BajaNomad

Modern Elder Academy

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 10:41 AM

I had heard about this sprawling compound in Pescadero before, but this New York Times article describes it as a sort of New Agey Nerd Retreat. Admittedly I fit the "Nerd" prerequisite to a T, but I prefer a lower profile - and require much less overhead - when I visit Baja.

Bajazly - 3-5-2019 at 11:11 AM

What ever but kudos for Conley's "vision", P.T. Barnum would be proud.

TMW - 3-5-2019 at 11:49 AM

One of the problems of getting older while working in the various technical fields is that many are promoted to supervisor and/or managers. Over time one does less of the technical stuff and more of the supervisory and management stuff. At some point you feel like the technology has passed you by. I know of several people in my field retired due at least in part to that feeling. A good friend of mine told me he felt like a hardware guy in a software world.

Not exactly the same as what the Elder Academy is about but another take on aging.

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 11:51 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly  
What ever but kudos for Conley's "vision", P.T. Barnum would be proud.


If you're spending $5000 on a week in El Pescadero, you're doing it wrong.

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 11:56 AM

Quote: Originally posted by TMW  
One of the problems of getting older while working in the various technical fields is that many are promoted to supervisor and/or managers. Over time one does less of the technical stuff and more of the supervisory and management stuff. At some point you feel like the technology has passed you by. I know of several people in my field retired due at least in part to that feeling. A good friend of mine told me he felt like a hardware guy in a software world.

Not exactly the same as what the Elder Academy is about but another take on aging.


I've done (and undone) management 4 times in my 30+ year career. My biggest challenge these days is sorting through the technology sprawl and determining which pieces I really need to do my job versus the ones that are cool and shiny. That and trying to feel relevant at 60 while surrounded by mostly 20 and 30-somethings.

Lee - 3-5-2019 at 12:03 PM

Had dinner with Conley at Hierbabuena a few years ago. Dynamic guy.

You might want to do a session there, Paul. Your crowd, so to speak.

At $5k, what price enlightenment, eh?

StuckSucks - 3-5-2019 at 12:19 PM

I'm one of those oldsters working at a software company that they're talking about. But filling an "application" and paying "tuition" to stay in an overpriced kale and quinoa hotel is not my thing. All I want for is a nice plot of earth to throw my sleeping bag, the more remote the better.

Bajazly - 3-5-2019 at 12:29 PM

Quote: Originally posted by StuckSucks  
All I want for is a nice plot of earth to throw my sleeping bag, the more remote the better.



That one!!!

BajaBlanca - 3-5-2019 at 01:25 PM

What a very interesting article.

One of the first things that hit me after living here in La Bocana a number of years and then deciding to teach middle school, was that I was out of the music loop!

Ageing has to do with your outlook and ability to try new things. I remember having the students tell me who their favorite singer/groups were, going home and youtubeing for hours to see or rather hear, these unknown to me musicians.

Downloaded the lyrics and used them in our English class.

The hard part of getting old are the aches and pains but feeling of freedom to be is WONDERFUL.

If you haven't seen THE INTERN, please do! It addresses some of these very issues in a funny movie.

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 04:28 PM

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBlanca  
What a very interesting article.

One of the first things that hit me after living here in La Bocana a number of years and then deciding to teach middle school, was that I was out of the music loop!

Ageing has to do with your outlook and ability to try new things. I remember having the students tell me who their favorite singer/groups were, going home and youtubeing for hours to see or rather hear, these unknown to me musicians.

Downloaded the lyrics and used them in our English class.

The hard part of getting old are the aches and pains but feeling of freedom to be is WONDERFUL.

If you haven't seen THE INTERN, please do! It addresses some of these very issues in a funny movie.


I'm relatively current on indie music thanks to my involvement with MIT radio (mostly as a listener), a fact that baffles most of my co-workers. On the other hand, I don't play video games, so I'm pretty much left out in that regard. You win some, you lose some, I guess.

I'd like to check out "The Intern", and have often wondered if I could reinvent myself after retirement. My youngest brother plans to retire this year - at 55 - but as a cop he has several opportunities for cozy gigs. If I do work after retirement, I doubt it will be in software. I still joke about looking for a position as "beer taster", preferably in a more moderate climate.

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 04:32 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Lee  
Had dinner with Conley at Hierbabuena a few years ago. Dynamic guy.

You might want to do a session there, Paul. Your crowd, so to speak.

At $5k, what price enlightenment, eh?


Conley is certainly on to something, but I suspect his motives aren't entirely altruistic. Methinks he's looking to fleece dinosaurs with disposable income. While I do fit the "dinosaur" label, I prefer to recycle my income. :tumble:

Lee - 3-5-2019 at 06:02 PM

Quote: Originally posted by pauldavidmena  
Quote: Originally posted by Lee  
Had dinner with Conley at Hierbabuena a few years ago. Dynamic guy.

You might want to do a session there, Paul. Your crowd, so to speak.

At $5k, what price enlightenment, eh?


