A final thought on that Osbaldeston Lecture. Then I promise I will move on to something else.

Social media is today’s contact sport and the sooner governments understand this new form of communication the better. What better way to let people know what is happening in your department or Ministry than by posting a blog or creating an interactive information site? How better to receive input and feedback on policies that are being developed or considered? If you question this approach, I beg you to visit a university or college campus and watch what students are focused on, how they process information, access data, and interpret their world. It will provide you with an up-dated definition of “contact”.

You don’t actually have to go to a university campus — rather, you only need to watch Michael Wesch’s classic “Vision of Students Today” video:

Of course, it’s not only about the students is it? Many (most?) people are now moving in this direction, focusing our attention on streams of content via social networks.

Example, in keeping with the Facebook mentions in the video: percentage-wise, what’s the fastest growing demographic on the world’s largest social network? Women over 55, followed by women 45-55 (U.S. data from October 2009). Overall, “nearly 50% of Facebook users in the US today are over 35.”

(Sorry no recent Canuck specific data, is it out there?)

To purchase reprint and/or other rights for this cartoon, buy a framed
print, or have it reproduced on T-shirts, mugs, aprons, etc., visit the CartoonStock website by clicking the sidebar link.

Copyright © 2009 Jim Sizemore.

The recent influx of seniors and retirees into the population has nursing homes severely overcrowded and Americans asking themselves in record numbers: “Just what is adult day care and how can it help me?” To answer this we will look at the problem as logically as we can, in a manner that can be easily understood by anyone, regardless of experience in the field or practical life experience.

Considering that the the Baby Boomer population, (the largest single demographic in the nation for many years now) will hit retirement age in force within the next 3 to 5 years, The United States Department of The Census has determined that by the year 2020, the number of US citizens over the age of 65 will surpass the number of US citizens under the age of 5 for the first time in our country’s history.

These seniors can best be described in 3 basic need categories:

1. Predominantly Healthy – very active and needing no assistance with life skills such as cooking, grooming, bathing and toileting. These seniors suffer no sign of dementia or cognitive dysfunction.

2. Moderately Healthy – Still very active but requiring some life skill assistance. These seniors are largely alert and lucid and can still actively participate in most normal social activities, and most personal care practices. but may require limited assistance with cooking, grooming, bathing, or toileting.

3. Significantly Impaired – These seniors suffer from severe medical conditions or are in the advanced stages of progressively worsening illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s Diseases, or any other chronic, incurable, or ultimately terminal illness which requires constant or almost constant supervision by medical staff and medically trained personnel. These seniors are not capable of providing for most of their significant daily needs and cannot function in most social settings, even with minimal or periodic assistance.

Traditionally in America, when our grandparents, parents, spouses or siblings begin to become a burden on our personal lives, or develop a dependency on us for any or all of life’s basic necessities, we have developed a propensity to deposit them into nursing homes, intermediate care centers, or assisted living repositories.

Leaving moral and ethical issues aside, this fact gets even more significant when we take into account that the resources and facilities which currently exist to serve seniors in America are already inadequate for the existing senior population. Facilities and programs simply do not exist to handle the eminently impending influx of Baby Boomers who are about to retire, most of whom have nothing specifically constructive to do with their time. Those are the exact types of situations and scenarios which adult day care facilities were created to address.

Far less costly than nursing home care, intermediate care, or assisted living participation, adult day care programs are almost always at least partially covered by private insurance and medicare/medicaid, and in many cases, can be provided to qualified registrants absolutely free of out of pocket expenses.

When registered in an adult day care facility, you or your loved ones are picked up directly at your door at a pre-determined time, and transported to an established adult day care facility. Once there, various structured and supervised activities are provided to the registrants to fill their days with purpose and to allow them to mingle amongst their peers. At least one, and often two meals are provided at no additional cost during a typical program day. Since all activities are facilitated by trained staff and take place in a controlled environment, adults fitting either of the first two categories can benefit largely from participation in an adult day care program.

These adult day programs not only provide much needed function and interaction between the registrants, they also provide much needed respite for caregivers and family members who can easily grow exhausted by the increasingly demanding needs of a declining loved one.

