Retire? Forget About It.

Ah, the problems with reporting on a generation that numbers more than the population of Canada, Chile and Cuba combined.

First, there's a five-part series on retiring Boomers this week in USATODAY.

Then, there's Robert Powell's piece at MarketWatch advising Boomers to plan on two or three careers, putting retirement off for decades.

And now there's a new initiative by the Federal Government and IBM to recruit retired Boomers into the federal workforce (to solve the problem of retiring Boomers).

This back-and-forth reporting isn't wrong -- it just isn't quite right either.

The point for any organization interested in understanding today's Boomer Consumer is that it isn't one group, with one mind-set and one plan. Boomers are many different groups and segments, with millions of mind-sets and about a trillion plans.

Focus on your customers/clients/consumers who are Boomers and understand what is important to them. Don't paint them all with the same brush.

Such a monochrome view will doom you.