Conley is certainly on to something, but I suspect his motives aren't entirely altruistic. Methinks he's looking to fleece dinosaurs with disposable income. While I do fit the "dinosaur" label, I prefer to recycle my income. :tumble:


Fleece dinosaurs? Talk about ageist.

About Conley? You're wrong.

BajaBill74 - 3-5-2019 at 06:47 PM

I was a programmer for NCR for many years. My manager in San Francisco told me I had the highest performance appraisal in the organization. (so it wasn't just me that thought I was good):)

Eventually I was offered promotions to management.

The problem here is that the skill set for management isn't the same as for technical work. I don't think I could have been among the best of managers.

I took an early retirement and was self employed as a programmer. It couldn't have turned out better.

My wife and I took a vacation to Cabo San Lucas in 1998. Being self employed you are losing money everyday you arn't working, so this 4 day vacation was the first I took in over a year.

While there I purchased a time share for a fixed room (great view) on the 13th week of every year.

I don't recommend time shares. However I got this to force me to take vacations. It worked and I'm glad I did.

I think this Pescadero place would be fun to go to and see how many people I could have enjoyable conversations with.

I'm probably to cheap, though.

For any tech people on the board I did COBOL and C++.

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 07:48 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Lee  
Quote: Originally posted by pauldavidmena  
Quote: Originally posted by Lee  
Had dinner with Conley at Hierbabuena a few years ago. Dynamic guy.

You might want to do a session there, Paul. Your crowd, so to speak.

At $5k, what price enlightenment, eh?


Conley is certainly on to something, but I suspect his motives aren't entirely altruistic. Methinks he's looking to fleece dinosaurs with disposable income. While I do fit the "dinosaur" label, I prefer to recycle my income. :tumble:


Fleece dinosaurs? Talk about ageist.

About Conley? You're wrong.


"Fleecing dinosaurs" is definitely ageist, although the mental image of woolly dinosaurs getting sheared amuses me. :)

I'm one of those dinosaurs, by the way. :(

As for Conley, I'm willing to see how things turn out for Pescadero in the long term. The thought of a retirement community catering to geeks like me is obviously enticing, but I'd hate to see it turn into Cerritos Beach. Perhaps that ship has already sailed? :O

pauldavidmena - 3-5-2019 at 07:55 PM

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBill74  
I was a programmer for NCR for many years. My manager in San Francisco told me I had the highest performance appraisal in the organization. (so it wasn't just me that thought I was good):)

Eventually I was offered promotions to management.

The problem here is that the skill set for management isn't the same as for technical work. I don't think I could have been among the best of managers.

I took an early retirement and was self employed as a programmer. It couldn't have turned out better.

My wife and I took a vacation to Cabo San Lucas in 1998. Being self employed you are losing money everyday you arn't working, so this 4 day vacation was the first I took in over a year.

While there I purchased a time share for a fixed room (great view) on the 13th week of every year.

I don't recommend time shares. However I got this to force me to take vacations. It worked and I'm glad I did.

I think this Pescadero place would be fun to go to and see how many people I could have enjoyable conversations with.

I'm probably to cheap, though.

For any tech people on the board I did COBOL and C++.


I started working for Grumman (now Northrup Grumman) as a FORTRAN and Assembly Language programmer in '83. I spent 7 years there, 1 at Rockwell and 5 1/2 at Cray Research, where I was a Systems Administrator. Then a couple of start-ups followed by 11 years in Financial Services (9 at Fidelity) and the past 10 years at Constant Contact doing DevOps. It feels like even more years than it really is.

Fidelity had some COBOL programmers supporting their mainframes (remember them?), and they were treated like gold until they were no longer needed for Y2K conversions.

Somewhere in the above mess I found myself working at Wachovia in 2008, a really bad turn of events. Fortunately I lived to see another day - and hopefully many more in Baja.

[Edited on 3-6-2019 by pauldavidmena]

pauldavidmena - 3-7-2019 at 03:37 PM

Here is another article referencing Modern Elder Academy from Business Insider magazine, although the emphasis isn't as much on El Pescadero as it is on ageism in the IT industry. I feel that!

Edit: the BI article takes a lazy man's way to journalism, using the NY Times original about Modern Elder Academy to illustrate its hypothesis.

[Edited on 3-7-2019 by pauldavidmena]

TMW - 3-7-2019 at 04:00 PM

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBill74  

Eventually I was offered promotions to management.

The problem here is that the skill set for management isn't the same as for technical work. I don't think I could have been among the best of managers.


Exactly right. In my line of work all to often it was the best technical people usually promoted to supervisor and above. Many of them if not most were really good at fixing stuff but did a poor job of supervising people or doing budgets. I think a lot of the problem is that they never had any training in supervision, management and leadership. It wasn't until I worked for an owner that I figured out the difference between a General Manager and an owner.

pauldavidmena - 3-7-2019 at 04:11 PM

Quote: Originally posted by TMW  
Quote: Originally posted by BajaBill74  

Eventually I was offered promotions to management.

The problem here is that the skill set for management isn't the same as for technical work. I don't think I could have been among the best of managers.