Once the daily program is over, the registrants are redelivered directly to their homes, often with a take-home meal or snack for later in the evening sothat they can maintain a sense of self-sufficiency, and not be dependent on someone else at home to prepare an additional meal for them, particularly after returning home fro ma busy day at work or school.

As you can see, there are tremendous benefits to participating in adult day care programs. These programs help keep families together until there is absolutely no other choice, and help to preserve space in Nursing homes and medical care facilities for those people who desperately need that type of elevated care. Many programs have excellent curriculums which allow their participants to remain invigorated and vital in their daily lives and activities, but there is much more work to be done in this field to guarantee our aging loved ones are receiving the very best care and programs they can get. New facilities need to be constructed using state-of-the-art equipment and technology, and curriculums need to be established which can be customized to maximize the experience on an individual basis so that each participant maintains the potential to reap the maximum benefit from their individual adult day care experiences.

Please stay tuned for more on my series of articles pertaining to issues on aging.

South Korea

Story from LifeSiteNews. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The Republic of Korea has signaled its willingness to work to reverse a heavily pro-abortion culture through various measures, including beginning to enforce an abortion ban that has technically existed in the country for decades, in order to address the severe demographic implosion that threatens the country’s economic stability, Korean sources report.

[...]Official data from the Ministry of Health indicates that doctors perform 350,000 abortions per year, while they deliver on average just 450,000 babies, meaning 43.7 percent of pregnancies end in abortion.

However, the actual number of abortions may be at least five times the official estimate. According to the Korea Times, Rep. Chang Yoon-seok of the ruling Grand National Party said that a National Assembly inspection in October found that the number of illegal abortions in Korea exceeds 1.5 million a year or roughly 4,000 babies aborted per day.

If the National Assembly’s estimate is correct, the nation of 48 million commits approximately the same number of abortions as the United States, which has 300 million residents. Presuming the numbers of births recorded by the Health Ministry remains the same, that would mean approximately three out of four pregnancies in South Korea end in abortion.

Perhaps we need to undo anti-family policies like legalized abortion, unilateral divorce, high tax rates and a massive social programs. These policies discourage marrying and child-bearing, which prevent the creation of the next generation of taxpayers who must pay for these expensive welfare-state programs.

Canada

New research paper from the center-right C.D. Howe Institute. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The twin demographic challenges of an aging population and slow workforce growth will affect Canada’s Atlantic provinces more acutely than other regions of the country, according to a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Stress Test: Demographic Pressures and Policy Options in Atlantic Canada,” authors Colin Busby, William B.P. Robson and Pierre-Marcel Desjardins warn that many years of low birthrates and youth outmigration mean that the Atlantic region faces diminished workforce growth and a fiscal squeeze as fewer taxpayers support a growing bill for public programs.

Massive numbers of elderly people retiring and very few young workers available to pay the taxes for their health care and retirement entitlements. Something has to give.

Funding Source: National Institutes of Health
Funding Type: Discretionary, Grant
Total Available: N/A
Award Ceiling: $200,000
Deadline: 01.07.13
Eligibility: Virtually Unrestricted

Description:
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), issued by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), encourages research applications from clinicians, epidemiologists, geneticists, statisticians, and translational researchers working in the field of cancer control and prevention to improve existing models for cancer risk and prognosis by developing innovative research projects that use existing data; develop new models for cancer risk and prognosis; and validate new models and evaluate their utility in research and clinic settings. To explore this opportunity, the NCI Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) and the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) encourage applications for research projects to develop, apply, and evaluate new and existing cancer risk and prognostic prediction models for use by researchers, clinicians, and the general public. This FOA is designed to provide a mechanism of support for investigators to address two major challenges in model development, which are: integrating diverse types of data (e.g., clinical, demographic, pathologic, environmental, epidemiologic, outcomes, and genetic data from varied data marts or warehouses); and ensuring adequate validation (i.e., using multiple separate populations to define sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values).

“Within 5 years there will be as many Palestinians as Jews in Mandatory Palestine. In 20 years there will be 600 million Muslims around Israel”

“Demographics are working against Israel, therefore it is in Israel’s interest to make a dignified peace settlement with the palestinians now.”

.

