What Is Happiness?
[28 January 2006 - Newsweek] World leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, couldn�t quite agree on the answer: Enough of weighty questions of global economics, finance and geopolitics. Once in a while, even hard-charging CEOs and statesmen at the Davos global talk-fest need to kick back and relax. So what do they do? Why, change the subject and talk some more, of course. The other night the topic was happiness. What is it, how to find it, and what to do with it if found? ...

Putting it Off Until Tomorrow: Ernst & Young Aging Workforce Survey Shows Corporate America Forsees a Looming Wisdom Withdrawal but Delays Addressing the Issue
[26 January 2006 - Ernst & Young] A new survey conducted by Ernst & YoungLLP, ExecuNet Inc., and the Human Capital Institute reveals that, althoughcorporate America foresees a significant workforce shortage as boomers retire,it is not dealing with the issue at present and may be underestimating thestrategic challenges ahead.

The survey, The Aging of the U.S. Workforce: Employer Challenges andResponses, indicates that a little more than half of the respondents agreedthat the aging workforce is an issue that must be addressed. While almosttwo-thirds said that retirements will lead to a "brain drain" in theirorganization, less than one-quarter said that it is an issue that isstrategically very important.

"Approximately every seven seconds in America this year, a boomer turns60," said William Arnone, an Employee Financial Services practice leader inthe Human Capital Practice of Ernst & Young LLP. "Seventy percent of thesurvey respondents have not yet attempted to identify where business wisdomresides in their organization. This means one thing: corporate America isfacing a significant wisdom withdrawal."

While the survey illustrated that employers are putting off tackling theissue of an aging workforce, an overwhelming 90 percent said they arecommitted to putting formal retention programs in place in the future. Of the30 percent who have identified where business wisdom resides, only 67 percenthave formal processes in place to transmit that business wisdom to the nextgeneration.

"Right now, HR professionals are focusing on other things they consider tobe more pressing, such as governance and compliance issues," said Arnone. "Asthe looming 'wisdom withdrawal' becomes a more immediate concern, they willfocus their resources on the issue at that time."

Aging Workforce by the Numbers
* Of survey respondents who believe that the aging workforce is an issue that must be dealt with, 53 percent said it will lead to a workforce shortage.
* Sixty-three percent said that retirements will lead to a "brain drain."
* While almost 15 percent of respondents' employees are eligible to retire in the next 5 years, they estimate that just over 10 percent of their current workers are likely to do so.
* Approximately 40 percent noted that their top human capital concern is the availability of talent over the next five years. Other highly ranked areas of concern include retention of key employees and talent management (i.e., ensuring that the right employees are in the right positions).
* Over 85 percent had no formal retention programs in place. Of those who did, hiring retirees as consultants or contractors, retention bonuses, promoting a culture of generational diversity and pre-retirement planning programs proved to be the most popular.

Survey findings are based on responses from a sampling of senior humanresources executives from a cross section of some of the largest employers inthe U.S. in a variety of industry sectors. The survey was conductedelectronically from November 11, 2005, to December 21, 2005.

The Last Hurrah - Boomers At 60 - MSNBC.com
[23 January 2006 - Newsweek - MSNBC.com] The baby boomers tacked left, then right. Where will their politics go in the golden years? The 'I want it all and I want it now' crowd confronts its hardest campaigns. ...

Retraining The Brain
[15 January 2006 - CBS News Sunday Morning] It is hard to tell by watching her, but 4-year old Harper Thomas is participating in what may be a medical revolution. So are Betty and Ernie Radez, aged 87 and 85, respectively. All three are using cutting edge therapies to rewire their brains. Treating serious medical conditions with neither drugs nor surgery. "Everybody thinks that the answers to the ills of humankind lie with pharmacology, gene therapy or stem cells, right?" asks neuroscientist Dr. Michael Merzenich. "That's where the answers are, but another set of answers is coming from a surprising source; right? It's the use, it's the understanding of the process of the brain," Merzenich tells CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. Merzenich is a leading developer of therapies based on what's called brain plasticity, which he defines as, "the capacity of the brain to change itself. It actually changes physically, functionally, in ways that you can measure." ...

Stress and the Balance Within
[12 January 2006 - Speaking of Faith - American Public Media] The American experience of stress has spawned a multi-billion dollar self-help industry. Our guest is wary of that. But she says that, until very recently, modern science did not have the tools or the inclination to take emotional stress seriously. Here she shares fascinating new scientific insight into the molecular level of the mind-body connection. ...

The Myth of the Mid Life Crisis: It's time we stopped dismissing middle age as the beginning of the end. Research suggests that at 40, the brain's best years are still ahead.
[16 January 2006 - Newsweek - Gene Cohen] ... Until recently, scientists paid little attention to psychological development in the second half of life, and those who did pay attention often drew the wrong conclusions. "About the age of 50," Sigmund Freud wrote in 1907, "the elasticity of the mental processes on which treatment depends is, as a rule, lacking. Old people are no longer educable." Freud�who wrote those words at 51 and produced some of his best work after 65�wasn't the only pioneer to misconstrue the aging process. Jean Piaget, the great developmental psychologist, assumed that cognitive development stopped during young adulthood, with the acquisition of abstract thought. Even Erik Erikson, who delineated eight stages of psychosocial development, devoted only two pages of his classic work "Identity and the Life Cycle" to later life. ...

The Surprising Power of the Aging Brain: Scientists used to think intellectual power peaked at age 40. Now they know better.
[8 January 2006 - Time magazine] ... Risk-taking seniors making daring mental leaps? That's not the stereotype. Indeed, until quite recently most researchers believed the human brain followed a fairly predictable developmental arc. It started out protean, gained shape and intellectual muscle as it matured, and reached its peak of power and nimbleness by age 40. After that, the brain began a slow decline, clouding up little by little until, by age 60 or 70, it had lost much of its ability to retain new information and was fumbling with what it had. But that was all right because late-life crankiness had by then made us largely resistant to new ideas anyway.
That, as it turns out, is hooey. More and more, neurologists and psychologists are coming to the conclusion that the brain at midlife--a period increasingly defined as the years from 35 to 65 and even beyond--is a much more elastic, much more supple thing than anyone ever realized. ...