Last month we featured a book review on The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm, and we were blown away. The information provided that will impact both local and global economies was slap-you-in-the-face common sense, yet somehow they where the types of thoughts that you never navigate to on your own. If you’ve not yet picked up your copy make a note to stop by your local (or national) bookstore on your way home.

We reached out to the author to congratulate him on his work, and invited him to come back as part of our “Five Questions” section, which he graciously accepted. Enjoy the interview and don’t forget to make that note…

In your recent book, The Age Curve, you take a look at a contributing demographic reason for our current economic slowdown that I don't think I've heard mentioned anywhere else - a lack of incoming buyers - could you expand on that a bit for our readers?

In 1986 the once robust demand for Japanese motorcycles in the United States began to drop and then went into free fall until 1992 where it bottomed out. Sales fell over 80% and most of the Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha motorcycle dealers closed. No one knew why. The problem was no one bothered to check the US census or they would have found that this profound decline in sales was very predictable and inevitable. Japanese bikes sold to young men between the ages of sixteen to twenty-four. It was a very defined demo. When the last of the huge Baby Boomer Generation aged out of this demo in 1986 and the much smaller Generation X aged into the demo there simply were not enough young men to buy the bikes to support the retail infrastructure established for the larger market. This scenario continues to get played out wherever larger generations are exiting/aging out of a particular market and smaller generations are aging/moving in. Another example can be found in the assisted living industry. The huge G.I.Generation now eighty-four plus years old gave everyone empirical reason to believe that our Nation was going to be over run with elderly people so we built assisted living facilities with abandon. However the next generation to provide the demand for assisted living is the tiny Silent Generation, now sixty-four to eighty-three years old. The Silents are the smallest generation of the last one hundred years. Assisted living as we know it will crash. How about the current US housing crisis? Do you think it might have something to do with the fact that Boomers can't sell enough of their "starter castles" to Generation X because Gen X simply does not have the critical mass to consume them?

OK, Ken, a bit of a selfish question that effects both of us... With the way that the coming demographic storm shapes up and the tech savvy future leaders think and react if you look into your crystal ball what do you see as the future of (gulp) books?

Relax. Books will survive. They are however an anomaly when compared to other print media like magazines and newspapers. As a medium for large quantities of printed information they are still considered user friendly and convenient. It is hard to read large amounts of information on an electronic device. Humans tend to satisfy their needs in the easiest way possible. The use of newspapers and magazines falls off precipitously with people forty and under (Generations X and Y) but I don't see a wholesale rejection of books. When high schools and colleges begin to eliminate libraries we are in trouble. For now the book is safe.

As you mention, companies of all sizes need to start - or perhaps need to have already started - finding ways to reach Generation Y if they plan on sticking around and being profitable. Why are some of the traditional avenues of marketing failing?

Generation Y does not use conventional media: radio, television, newspaper, magazines and bill boards to get their information so it would follow that conventional marketing and advertising is going to miss this generation with its message. These kids are very cyber and use the internet and phones for almost all of their information and communication. The problem is the internet delivers fragmented audiences and is not yet an efficient way to reach Generation Y. As technology advances this will change. Right now there is a solution to reaching Generation Y that is very counter-intuitive in light of their technical savy. These kids love snail mail (yes, the USPS), coupons and relationships with direct marketers especially if there is a green story.

Switching fields a bit; When the Silent Generation was retiring you could sense the relief in them that their "tour" was over, but the Boomers are completely different aren't they?

This is a very astute observation. Boomers can't retire but that is ok because they don't want to. Boomers will never be their parents. Boomer parents are/were old so Boomers are resisting aging with a passion. Boomers will play their Rolling Stone's cds and do air guitar playing when they are in their eighties. Sounds ridiculous when you think about it. Boomers can't retire because for the most part they did not prepare for retirement because they didn't think they were going to get old. The Boomer's parents were savers and lived well below their means. They left the seven to ten trillion dollars they amassed to their Boomer kids who blew through it by living way above their means. To further exacerbate the situation Social Security is doomed to fail in less than ten years because there simply aren't enough Generation Xers to pay in so the Boomers can collect. When Boomers are elderly many could be homeless.

What do you see as a business opportunity, if any, to reach this boomer market with all of this time on their hands that they might not want?

Yes there is a silver lining to the cloud that hangs over the Boomers. It's called consulting. As the Boomers retire from their primary careers there is a void left behind in the workplace that has been dubbed "Management's Perfect Storm" by The Society for Human Resource Management. It seems that qualified Generation X managers are in short supply (What a surprise!) and the need to bring back Boomer experts to keep things running will be necessary. What an opportunity! Someone needs to organize the retired Boomers according to their disciplines and then send them back to work at ridiculously high hourly charges as consultants. Life is good.

Want the best possible surfboard for riding the demographic wave that will shape the future? Kenneth Gronbach can be reached by visiting his website at www.kgcdirect.com where you will also find video clips of presentations, additional resources, and details on how working with his company will benefit yours.