America's Consumers in a Decade of Change: Older, On-line and Increasingly Diverse

Americans are about to live through the most disruptive years of the Information Revolution, during which millions of white collar jobs will be eliminated by technology or displaced by offshoring, even as millions of new high-tech jobs are created. In the face of this turbulent economic environment, most Baby Boomers will put off retirement and many of their children will put off growing up, while increasing numbers of the Boomers' elderly, physically-dependent parents will move in with their adult children, who will eventually become their primary care providers. With these added responsibilities, aging Boomers will seek to remain productive workers and active consumers into their 70s and 80s, by going back to school, becoming Websavvy and getting their knees and hips replaced. Simultaneously, the Baby Boom Echo -- who will become the nation's largest group of adults by 2015 -- will fuel the sales of consumer gadgetry, from Web-enabled video-phones to computer games, the sales of which are expected to surpass TV and motion picture revenues by 2010. Meanwhile, until the Echo Boom reaches adulthood, the domestic U.S. labor supply is expected to be three- to four-million warm bodies short of projected employment demands, assuring another decade of high immigration while accelerating America's cultural diversification. Join futurist David Pearce Snyder on this guided tour of the changing American consumer marketplace.

Learning Outcomes:

• Describe the changing number, size and make-up of America's households.
• Explain what is happening to the American middle class.
• Discuss who will win the retailing wars: "Clicks" or "Bricks" or "Clicks & Bricks?"
• Examine America's newest consumers: how many immigrants will there be, and where will they come from?
• Assess the impact of seniors on the Internet; "old dogs" learn new "clicks."
• Explain how wireless web access will change marketing and customer relations.
• Define America's three new consumer demographics: "Boomerang-ers," "YUMPSies," and "Semi-Retirees."
• Define America's three new communities - "Urban Villages," "Life-Style Centers" and "Micropolitans" - where they will be and who will live there.
• Appraise the outlook for shopping malls.

Presented By:

Consulting Futurist, The Snyder Family Enterprise
Contributing Editor, The Futurist Magazine

David Pearce Snyder, Contributing Editor of The Futurist magazine, is a data-based forecaster whose thousands of seminars and workshops on strategic thinking have been attended by representatives from most of the Fortune 500 companies, local and federal government agencies, educational institutions and trade associations. Before entering private practice as a consulting futurist in 1981, Mr. Snyder was Chief of Information Systems, and later, Senior Planning Officer for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, where he designed and managed the IRS Strategic Planning System. He was also a consultant to the RAND Corporation, and served as an instructor for the Federal Executive Institute, and for Congressional and White House staff development programs.

Mr. Snyder has published hundreds of studies, articles and reports on the specific future of a wide range of U.S. institutions, industries and professions, and on the socio-economic impacts of new technologies. He is the editor/co-author of five books, including Future Forces and a sequel, America in the 1990s, both published by the American Society of Association Executives. He has appeared on Nightline, the Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC World Service.