There’s good news and bad news associated with yesterday’s announcement by the CIPD of a huge increase in the number of older workers planning to work beyond state pension age. According to their survey of 2,000 working people, 71% of those aged 55 and over are now planning on staying longer compared to 40% two years ago – with the main driver being “financial factors”.

The good news is that this implies that older people are taking a realistic view of their financial prospects for the future and are taking appropriate steps to deal with impact of the recession and demographic changes. The slightly less clear implication of this is whether or not they will actually be able to realise their plans as, at present, the majority of employers still retain a default retirement age and a right of veto in respect of requests to work beyond this (with no need to justify a refusal).

The bad news – for both employers and older employees – is that needing to work longer by no means equates to wanting to work longer. As CIPD spokesman Charles Cotton said, “Employers will have to motivate those who wish they could be elsewhere”.  They will indeed – and it will not be an easy task. Those who have to work longer for financial reasons are not necessarily going to be doing so gladly, so the issue of resentment and disengagement may have to be added to the already heady mix of challenges surrounding later life working. 

Employers wanting to avoid a range of attitudinal and behavioural problems should start investigating imaginative solutions to making later life working desirable, aspirational and motivating – without further delay. They need to work with their older employees to find ways to redesign the later years of working life in a way that is meaningful and appropriate for older people, provides good business outcomes, and doesn’t alienate younger generations.  A big ask? Maybe, but not impossible.

A glance at the demographics shows that the scale of the problem is going to be immense and is unlikely to recede greatly once the recession is over. A head in the sand approach will not be the best way forward.

I am a complete nerd when it comes to demographic information.  Lame, I know.  With that said, I have been looking forward to the release of the 2010 Census for quite some time now.  It seems that every ten years is no longer an optimal frequency, considering how quickly the consumer landscape can change.

The 2010 Census will undoubtedly reveal some major demographic shifts, redefining the majority and minority.  “The concept of an “average American” is gone, probably forever,” demographics expert Peter Francese writes in 2010 America, a new Ad Age white paper.  “The average American has been replaced by a complex, multidimensional society that defies simplistic labeling.” And probably simplistic messaging, too.

So what does this mean for marketers?  It means that targeted messaging is more important than ever.  Traditional media will no longer be enough if brands want to connect with consumers in a meaningful way.  This is nothing new.  However, it’s important to keep in mind that as American demographics become increasingly diverse, Americans’ online behaviors are becoming increasingly analogous.  This digital lifestyle conversion will grow to be the new majority.  “The internet pervades all aspects of Americans’ lives, from how we shop and buy, how we communicate, how we entertain ourselves, and how we seek out information to how we manage our personal relationships,” says Forrester Research Principal Analyst Charles S. Golvin.

The Numbers:

• 44% of US households have a laptop, and the average American family owns two personal computers
• Consumers under the age of 40 spend almost 2 hours a week more with new media than they do with traditional media
• 4 in 5 US households now have a mobile phone; families with older children have nearly 3 mobile phones per household
• 8% of consumers own a Smartphone

Brands can no longer reach the majority of consumers with general messaging and traditional media.  Consumer mindsets and needs are becoming more disparate, while consumers’ preferences are trending towards a holistic digital existence that integrates an array of devices.  And while we may not be able to talk to everyone with one message, this technology shift does allow us to talk to consumers in a more targeted way with many different approaches.  As consumers use the internet (social networks, communities, RSS feeds, etc.) to faction themselves, brands are able to communicate with the right audience, in the right place, in the right way.

So while we may be losing “Joe Consumer,” we are gaining the opportunity to target and segment consumers on a more personal level, forging relationships that will carry us through the generation of digital marketing.

Image Source: denn

Remember I was doing a big presentation pro bono for Traidcraft, the UK’s leading fair trade organisation?  It was to help the Traidcraft board with their 10 year vision and 3 year strategic plan and the rough title was the customer environment – thinking ten years ahead.

I put out an SOS for some help on the blog and Charles, Andrew and Rob were all kind enough to share their thoughts, while Neil and Paul let me borrow content from their own existing presentations.  So big thank yous all round.

