The Skimmer

The Way We'll Be

By John Zogby Random House; 235 pages

John Zogby knows what you want. As the founder of polling firm Zogby International, he is an expert at charting consumer preferences on the basis of answers to his wide-ranging surveys. Now, in The Way We'll Be, he culls thousands of polls and proclaims "seismic shifts" rumbling beneath our society, creating a new class of Americans who want less, expect less (so much for job security: 40% of Americans consider their work situation "unstable") and can see insincerity coming a mile away. Increasingly important are "First Globals"--the generation of 18-to-29-year-olds who grew up with the Internet and came of age during Clinton's impeachment and 9/11--who possess both a tolerant, accepting worldview and a high sense of materialism. Zogby is fascinated by brands and products and seems to think that we are what we buy (36% of drivers who find it important to feel superior through their choice of car buy Land Rovers). While marketing execs might want to add the book to the top of their reading list, the rest of us will be content simply with the charts.

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