PBS announced over the weekend at the Television Critics Association press tour that the network is revisiting the beloved children’s show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” with a new animated program. This series incorporates the original “Mister Rogers” characters as adults with young kids of their own living in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

Four-year-old Daniel Tiger is the star – hence the title “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” – and the show is set to air next fall. It’s the first TV series the Fred Rogers Company has produced since the original “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” which ceased production about 10 years ago.

Although the original “Mister Rogers” could be watched by a wide age range, the new version is targeting the preschool set, Kevin Morrison, the Chief Operating Officer of the Fred Rogers Company who is also executive producing “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

“You could watch ‘Mister Rogers’ if you were 4 and you could watch ‘Mister Rogers’ if you were 12 and you could get different things out of the program,” Morrison told the paper. “That was one of its great strengths, and obviously in the context of that time when there weren’t many children’s programs, that was an important strength. There are no longer three TV channels a child can watch after school; there are 300. It’s a fragmented market. It’s now structured so that there are programs that specifically target boys who are 9 and boys who are 12 and so on.”

But one thing will remain the same, and that’s instilling a sense of curiosity in young viewers about the world around them, Morrison said. “The huge thing [Rogers] had which nobody else had in those literacy and numeracy and science programs was an understanding of how people relate to other people, understanding emotions,” Morrison added.

Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President of Children’s Media at PBS, said in a statement that “Fred Rogers revolutionized children’s media with ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ and ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’ continues on this path of innovation, helping the next generation of young children learn and grow in new ways.”

This is taken from an article at: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/01/pbs-revisits-mister-rogers-with-new-show/

I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room with my iPad blogging. The median age, about 60. We live in a small city south of Tucson, AZ filled with retirees. So at times it can be hard to convince people that even need a website. We have even been forced to use a traditional yellow pages… There are businesses that we would be able to find otherwise. Quite a change from Phoenix where we spent 6 years.

Who is “everyone else”? Here is great chart to get us started:

The value of social media
Businesses should participate in social media because it is a hub for users of all different backgrounds and ages who can be reached via controlled messaging. Increased exposure to users leads to greater brand awareness, stronger associations, and more traffic and leads for your business. In short, when you employ the right social media strategies, your target demographic is bound to find you.

Why you should use it to reach seniors
If your target audience is senior and perhaps less Internet savvy, reaching them with online marketing can seem like a daunting task. However, these users are on social media, and you should be too. In fact, year-over-year, older adults are increasingly logging onto social media sites to keep in touch with friends and family, find people from their past, and partake in online discussions. Recent studies show that users over 50 are the fastest growing demographic for Facebook and other social media. Additionally, usage among those over the age of 65 grew 100 percent since 2009, while usage of Twitter has more than doubled among those 50 and older since 2009.

Getting started
Below are a few tips to help you leverage social media to reach an older demographic:

Verify your target demographic: Even if you think you know your target, check the data to be sure. Tools like Compete.com and comScore.com can provide you with details on who is visiting your site, including age demographics.

Utilize the right social media: Once you know that older demographics are indeed who you want to target, be sure to look beyond popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to those that cater to an older demographic. Eons.com is known as the online community for Boomers, and is an example of older users connecting over interests and online forums, which could relate to your business.

Connect frequently and relevantly: Frequent, relevant posts and updates are crucial to social media success. Ideally, you should have a social media administrator to update and monitor this content frequently, using language and offerings catered to your audience.

Get involved: When you’re not posting, see what groups or pages you can create; browse online conversations to see what users are discussing, and get involved. Make it clear that your company is a credible resource in the field, and give users a reason to follow you and get to know you better.

Today, social media sites are no longer just for the collegiate set. Older demographics are engaging with these sites more and more, and smart marketers will leverage this channel to reach them.

Parts of this is taken from an article at: http://www.iprospect.com/social-media/reaching-older-demographics-with-social-media.html

However, two very important things happened today. The first thing being that Apple OSx Lion FINALLY became available for download. Of course, we already started the download for the latest OS to our systems, maybe I’ll do a quick review in a couple of days (there are never enough of those, right?).

The second thing being that Captain Planet was announced to be coming to the big screen. Who didn’t love captain planet, except for maybe my sister who hates all cartoons.

Sufficed to say that nothing could ruin my mood today. Plus its monsoon season here in Arizona. Love it!

People often ask me, “Where do find the time to do it ‘all’?” I think that when you have heard from God on what you are supposed to do (not only in your life, but in your season) you make the time. A statement around our house you hear almost daily: “It’s just a season.”

But one of the most important keys to making this all work is a very understanding and committed wife. As 51% owner of the business, she has the final say on everything. And while that may seem hard to some, I remind them that without her diligence and sacrifice we wouldn’t even been this far.

We can do this, it’s only a season. But the thing we have learned in pursuing our dreams is to not loose focus on the WHY while pursuing the HOW. I’m doing this (as Dave Ramsey would say) to “change my family tree”. Remember if it were easy, we would have all done this years ago.

That was me a year ago. Now I comfortably juggle several projects at a time. Does that mean there are never deadlines or stresses because “it just won’t work right”? Absolutely not. So then what changed? Life hasn’t gotten any easier? In fact it has gotten busier. We now have a toddler and 12-week old.

I must of changed. And I can’t pinpoint it to one specific moment in time, one electrifying revelation, there were no lights from heaven, no fairies dancing around the room. I just woke up one morning and thought to myself. I can do this. I can do this well. And so I started doing just that. It was a decision. This is what I am going to do. No more “side-jobs”. I want this business for my own. I wanted to make 5 to 9 job, my 9 to 5 job. So that’s what this blog is. Detailing my journey to quit my job and do my business full-time. Now I’m not an idiot. I haven’t quit my job. In fact I’m working even harder at it. But the season is coming for it to happen. I believe that this year I will be unleashed. More to come.