Stop-Gap MeasuresIs bringing two age groups together under one business roof brewing success or inviting each other to a nightmare? Meet two sets of entrepreneurs who made their differences work-and one who couldn't span the generation gap.

ERandMarcus Welby, M.D.E-mail and CB-radios.The Phantom MenaceandStar Wars. Kid Rock and the Rolling Stones. Bill Clinton's MonicaGate and Richard Nixon's Watergate. Columbine High School and Kent State.

Every generation is shaped by its environment, whether it's from listening to the news or to Huey Lewis and the News. It's who we are. Just as our grandparents or parents were probably a little warped by the Great Depression of the 1930s, people in their early 20s get to live with the idea that O.J. Simpson, in a sense, had something to do with their upbringings. Like it or not, we are Tonya Harding, John Wayne Bobbitt, Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger. But we're also Mr. Rogers, Marie Osmond, Big Bird and Princess Diana.