American Baby Boomers not only represent a big portion of the emerging labor force, but they constitute the real engine of consumer demand. They control about $1 trillion in spending today, and that will grow to $2 trillion over the next four years, according to the Boomer Project, a marketing and research firm. As the Trends editors have been predicting for more than two decades, this unparalleled accumulation of purchasing power is setting the stage for the greatest economic boom in human history. And that’s why more and more businesses are focusing their marketing efforts on the needs of today’s 40- to 60-year-olds. We’ll explain how this marketing trend will manifest itself in the coming years, and how you can profit from it.

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Looking ahead, employers see a U.S. workforce in which companies must learn how to get the best out of Veterans, Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millennials all at the same time. We’ll explore what this will mean.

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In turbulent times such as these, the rate of environmental change easily overwhelms the organizational resilience of most firms. Success today is fragile, with organizations no longer able to rely on momentum for continual success. Instead, strategic resilience — the ability of organizations to dynamically reinvent business models and strategies amid changing circumstances — is critical. And that’s why businesses everywhere are scrambling to acquire “resilience,” the most sought-after business characteristic of this decade. We’ll discuss what this means and some of the business opportunities that it generates.

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While newspapers and movies disappear, the blog has emerged from obscurity almost overnight. The blog is proving to be both a threat and an opportunity for businesses large and small. We’ll discuss how and why this medium is quickly becoming an indispensable part of our lives, and how you can make the most of it.

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As we’ve discussed in prior issues, news and entertainment media are being transformed by the information revolution. Even as newspapers, music CDs and movies fade away, new alternatives are emerging to take their places. This is not only destroying the monopoly of the mainstream news media, but it is changing how and where people spend their time. We’ll explain where this technological revolution is headed, and what it means for you as a consumer and an investor.

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The build-out phase of the information revolution is beginning, and Google is the first big winner of this phase. While it’s not clear that Google’s own business model justifies its steadily increasing valuation, its success is helping us put the “tech wreck” behind us and move on into a new business era. We’ll explain.

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For the past few years, an unrealistic cloud of economic pessimism has pervaded the United States. But now, as the Trends editors predicted, that cloud is beginning to lift. We’ll explain why and look at what you can expect in the coming months.

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