What will this first wave of the 78 million boomers turning 60 mean to the American marketplace and the workplace? In one year, 1946, 3.4 million Americans were born, a jump from 2.8 million just the year before (at the height of World War II) and 2.4 million a decade earlier (in the midst of the Depression). Well, take a look around you. The first wave of boomers will turn 60 in 2006. Do you see the not so subtle changes in what is being marketed and to whom? Our youth, long indulged as the harbingers of what the market will buy, have given way to the marketplace chasing the boomers who have the spending power and are ready to buy a raft of new products now hitting the scene.

2006 is the formal start of "Boom Time" - an era of one story homes, segmented communities where age 55 is the price of admission, modified cars to accommodate maturing bodies, better quality shoes and anti-aging creams. You name it. If a product looks like a boomer will buy it, it's a sure bet someone will be producing and selling it!

Does what America buy give you new ideas for your career? Are you ready to start a business to produce a product or service for this marketplace segment? The bet is that most boomers will continue to work but in new ways - from founding entrepreneurial startups to specializing as independent contributors. For those of us who choose to stay in the regular workplace, organizations will begin to focus on helping us.

What will the future workplace and business environment look like? Will YOU be ready? The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) released its 2015 Scenarios for the Future of HR Management Report a few weeks ago. This report looks at four possible scenarios for the workplace in 2015. The scenarios are based on business competition and the availability of talent and organizational structure. Each scenario represents the role the HR professional will have to play in the workplace of the future as well as the different challenges and opportunities for organizations and their people strategies. These scenarios are not predictions; they are simply possibilities of what roles may look like for HR folks and how companies may need to adjust.

Scenario A: Casting Director: With scarce U.S. talent and self-organizing firms, organizations are based on ad-hoc networks of workers around a small core.

Scenario B: Global Dealmaker: With a surplus of labor and decentralized organizational structures, HR must manage relationships among a workforce spread throughout different geographic regions and across international lines.

Scenario C: Caregiver: Uncertain times lead to a return of centralized, hierarchical organizational. The organization acts as parent to its employees and HR works to protect and provide for employees.

Scenario D: Systems Integrator: Advances in technology lead to layoffs and "jobless prosperity" in the U.S. HR works closely with IT to maximize human-machine performance and helps employees adapt to dehumanizing change.

The possibilities are the food for thought we offer today to help you think about how, when, where and if you will work in the new American workplace.

Place your bets on the future!