I’ve had to remove a few commercially sensitive slides, so there may appear to be a few gaping holes in the thinking and the whole topic is very much about sweeping generalisations and rather a lot to get through in an hour’s presentation, so I’m not saying its perfect, or in any way authoritative, but here you go (a few of the fonts seem to look wierd on some computers, sorry):

The speaker notes don’t seem to be showing up on slideshare, so I’ve put them as a comment on slideshare itself and also uploaded the full notes below:

2020 vision speakers notes 

Thanks also to the lovely board and exec team at Traidcraft who made me so welcome at their planning session.

Have you always thought that you could not reach the lucrative Boomer and Senior market using the web? This is a common perception, but according a Research Brief from Media Post, this is huge mistake. Boomers and Seniors have embraced the internet, in some cases, as much as Generations X and Y.

The study showed: 77% of Matures shop online, 94% regularly use email, 71% go to the web for health and medical information, 70% read news, and 59% manage their finances and banking. Boomers are also heavy users of the internet, with 93% using email and 71% shopping online.

This is the richest generation ever, forget the perception that you can’t use online strategies to reach them.

Liberal Conspiracy’s series on immigration has inspired me too look at something which I have always wondered about. I want to know why various papers in our illustrious press demand immigration be decreased  or stopped to prevent our population reaching 70 million.

Alan Johnson does not lay awake at night worrying about our population reaching 70 million and I’ve not heard a good reason why he should. (In any case, Alan Johnson has some far more serious things to keep him up at night, but I digress).

Officially, the reason an increase in our population to 70 million is a Bad Thing because it would increase the population density of the UK to a point which would damage social cohesion and make life increasing uncomfortable for everyone. It would even help get the BNP elected.

Now I am not going to be so bold as to claim I have solved the riddle which has foxed Migration Watch, The Daily Mail and The Telegraph. I am just going to present some figures and ask some very simply questions.

The first of these being: Why 70 million?

I would argue that its a fairly likely number for our population to reach, and for reasons illustrated below, not a particularly frightening one.

But in reality, like U2, no one knows for sure why it has become so popular.

I suppose, as Anton explains, its at least partly tradition. But to the popular press I believe that the lure of the “70 million” figure is more complex. Firstly, it is large enough to sound threatening. Secondly, it sounds like that this figure will be reached in our lifetimes. And lastly, and most ingeniously of all, its coming is predicted far enough into the future so that no one can convincingly refute it, because sensible people admit they don’t know either way.

But here some little tables performing reductio ad absurdum on their arguments (Scroll to the bottom, they should all be fairly self explanatory, if not leave a comment and I will add a better key). To make things fair I’m even going to assume, like them, that a population of 70 million is a bad thing. The other assumptions which need to be made are listed below.

1. This is not about immigrants.
2. This is definitely not about race.
3. This is about total population in a given land area.
4. Therefore, this is about population density.
5. There is a certain limit to population density of the UK which it would be foolish to exceed.
6. England has the highest population density in the UK.
7. Therefore, the limit which England has reached must be the one which the upper limit which the UK can also reach; 1023 people per square mile.
8. We cannot force people already in the UK to have less children, live less long lives etc. to challenge this rise in population density.
9. The costs of increased population density exceed the benefits of external migration to the UK.
10. Therefore, we must reduce migration to avoid a population of 70 million.

With those assumption I set out to model, very simply, what would happen to the UK’s population density if the UKs population were to reach 70 million. Table 1 is our base, this is the UK population as it is now, or at least according to Wikipedia’s latest updates (not perfect, but close enough for an inexact science)

In Table 2 I show what would happen to the constituent countries of the UK if the population of the UK hits 70 million. In Table 2 it is assumed that the population will remain split in the same ratio as it is currently. Roughly 84: 5: 8: 3 England: Wales: Scotland: Northern Ireland.

As you can see from the Bold Red writing; disaster. Bold Red always means disaster.

However, in Table 3 it is assumed that the popualtion inside the UK is not bound to the ratios which currently exist. In Table 3 we add some extra assuptions:

• People can move (radical, I know, but stay with me)
  
• If having a population denisty above 1023 is bad then they will:
  • move of their own accord
    
  • or, if what is collectively optimal is not optimal on an individual level, can be encouraged to move.

If you look closely you can see that there is no Bold Red. No disaster. The population ratio has changed to 74: 8 : 13 :5 England: Wales: Scotland: Northern Ireland. However, the population density of Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland does not come anywhere close to our Bold Red, in fact, they all maintain population densities below the average for the UK.

