This is a Post About Boomers and....uh...oh yeah, Memory

One area we have been predicting will be big for marketers and smart businesspeople is helping Boomers exercise their brains (we wrote about it last year, for example). This article from The New York Times earlier this week sheds new light on the opportunity.

Boomers were the generation that created and embraced the fitness craze in the 1970's and 80's. They made it acceptable for adults, grown-ups that is, to keep wearing sneakers and gym clothes, long past their last official recess or gym class. As David Brooks pointed put in his 2001 book Bobos in Paradise, Boomers turned what was once called "playing" into "working out." That's right, we made play into work. Our Puritan forefathers must be laughing at us from above.

Mental gymnastics will prove to be a big business as Boomers see their parents living well into their 80's and 90's, with the body parts holding up while mental acuity falters. For those of you looking for inexpensive ways to exercise your brains, try this book, Keep Your Brain Alive, and master neurobics.

Or do some jumping jacks.