I’m worried. 

For my clients and my friends. I worry that in less than two years they’re not going to know what the hell hit them. For my friends in banking, manufacturing, professional services, technology, recreation, digital services, education, real estate, food and beverage, transportation, insurance, construction and health care.

And for my one friend in nuclear energy. 

Good luck. You’re about to be staring down the barrel of a beast so bewildering, unpredictable, unforgiving and non-conforming that you might as well be swinging blindfold at a piñata the size of a pin. 

Introducing what I’m calling Mill-Gen-Z. You heard it here first. It sort of sounds like a vitamin for those who lack a night of restful sleep, but it’s probably more of a stress inducer for those who look at the future and try to figure what might hit us in the head when cars start to fly; when block chain hits the supply chain; or when bullets are fired from a bullet train (although I might be the only one trying to figure that out).

Let me alpha numerically describe Mill-Gen-Z which consists of Millennials and Generation Z. Total population next year: Over 200 million. Total U.S. population: 325 million. In 2020, two-thirds of the U.S. population will be Mill-Gen-Z, but as salesmen and marketers, we don’t seem too worried about it.

I’ll worry for you.

For openers, Millennials don’t want to be called Millennials because that’s category profiling and that’s not right. But it is right because as marketers that’s what we do; why on earth would we spend so much time and money on audience targeting (AT) if we thought what appealed to an 80 year old is the same as what appeals to a 20 year old? 

And here’s the one characteristic about Generation Z that I love the most. They value their privacy.

Say what? How do you value your privacy when 92% of you are online most of the day? 

That’s why Mill-Gen-Z is bewildering, unpredictable, unforgiving and non-conforming. But so am I, and because it takes-one-to-know-one, by the time I’m done with Mill-Gen-Z, they’ll be wildering, predictable, forgiving and conforming. 

I’ll worry for you. I’ve already got half of it figured out. I just don’t know which half.