So, with a lazy afternoon playing with Open Office and a few uncontroversial figures and assumptions, why have I been able to do what they have not?

For the arguments against an increase in population on grounds of population density to be logically consistent, what needs to be proved is that the result of increasing internal migration is in some way worse than the result of restricting the flow of migration.

(I would not even ask them to prove that the costs of limiting migration are less than the costs of our demographic time bomb. Nor would I ask them what would become of out obligations to refugees under international law. I wouldn’t ask them about the paper Chris Dillow quotes regarding the fact “that immigrants do not crowd-out employment of (or hours worked by) natives but simply add to total employment.” )

I’m just curious as to why they are so fixated on this 70 million figure, and why they wish to present an important topic in such an asinine way. Demographics is a point where sex, race, age, income, disabilities, mobility, educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and location meet, it should be possible to discuss aspects of it like adults.

Health Care Reform
Support for Health Care Plan Falls to New Low
November 23, 2009 by Rasmussen (hat tip to Gateway Pundit)

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Half the survey was conducted before the Senate voted late Saturday to begin debate on its version of the legislation. Support for the plan was slightly lower in the half of the survey conducted after the Senate vote.

approval ratings, culture, demographics, government, health care, legislation, nanny state, politics, reform, regulation

Sampling

In a recent post I commented on what I consider the most important survey question:  the main reason question.  Here, I’d like to address what I consider one of the most important parts of the research process:  Sampling.

You can have clearly defined objectives, a well written questionnaire, and an SPSS wiz on staff to do the statistical analysis, but if the sampling is not done correctly, it is all for naught. 

Marketing research is a science that is based on statistics.  The way the statistics work is that you need to measure a random sample of a given population in order to project the results to that population.  It is the same process that is utilized in quality control in manufacturing, the U. S. Census, Gallop, PEW, and AC Neilson.  The size of the sample is a function of the size of the population and the level of confidence you must have that the result is representative of the population.  There are no absolutes; the statistics will indicate the probability, but only if the group of respondents is a random and representative sample of the population.  For the research types reading this, this is elementary.  For the non research types, this could be troubling.

So first let me address online surveys posted on an organization’s website.  Personally, I think they are a waste of time.  More importantly, they can lead an organization to the wrong conclusion.  Why?  There is no way to control the sampling or who actually takes the survey.  How many of your customers/visitors/patrons/constituents visit your website anyway? (very few)  And are they representative of the market you are trying to reach? (probably not). 

Second, let me address a comment I hear relatively frequently:  “Let’s just do a quick Surveymonkey (or Zoomerang, etc.) to get a read on ….?  Surveymonkey or Zoomerang are easy to use tools for basic online surveys (more on these in later posts).  But how do you get the sample?  Who do you ask to participate and how do you ask them? 

Whether you ask them in person, via the telephone, snail mail, or email, the basic issue is the same, i.e. your determination of who to include will dictate whether the result can be projected or not.  If you send a survey about the positioning for a donor or capital campaign to 300 of your volunteers (because they are easy to reach and you will get a high response rate), the responses will not be from a donor’s perspective and the results will very likely lead you to the wrong conclusions.  The sampling must be representative of the group you are trying to understand, not whoever is easy to reach or most likely to agree to take the survey.

The internet has created many options, some good, some questionable. 

The good:  The internet has created the means to acquire a list of people that exactly meet the criteria you want to research.  For example, if you want to do a survey of women aged 45 – 50, with children living at home, college educated, employed in a managerial position, has a household income over $150,000, and commutes 15 miles to work; numerous companies can supply you with a list of these people who are willing to take your survey. 

The questionable:  You must be cognizant that the respondent list you purchase online consists of, in part, professional survey takers.  These are people who have signed up to take surveys and they are paid to do so.  The question here is:  Is that 45 year old, professional, mother who earns three times the market median income who agreed to take online surveys (for minimal compensation) really representative of that segment?  Hard to tell.

Back in the old days when we still depended on telephone surveys, the first questions on most were:  Do you work for an ad agency or market research company?  And, Have you participated in a survey during the last six months?  Yes answers to either would disqualify the respondent.  Similarly, when recruiting for focus groups, most moderators do not want participants who recently participated in any focus groups.

