors decided not to operate because they felt there was a good chance the cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes in the esophagus region. I didn’t know it then, but I guess I should have — they didn’t want to operate because they felt it was a lost cause.
 
We didn’t feel we should give up — we just knew that each human life is a cause worth fighting for. We never gave up hope that he could beat this cancer, even though it wasn’t discovered until almost last stage. I never actually asked the doctor what stage his cancer was. I believe it was an emotionally insulating factor for myself. I was afraid to know. I did so much research on alternative therapies that might help him, but I was afraid to know where traditional medicine saw him in his stage of cancer. Perhaps I was just better off that way. If I had known, perhaps that may have taken some of the fight out of both of us. We passed many milestones on our quest to heal him. To me, it wasn’t extending his life, it was attempting to heal his life and his body.
 
When someone is terminally ill, you want to preserve every moment, and that in itself becomes exhausting, though you’re not really cognizant of the toll day to day life takes on you. You want to try every avenue available to get better. I wanted my husband to visit a clinic we learned about in Mexico, where they had a good success rate of treating his type of cancer. I questioned our alternative medicine doctor about the latest therapies for cancer patients. I refused to let hope die, especially when my husband’s smaller tumors disappeared, and even when he kept losing weight. My mother said to me once, that some women might have left, but it never occurred to me. How could I ever think of leaving someone who I love when they needed me?
 
We took note of every mile marker along the way. Each step forward felt like a triumphant race to the ultimate goal, his being totally cured of cancer. I read many stories about others who had beat this devastating disease. It wasn’t until three weeks before my husband passed away, the night I had a dream, that I knew he was going to die. I’m sure many others knew right along he was going to die, but being in the thick of living this illness, it wasn’t an option for me. When I had the dream he died, I awoke and knew he was going to die. It was that simple.
 
All hope turned to despair. And still, we did not talk of him dying. Perhaps we should have, I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t talk about his dying to spare me and my children. Perhaps he was afraid that even though I’d always been strong, maybe he didn’t want to see me break into a million tiny fragments. And I might have. I might well have broken apart, lost the emotional glue that was keeping me together in those last weeks. When hope flees, emotion and fear can break you down.
 
Some days I thought there was nothing more terrible than watching someone you love waste away from 200 lbs to ninety or so pounds. The spirit and the brightness in his eyes was undiminished, until the last eighteen hours. When you look into a loved one’s eyes and all you see is a black glassy emptiness, you know it is the end. For someone who likes to take control, and make other’s comfortable, I knew there was noting I could do. It was the most helpless I ever recall feeling in my life. The end had been written, but we never talked about the end. I think it was just too hard.

 
A Journey Well Taken: Life After Loss
http://www.ajourneywelltaken.com
A Widow’s journey through loss, grief and renewal
Midwest Book Review – 5 Stars
Finalist USA Book News Best Books Awards 2008

Popularity: 32% [?]

Last Monday we published part 1 of our interview with Jill Gilbert. Jill Gilbert is the founder and CEO of Gilbert Guide. Gilbert Guide is the leading resource on the topic of elder care or senior care. It educates, entertains and provides listings of service providers in your local area for senior care. We would also like to highlight that GilbertGuide is a Boomer411 Trustee and you can find their recommended articles here. This interview is being presented in two parts. Part 1 of this interview can be accessed here. Today we present the second and concluding part of this interview…

Boomer411: What motivated you to start GilbertGuide? How long has it been?

JG: Well, to make a long story short, I was motivated by another idea first. I began my career working in the film industry and decided it was time for a change. My parents run a cancer center in Lodi, CA, where my dad is a radiation oncologist. Their patients received excellent treatment, but they were at a loss when it came to accessing all the other, supplemental information they needed. We originally discussed building a cancer resource center to complement their practice, but when I started looking for resource books and couldn’t find anything that encompassed every category, the idea began to change. One thing you should understand is that I came from a really different background-for one thing, the film industry has amazing resource books. And for another, I didn’t know anything about senior care, and the books that I did find didn’t answer my questions. It was 2003. That’s basically when Gilbert Guide began, and almost a year later, my brother Jason joined the team, really making it a family company. Gilbert Guide started out publishing geo-centric guidebooks with comprehensive reviews of every senior care provider in the area. Before then, I’d never set foot inside a nursing home. But I learned from the ground up and surrounded myself with experts. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. It gave me a unique perspective. And since then, of course, Gilbert Guide has expanded its offerings greatly.

Boomer411: You have an impressive team that produces interesting, informative articles on a variety of topics. Can you tell our readers more about your panel of experts and the topics covered by GilbertGuide?