Exactly right. In my line of work all too often it was the best technical people usually promoted to supervisor and above. Many of them if not most were really good at fixing stuff but did a poor job of supervising people or doing budgets. I think a lot of the problem is that they never had any training in supervision, management and leadership. It wasn't until I worked for an owner that I figured out the difference between a General Manager and an owner.


In my 36-year (so far) career, I've been a manager 4 times. In nearly all cases, it was seen as a promotion from the technical track, and not the dramatic career shift it really was. I was an "okay" manager in that I was a good mentor and advocate for my team, but as a natural introvert I avoided conflict in general and in particular hated the inevitable unpleasant conversation. I've been really fortunate to work for a company that allowed me to return to being an individual contributor without damaging me politically. What saved me? Being an "elder". :biggrin:

Which isn't to say I couldn't use a retreat...

Fatboy - 3-7-2019 at 04:35 PM

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBill74  
I was a programmer for NCR for many years. My manager in San Francisco told me I had the highest performance appraisal in the organization. (so it wasn't just me that thought I was good):)

Eventually I was offered promotions to management.

The problem here is that the skill set for management isn't the same as for technical work. I don't think I could have been among the best of managers.
...


While you may or may not have been a good manager, I do not know, but your observation about knowing a topic well does not automatically mean you would be a good manager is spot on.

Studies seem to indicate most people are promoted one or two positions past their ideal.

Being any effective manager does usually mean knowing the jobs of the people you are managing but that is only one part of being a good and effective manager.

As we all get older we usually start seeing things come true that we were told to us in our youth by older, more experienced people.

And I see that TMW is making a similar point before me...

Bubba - 3-7-2019 at 05:02 PM

Quote: Originally posted by pauldavidmena  
Quote: Originally posted by Bajazly  
What ever but kudos for Conley's "vision", P.T. Barnum would be proud.


If you're spending $5000 on a week in El Pescadero, you're doing it wrong.


You got that right!

I will be accepting applications soon!

AKgringo - 3-7-2019 at 06:00 PM

For only $5000 (US) the successful applicant will be set up for an adventure in Baja that features discovery, introspection, and problem solving!

Upon receipt of payment (cash, gold or silver bullion) a twenty year old Kia Sportage will be delivered to the airport of your choice in Baja!

The cute little soft top will be equiped with an ice chest, a dry goods box, sleeping bag, three man tent, and insect repellant!

This is not just for a week....take as long as you want! In fact, lkeep the damn car if you want to, just lose my number if it breaks down!

Fatboy - 3-7-2019 at 06:06 PM

I am always too late with my ideas! Some 'joker' always beats me to it! :)

pauldavidmena - 3-16-2019 at 04:14 PM

Travel and Leisure magazine posted this article about the Modern Elder Academy and its founder, Chip Conley. Not much new light is shed on the project, but I found it amusing that the article states - twice - that it's based in "Baja, Mexico". Hard to believe that a "journalist" can't do another minute or two of research to get it right...

BajaBill74 - 3-16-2019 at 05:25 PM

Paul David, thank you for that link. The video was good. I wish I were not so cheap because I think I would really enjoy that.

pauldavidmena - 3-17-2019 at 10:31 AM

Quote: Originally posted by BajaBill74  
Paul David, thank you for that link. The video was good. I wish I were not so cheap because I think I would really enjoy that.


Apart from the price tag (because yes, I'm a cheapskate too), it's not a bad idea given how easy it is to feel disconnected in the technical world. I'm a baby boomer surrounded by millennials (and the occasional Gen-Xer), so the sense of alienation is particularly acute. Thankfully I was able to get a Pescadero (a.k.a. "Baja, Mexico") fix last month.

pauldavidmena - 4-3-2019 at 03:28 PM

Here is another article that floats a quote or two from Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy. The title of the article is "The Boss is No Longer the Old Man", but I can tell you from personal experience that the reverse is also true. I've got at least 15 years on my boss, and over 20 on the most "senior" technical person on the team. So while "Modern Elder" describes 30 and 40-somethings feeling overshadowed by a new wave of software engineers, how about the 60-somethings wondering when they're going to be shown the door? Granted, there aren't many of us left in high-tech, but maybe Mr. Conley can squeeze in a special session for us - while we can still afford the tab.

pauldavidmena - 4-14-2019 at 03:36 PM

Here is another article about Modern Elder Academy, this one focusing on 50-somethings in high tech. I'll be in that cohort for another 4 months, so why not?

Lee - 4-14-2019 at 10:25 PM

Anyone low on funds should contact MEA about a scholarship.

Great article.

Expect a full report after completing the course, Paul.

pauldavidmena - 4-16-2019 at 09:16 AM

Since I've been following the MEA, I've noticed that some "articles" just copy or paraphrase others, a sort of microwave journalism. This particular article was pretty good, and has me thinking about it the merits of spending a week essentially around the corner from where I stayed back in February.

pauldavidmena - 7-31-2019 at 07:50 AM

Here is another article that mentions Modern Elder Academy, this time as part of the "working vacation" of a California journalist. Can I have her job?