The New World Order
2010 Census Recognizes Demographic Shifts

Today’s Advertising Age story about the major shift in American demographics provides a revelation to all who thought the United States was a monolithic society.
If you truly believed that, you’ve been living in the dark ages, to say the least.
For those of us who have known the deal for decades, it’s old news.

Alas, that’s okay. It takes some of us a while to become fully awake, particularly marketers charged with taking the easy way out and trying to sell products and services to us as a single group. Today’s audiences demand unique, true pitches to obtain their hard-earned dollars. And, since dollars are limited in this economic downturn, it’s even more important to listen to customers.

To develop your own perspective on American demographic shifts, check out the complete story at
http://adage.com/article?article_id=139592

Marketing minds may want to pay $249 for the AdAge.com white paper, or just wait until the info is published by the government and crunch your own numbers. Pay attention to the signs, in today’s info overloaded marketplace, data is king. Learn to understand numbers and how to make them work in your favor. If you’re still in school or considering a graduate degree, a course in statistics could prove invaluable!

Since my entire career has been built on niche, one-to-one marketing to special audiences, I feel like a true pioneer. It proves that it’s important to build a career around your passion. Trust me on this one; it can result in untold rewards. For me, I combined my love of writing and talking with event management, advocacy and public service. Voila! A career in public relations was born in the early 80s; that was back in the day when no one really knew what that was and my journalism friends thought I was selling out.

A quarter century later, friends and the industry at large is finally catching up and it's a beautiful thing.


Listen: The New Buzz Word

If you’re a communications panel junkie like me, you begin to quickly spot industry trends. It’s common sense, but as we know, common sense is not common. So, here’s the tip of the day—listen to your audiences.

By listening, you will:

> Understand what makes your customers/readers/students tick;
> Be in a better position to develop products/services to meet their needs;
> Grow your own business/consultancy;
> Feel good about the info you’re sharing because you’re not simply taking people on a meaningless ride to nowhere;
> Realize time is money and you must have something valuable to impart or you’ll loose customers to a more engaging conversation, website, pitch or tweet.


A Decade Can Fly By
Y2K > Y2K+10

It just dawned on me that it’s nearly a DECADE after Y2K. Time is flying; a decade has passed in a nanosecond. For those of you who are two young to remember, there was predicted gloom and doom when the calendar changed from 1999 to 2000. It was suspected that computers might crash. Multinational companies called in scores of consultants to make sure their infrastructures could handle the threat of computer espionage.

Nothing earth-shattering happened. On January 1, we’ll welcome Y2K+10.