JG: We have a wonderful, articulate bunch of experts who write their own columns on GilbertGuide.com. The authors and the topics they write on are wide-ranging. We have an incontinence specialist, a cancer doctor who is a practicing radiation oncologist, a pharmacologist, a naturopath, a dentist whose practice focuses on geriatric dentistry, a nutritionist, two geriatric care managers, a senior move manager, a long-term care insurance specialist, a financial planner who works exclusively with the elderly, hospice experts and more. In addition to our columnists, we have select experts who contribute original articles to other areas of the site. Also, we have many readers who leave insightful questions and comments to the authors at the end of their articles, which often starts an in-depth conversation between the author and other readers, so it’s really quite an incredible collaboration. It’s very community-oriented.

Boomer411: How do you come up with the topics?

JG: Oftentimes, the topics come from our readers. They’re very vocal in letting us know what they want to learn more about. A conversation that develops in a comment thread following a particular article might pose interesting questions that expose the need for developing that topic further. Sometimes people email us asking for coverage on a certain topic. We work very closely with our contributors to help guide the topics and answer our readers’ questions. All of our experts work in some professional capacity in the senior care world, so they propose topics as well, often writing on topics their patients and clients come to them for advice on. And of course, we’re a part of the senior care industry, so we report on current trends and issues in a more journalistic vein, to keep our readers abreast of those developments.

Boomer411: What criteria should one use when trying to determine what kind of care a loved one requires?

JG: I could go on for hours and still never completely answer this question! Let me explain. Every senior, every family, every facility-and every situation is different. That’s not to say that this question is unanswerable. Of course it is-but I’m going to point you to our Care Planner to answer it! The Care Planner provides each individual with a personalized care plan tailored to their unique situation, guiding them through the process step by step, and granting them access to our supportive “how-to” tool-kits.

Boomer411: What are some of the common pitfalls and mistakes that Boomers make in choosing a care provider and/or facility?

JG: You know, the biggest-and most common-mistake that I see is that people tend to get stuck in the present and they don’t troubleshoot the future. They think, “Oh, Mom’s healthy now, and Grandma died peacefully in her sleep, and never went to the doctor a day in her life” Or something like that. But the reality is: we are all living longer, and that presents complications. Many boomers are facing the challenge of caring for an aging parent, having them move in or choosing a facility for them, in addition to simultaneously caring for a spouse and children, and working and planning for their own retirement. The best move they can make is to plan for the future and try to avoid making uninformed choices. Many families that don’t plan ahead end up having to move a parent from one facility to the next as needs change. Doing so can be extremely costly and take a heavy toll, both emotionally and physically, on the senior and the entire family. It’s worth taking the time to consider all the factors and weigh your options instead of basing decisions on what’s relevant today.

Boomer411: What are your thoughts on the ‘aging in-place’ initiative being experimented around the country?

JG: Aging in-place is what most of us want for ourselves when the time comes. A lot of people don’t realize there’s such a thing as nonmedical homecare available. It means that you can get help for your mom or dad to help them remain at home for as long as possible, giving them access to the care they need without having to move them to a facility. Home care workers can help with all kinds of everyday activities, ranging from light housekeeping, to helping an elder eat, bathe, use the toilet and so on. They can even provide medication reminders. Some simple home modifications can go a long way to help, too. And the assistive technology that’s available today-well, it’s pretty amazing! Just wait until you see what’s coming in the near future.

Aging in place is also possible in a facility. For example, if a senior lives in an assisted living community, she could potentially remain there for the rest of her life, without having to move again, even if her health status changes. Of course, all of this depends on the contractual agreement that she has with the facility. But the idea is the same: the senior remains in the residence where he or she is comfortable, obtaining the necessary care as health needs increase.

Boomer411: What is your outlook for the future of retirement communities and long-term care facilities?

JG: There has been a huge growth in these types of communities and I think the industry is trying to figure itself out. There will always be a need for them. There’s a growing trend of communities specializing in particular interests, which I believe we’ll begin to see more and more of. For example, there are university-based retirement communities and Hollywood actor communities, and of course those which are backed by religious organizations. Lately there’s been a rise in the number of LGBT-oriented communities. But I think we will start to see more “special interest” communities forming. Those will really be the most successful-common interests make for much happier residents.

Boomer411: Any closing comments, insights you would like to share with our readers?  

JG: Gilbert Guide’s goal is to ease the process of searching for senior care. It’s a big world, and you can be sure that there will be questions and issues that creep up every step of the way. When that happens, Gilbert Guide will be there to lend support, advice and information.

This concludes our interview with Jill Gilbert, founder of Gilbert Guide. Please use the links below to learn more about GilbertGuide, what they have to offer and a listing of articles recommended by GilbertGuide. 

Resources:  

Gilbert Guide profile on Boomer411 

Gilbert Guide’s article recommendations on Boomer411 

Gilbert Guide Resources

Care Planner      

Find a Provider        

Senior Housing Solutions Center   

Alzheimer’s & Dementia Solutions Center  

Care at Home Solutions Center

Partner Marketplace        http://www.gilbertguide.com/preferred-partners/

Popularity: 35% [?]