The point is to be aware of the constraints.  Is a purchased online list really random?  I don’t believe so because each respondent had to opt in and sign up for the opportunity to participate.  In the old days of telephone surveys we could do random dials.  There are no random dials with email addresses.

I realize that sampling is a somewhat dry topic but it will make or break a research project.  Before you conduct your next member survey, donor survey, or market survey; really question the person providing the survey about the sampling and how the results will be projected. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Each day, CheckFacebook tracks data reported from Facebook to visualise reach, growth; http://j.mp/8pA2Lg (via @mooose)

Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC

 ”All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. “

~Thomas Jefferson

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-A

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-B

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-C

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-D

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-E

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-F

Glenn Beck-11-23-09-G

The Meaning of Independence Day

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. “

“”The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

~Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson Memorial, Washington DC

Background Articles and Videos

United States of Amercia Government

http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Executive.shtml

http://www.federalbudget.com/

 http://www.scribd.com/doc/3015540/US-Budget-Deficit-or-Surplus-1960present

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/

Record-High Deficit May Dash Big Plans

$1.4 Trillion in Red Ink Means Less to Spend On Obama’s Ambitious Jobs, Stimulus Policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/16/AR2009101602388.html

http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2009/11/obama-tripled-the-national-deficit-his-first-year-in-office.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125119686015756517.html

Stop Spending Our Future – The Crisis

President Obama’s Cloward-Piven Strategy of Controlled Crisis Creation Crippling Capitalism–Coup D-Etat On America

Related Posts On Pronk Palisades

Official Unemployment Rate Hits 10.2%–15,700,000 Unemployed American Citizens–Real Unemployment Rate Hits 17.5%– 26,950,000 Americans Seeking Full Time Jobs–Obama Depression Worse Than Great Depression

A Common Sense Political Agenda For A New Conservative and Libertarian Party: American Citizens Alliance Party (ACAP)–A CAP On Government Spending, Taxes, Debt and Regulations!

A New Political Party In The United States? American Citizens Alliance Party–ACAP On Government Spending, Taxes, Debt, and Regulations!

Third Party Time? Yes Provided You Have $10 Billion and 10 Years!

Independents Lead The The Second American Revolution Surge–Independence Day–Saturday July 4, 2009 In Washington D.C.–Tea Party Time–On To Washington–Dare You To Move!

Lincoln Gettysburg Address –November 19, 1863

Age and Sex targeting has been a sacred cow of the advertising industry for over 100 years. While it’s okay to finish your targeting discussion with Age and Sex, nowadays it’s never a good idea to start there. And consider that the Great Recession has had lasting effects on the way consumers approach purchases and many of these consumer behaviors cross the lines of Age and Sex. A new study by Decitica (for the entire study click here) states that:

• Many assumptions underpinning consumer segmentation are no longer valid.
• Marketing strategies that do not fully recognize the diversity of consumer’s recession experiences won’t have the desired results.
• Many have accepted this radical change as the “new normal” and not just a cyclical phenomenon.
• The recession has caused a profound change in consumer’s spending habits in favor of a more restrained approach.

The study found that there are 4 distinct consumer segments emerging form the recession, identified as:

Steadfast Frugalists are committed to self-restraint, engaging in prudence with unequivocal enthusiasm. They make up about 1/5 of American consumers, representing all income and age groups. 80% say the new behaviors they have adopted will stay with them for a long time.

Involuntary Penny-Pinchers, about 29% of the population, have been severely affected by the recession, and are mainly made up of households with less than $50,000 in income, with more woment than men. This segment has been forced to embrace thrift like never before. Their behaviors are similar to Frugalists but where they diverge is the level of dissatisfaction with executing money-saving strategies.

Pragmatic Spenders comprises 29% of consumers whose income has blunted the effects of the recession. Only 28% of them feel the recession has changed what and how they buy in the future. They are considered the most attractive group by marketers because of their high spending power. While they have curbed their spending, they are the most capable, both psychologically and financially, to willfully resurrect their past spending powers.

