The Baby Boomer Renaissance: The Boomer Chronicles

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Boomer Chronicles

The Amish are Smarter Than We Are
BloggingBoomers Carnival #165
My Blog Was Hacked

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 12:20 PM PDT

Four summers ago, I went out to the state of Ohio, site of the largest Amish community in the country, and stayed with friends who lived there. I had a blast. It’s time to go back. In preparation, I recently read a book, Success Made Simple: An Inside Look at Why Amish Businesses Thrive (Jossey-Bass) by Erik Wesner, a non-Amish man who knows as much as a non-Amish person can know about the Amish. He has a blog, Amish America, and now he is receiving national recognition for his exploration of how Amish businesses work.

In his book, Erik points out that there are about 9,000 Amish-owned businesses, and they are not mom-and-pop shops. In fact, many of the enterprises have millions of dollars in annual sales, even though Amish people often have just an eighth-grade education, and cannot take advantage of the technology that most of us use. So why do their businesses have a 95 percent success rate? Read the book, which has already attracted the attention of Time, Fast Company, CNN Money, and MSNBC.

In the meantime, let’s revisit my fabulous post, Would You Eat at My Amish Restaurant?

BloggingBoomers Carnival #165

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 06:14 AM PDT

Our carnival for baby boomers usually runs on Mondays, but my blog was hacked. So here I am today with the goods. The carnival is hosted this week by Vaboomer.com. Check it out!