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Boomers, Xers and Other Strangers: Understanding the Generational Differences That Divide Us
Anyone taking aim at a generational target market needs to ask certain questions about generations. What does it mean to belong to one generation and not another? Why do we often find it difficult to relate to our children, parents, and acquaintances or co-workers of another generation? Is the generation gap real?

In Boomers, Xers and Other Strangers: Understanding the Generational Differences That Divide Us, Kathy and Rick Hicks argue that the gap is a matter of demonstrable fact, and further, that our generation's impact on our values and thinking can be traced to the events and culture surrounding us in childhood. Their book presents a broad argument that says recognizing the fundamental values we hold, and the ways in which they differ from those of baby boomers, generation xers or the world war two generation, can help us towards mutual understanding and acceptance. Conflict resolution, they suggest, is a matter of remembering where everyone came from.

"If you're having conflicts with someone from another generation," the authors write in their introduction, "the cause is most likely rooted in the core differences of your values ... Clashes or misunderstandings can arise from almost any issue where there are basic value differences.Topics can be as varied as financial decisions, fashion preferences, recreation choices, religious beliefs, musical style, food consumption, or morality concerns."

The book is interesting in itself as a historical overview, outlining the ways events of various decades effected the lives of those who lived through them, as well as the ways these people attempted – with varying degrees of success – to pass received values on to their own children. Through its well crafted presentation, alternating between narrative passages and information-packed sequences, the reader is given a clearer understanding of her own contemporaries and how she fits into her peer group, as well as the context necessary to make sense of other age groups' prominent traits.

But it is also a valuable tool for business professionals and marketers who want to better understand their target markets and how these interact with their families and friends of other generations. Insofar as the book helps explain how the baby boomer generation, the world war two generation and generation x think and act, it gives shape and substance by which the target market can be envisioned and, with careful skill, more decisively hit.

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