Apathetic Materialists seem least changed by the recession. They have not embraced the new frugality to the same extent as others and get minimal satisfaction from such behaviors. Only about 6% in this group find price comparison to be satisfying, in contrast to 85% in the Frugalist camp. The Apathetic Materialists segment has more men and younger consumers and make up 22% of the population.

Even within these there certainly are some age and sex similarities. But remember, when putting your campaign together, don’t start with age and sex, end there.

Power Graph

The following text is about the power graph, which is incorporated into the Demograpics screen, which can be opened ingame by pushing “F9″ or the icon in top right corner belonging to it (2nd from the right). When interpreted correctly, the power graph provides a lot of information based on which decisions can be made, both short and long term. The power graph can help in deciding when an attack might be promising and when focusing on defense might be the way to go.

Population

For every two population points a player gets 1000 soldier points for the power graph.

1pop = 0 soldiers
2pop= 1000
3pop= 1000
4pop= 2000
5pop= 2000
6pop= 3000
…

4 cities with average 5 population equals 10000 points in soldiers. The value here in comparison with the value from the amount of units one on average has with rising population is negligible.

Technologies

2000 soldiers – Sailing, Hunting, Mining, Animal Husbandry
4000 soldiers- Wheel, Alphabet, Astronomy, Metal Casting, Compass, Construction, Steel, Radio, Satellites
5000 soldiers- Composites, Stealth
6000 soldiers- Mathematics, Chemistry, Combustion, Archery
8000 soldiers- Guilds, Fission, Flight, Bronze Working, Machinery, Assembly Line
10000 soldiers- Horseback Riding, Iron Working, Artillery, Industrialism, Rocketry, Advanced Flight, Laser
12000 soldiers- Gunpowder, Rifling, Military Science

Overall the values here are not too significant, most of the time opposing parties should have a pretty similar value here anyway.

City Improvements / Wonders

1000 soldiers- Trading Post, Shale Plant, Totem Pole
2000 soldiers- Walls, Dry Dock, Forge, Factory, Stable, Mint, Assembly Plant, Industrial Park, Levee, Dike
3000 soldiers- Dun, Barracks, Ikhanda, Citadel
4000 soldiers- Mt. Rushmore, Red Cross, Iron works, Ger, Statue of Zeus
6000 soldiers- Military Acadamy
8000 soldiers- Heroic Epic, Chichen Itza, Scotland Yard, West Point
10000 soldiers- Great Wall, Cristo Redentor, Moai Statues

Units

0000 soldiers – Scouts, Workers, Missionaries, Spies
1000 soldiers – Warrior, Quechua
2000 soldiers – Spearman, Archer, Chariot, Galley, Airship
3000 soldiers – Axeman, Swordsman, Jaguar Warrior, Gallic Warrior, Phalanx, Impi, War Chariot, Immortal, Horse Archer, Catapult, Trireme, Caravel, Holkan, Carrack
4000 soldiers – Praetorian, Pikeman, Longbowman, Crossbowman, Keshik, Galleon, Numidian Cavalry, Hwacha, Trebuchet, Skirmisher, Vulture, Dog Soldier, Bowman, Privateer
5000 soldiers – Cho-Ko-Nu, Maceman, War Elephant, Landsknecht, East Indiaman
6000 soldiers – Samurai, Musketman, Knight, Frigate, Ironclad, Transport, Ballista Elephant, Ship of the Line
7000 soldiers – Berserker
8000 soldiers – Musketeer, Camel Archer, Cannon, Destroyer, Submarine, Janissary, Oromo Warrior, Attack Submarine, Cataphract
9000 soldiers – Cuirassier
10000 soldiers – Rifleman, Grenadier, Machine Gun, Carrier, Conquistador, Stealth Destroyer, Guided Missile
12000 soldiers – Redcoat, Cavalry, Battleship
14000 soldiers – Missile Cruiser
15000 soldiers – Cossack, Fighter, Jet Fighter, Bomber
16000 soldiers – Infantry, Anti Tank
18000 soldiers – Marine, Paratrooper
20000 soldiers – SAM Infantry, Gunship, Artillery, Stealth Bomber
22000 soldiers – Navy SEAL
25000 soldiers – Tank
30000 soldiers – Panzer, Mechanized Infantry, Mobile SAM, Tactical Nuke
32000 soldiers – Mobile Artillery
40000 soldiers – Modern Armor, ICBM

In the end buildings, wonders and technologies won´t make any significant difference in the power graph. Neither will population, though there you can get some difference if you for example have a city or more less then your opponent and slave everything down. In this case you can probably have, depending on the era, up to around 10-15 pop less (Renaissance for example). Still not really significant.

