Baby Boomer Grandparents: Good Bye Nana & Papa, Hello Avatars

So… who am I?

Or more definitively, what name should I  be called by my granddaughter… who’ll be arriving in a mere 83 days??

Once my daughter gives birth, I will have a new job, a new title, and require a new name – another addendum to my resume of life.

Of course this is the chance that we grandparents2B get to define ourselves, to position ourselves for that first impression, …or maybe it’s the last impression?

So maybe you didn’t like the name you were born with?  Or you think your parents chose a name that really doesn’t fit you, doesn’t convey the essence of who you are as a person?

And with the impending arrival of your new grandchild, you’ve begun to realize you now have an opportunity to create a new impression or moniker for yourself!

You now get to decide how you want to be perceived; how you want to be remembered.

And in this day of reality TV, social media, and mobile devices, you have to consider a name that will easily transcribe onto smartphones, iPads, and texting platforms.

So what does this mean for me?

I must envision a name that doesn’t use up too many of my 140 characters on Twitter, so that my updates are easily retweetable.

My facebook profile has to be hip, full of witty wall posts and multimedia extravaganzas so as not to embarrass the grandchildren!  I want them to artfully create fan pages of their grandmother and grandfather.

I want my home on facebook to be a comfortable place where they’ll want to bring their friends to hang out.

I need to make sure my blogger persona and my blog are perceived as a cross between The Daily Show, TMZ, Tech Crunch, and The Drudge Report so that the grandchildren will want to be part of my world and I can easily glide into their conversations and text messaging.

My avatar needs to show my creative side, and must position me to attract followers – in massive numbers hopefully so that my grandkids will be eager to ‘follow’ me.

My mentions on Digg, Stumble Upon, Technorati, and Delicious must be sure to not embarrass the next generation, nor cast me in an unflattering light in their social networks.

My feeds must be timely and not mundane.  I need to share enough of my life to entice, but not so much as to cause my family to cringe and implore me to ‘get off the grid.‘

I know I must make certain to never capitalize because SHOUTING isn’t dignified, and can incite certain groups.

My flip camera videos must be accompanied by rockin’ musical scores and Photoshopped images, before being cast onto the internet.

And my apps available on the iPhone and iPad must be moderately priced, but attract throngs of devoted, passionate fans willing to set up forums to discuss how awesome an app maker I am.

My mashups must deliver on imagination and ease of retainment, and my squidoo lenses must encompass breaking news and relevancy.

My iTunes library should recognize that music is a deeply personal form of communication, so my rap and hip hop lyrics must be clean; they must also show that I understand the intimate stories that drive these convos, and my classic rock preferences must steer away from a roster of musicians who are close to signing up for assisted living.

– Steven Tyler of Aerosmith

My flickr galleries need to reveal my deep love of travel and show my grandchildren that the world I strive to capture in digital media is alluring and worthy of their time and participation.

My podcasts must be short, conscise, and full of humor, and they must be clearly directed at subjects of interest to Generation -2, which stands for 2 generations out from the Baby Boomers.

My geotagging needs to show that I only go to the ‘coolest’ of destinations, and my keywords and tags should be gender neutral, but have the potential for monetization.

So while in years and decades gone past, I might have only been concerned with whether the name my grandchildren called me made me appear ‘old,’ I now am concerned with whether my various identities and usernames will attract my  daughter’s children to ‘friend’ me, follow me, and tweet me.

All the Baby Boomers want to be hipster grandparents.  We want to identify ourselves in a splashy, techy way – full of showmanship and minimalistic design.

We want to position ourselves as the support network most advanced in technology, and revolutionary in outlook,  in our grandkids’ toybox of life.

– iPad

So I won’t be waiting to learn what the kids call me; rather I will be positioning myself so that I will slip easily into Generation-2’s daily dose of social media.

What may be the greatest grandparent names of all? – the iNana and iPop!

The next milestone in innovation should be grandparents- for we’ve lived a life that’s been unbelievable, and we look forward to a future that is the ultimate in high performance as loving and relevant grandparents!

Related:

Increase Your Popularity: How to Choose the Perfect Avatar – Context Over Dogma http://bit.ly/aKYGAs

Grandparents Magazine™ – Grandparent Names Around the World http://bit.ly/atEfRA

Amazon.com: The New Grandparents Name Book (9780977706525): Lin Wellford, Skye Pifer: Books http://bit.ly/cvNpv6

Computer Training for the Over 50s http://bit.ly/9WZ9nl

GameTab – The Game Reviews & News Compilation Site. http://bit.ly/cEoIQl

Gifts for Grandmothers (T-Shirts, Mugs, and More) http://bit.ly/aE1oUJ

Grandparent News and Headlines – Grandparents.com http://bit.ly/bFHLmy

Crunch Base on iPad:  http://www.crunchbase.com/product/tablet

*iPad photo courtesy of Crunch Base

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