50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America

by Bill Novelli

50+ is a call to arms. It’s a groundbreaking look at the revolution that’s going on right now among seventy-eight million American baby boomers. From age 50+ on up, Americans are refusing to rock away their retirement. They’re starting new careers, rallying for causes close to their hearts, raising grandchildren, becoming more active in their communities, and, above all else, changing the face of aging in America.
Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP, knows that with the largest generation of Americans ever recorded nearing traditional retirement age, this revolution is changing the way 50+ Americans live their lives. The boomers have vast technological expertise, are actively involved in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, have been politically active throughout their lives, and are comfortable managing their own finances. They’re no strangers to the gym, the voting booth, online investing sites, or the day-to-day management of their 401(k)s, and they’re joining an already active and savvy group of Americans 50+ and beyond who are determined to leave their mark on the world. Novelli knows that there’s strength in numbers and that 50+ Americans can seize the day

--Working to transform health care not only by demanding quality care and lower pharmaceutical costs, but also by engaging in healthy lifestyles and preventive care

--Creating a secure retirement by planning personal finances well in advance and working to make Social Security solvent for all Americans

--Revolutionizing the workplace so those of us who want or need to continue working can do so in a way that benefits everyone.

--Building livable communities with improved housing, transportation, and services, allowing all Americans to age in place.

--Changing the marketplace by driving the development of innovative products and services that add value to 50+ lives, and using collective purchasing power to make them affordable

--Advocating for causes that will really make a difference

--Creating a lasting legacy so we can leave the world a better place than we found it.

By discovering the possibilities that lie within all of us, we can ignite a twenty-first-century revolution to make America better and stronger. If you’re 50+, Bill Novelli has a message for The best is yet to come.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2006

About the author

William D. Novelli, Founder, Georgetown Business for Impact and Distinguished Professor of the Practice, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University
As a professor in the MBA program at McDonough Georgetown, Bill teaches Principled Leadership for Business and Society and Managing the Enterprise. He developed and previously taught courses in Corporate Social Responsibility and Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations.

He founded Georgetown Business for Impact at McDonough and oversees the program, which partners with companies, nonprofits, and government to create social, environmental, and economic impact.

Bill is also co-founder and co-chair of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, a national alliance focused on reforming advanced illness/end of life care in the U.S.
Previously, he was CEO of AARP, a membership organization of 40 million people 50 and older.

Prior to AARP, he was founder and president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, EVP of CARE, the international relief and development organization, and co-founder and president of Porter Novelli, a global public relations firm and now part of Omnicom.

Bill is the author of Fifty Plus: Give Meaning and Purpose to the Best Time of Your Life (with Boe Workman, St. Martin’s Press) and Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order (with Peter Cappelli, Harvard University Press). His new book, Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World (Johns Hopkins University Press) is due out in late 2020.

Reviews

[Roger Smitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Novelli has 2006 book that can make of many changes in a world in where we are now. There are many themes about the problems in our world. He makes it clear that he is writing about of problems across the wealth. And that the problems don’t have lines that make countries.

Look (and carefully read) the very first words: “Americans deserve a revolution.” The sentences will be difficult to know everything. Almost all of the pages have something to think about. The words become very big issues and themes for what is coming in our world.

In the last page of the first part of the first pages, we get “This …is a book less about aging that about social change and what each of us can do to advance.” And then we get George Bernard Shaw “….we are made wise not by recollection of our past, but by the responsibility of our future.”

And the first topic (starting at page 21) is about smoking. This and the other themes are difficult to think about. The book gives the reader some starters in the reading work.

[Scott]

Great book for people over 50 -- or under 50, for that matter. We, the over-50 crowd, are not going away quietly to a life of sedentary and withdrawn sub-healthy retirement. We are healthy, active, prosperous, and we can still change things in the world for the better. This book gives a lot of great ideas and thoughts on that, as well as what we ought to expect and prepare for in our waning years.