So after all, it is the units that count, that make up for the power value in demographics.

A few picked out units, that have “interesting” values:

• Skirmisher (4000): worth twice as much as archer (2000), worth 1000 more then axe (3000), sword (3000) or horse archer (3000) ! Remember that when you are Mali or when Mali is strong in power and you´ve seen a lot of skirmishers. Also in ancient you can see very well whether someone is spamming skirmishers early, because the number 1 power will be significantly higher then the rest at that early point

• Chariot (2000): Normal chariots have the same soldier points as archers; an early chariot stack won´t show strong in demographics

• Horse Archers (3000): surprisingly low score. Impis have 3000, too and they cost 20 hammers, while HA cost 33.

• Elephant (5000):  Ele cost 40 hammers, HA cost 33 hammers. You produce them comparably fast – for 165 hammers you get 5 HA, for 160 you get 4 Ele. The 5 HA have a power of 15000, the 4 Ele of 20000. For 160 Hammer you get 8 impis, those are worth 24000 in soldiers.

• Musketeers cost 47 Hammer, but have a power of 8000. Knights cost 54 hammers, but have a power of 6000.

• Tanks (25000) and Panzer (30000) both cost 84 hammers.

In the end the answer to the whether something shows “strong” in power or not is a question of the ratio of hammers/soldier points.

• Impis / War Chariots / Immortals show very clearly! (20 hammers to 3000 soldier point)

• Skirmisher show most extreme

• Horse Archer don´t show

• Elephants don´t show more then swords or axes

• French Musceteers show strong in comparison to the most commong unit of Renaissace, the Knight.

Conclusion

In any game you need to know what your opponent is building. When you know he is doing HA, you know how many cities he has and what population they have you can evaluate his power. Same if you know he is doing catapults (3000 for 33 hammers = doesn´t show) and ele.

All in all the power graph actually shows who has the most army or in other words, the higher the power value, the more army someone has.

Average unit value in an era

This is a stretch, but I´ll try to name a value representative for an “average unit” in each era.

• Ancient: 3000, from Construction on around 4000.

• Classical: 3000 early on; closer to 4000 mid game; closer to 5000 late game.

• Medieval: 3000 for units used in a rush (Impi, War Chariot, Horse Archer, Praetorian (4000)), 5000 early/mid game; closer to 6000 with Knights.

• Renaissance: 6000, 6500 in a 3v3 with France in each team early on; 7000 and constantly rising from cuirrasiers (9000!) on.

• Industrial:  12000 for land, 5000 for sea units

• Modern: 25000 (Navy Seal 22000, Tank 25000, Panzer 30000)

• Future: around 30000-40000. The more Gunships (22000) the smaller the value, the more Modern Armour (40000) the higher. Ships rank far behind, for example Missile Cruiser (14000)

How to count opposing power in a teamer

A simple mathematical operation allows to determine the total power of the opposing team in for example a 3v3 teamer. First of all gather the power of yourself and all your teammates. Add those values together and divide it by the amount of players in the team to receive the average team power. Substract from that value the average world power. If you receive a negative value, you are behind in power, if you receive a positive one, you are ahead. How much ahead or behind determines the value you receive.

*UPDATE* December, 1st 09 *UPDATE*
I received some feedback (thx Shizanu) regarding the influence of population and technologies in an Ironman / ffa. There you can have ten or twelve high pop cities around the time you research guilds and those together with the technologies you already got make up a big portion of your power value. If then you start slaving (and losing pop) Knights for example, the changes are not too dramatic in the graph hence it can be tough to detect by just looking at demographics.

Point being – in the mid/later part of an Ironman / ffa where everybody plants lots and lots of cities, the influece of population and technology on the power graph is much more significant (and distorting) then in a teamer game. Pay attention to that when trying to get information from demogaphics in this area in such a game, especially when trying to determine when an opponent is building an army.