Sidebar: Cheat Sheet

Your grandma is a free agent! Veterans account for a higher proportion of all self-employed workers than any other age group.

Weirdest source: Nostradamus, a 16th-century French astrologer, predicted that a major crisis would come with the next millennium. Could this be the nexters' defining challenge?

Don't trust anyone over 50? During the next 10 years, a boomer will turn 50 every 7.5 seconds. The boomers' new motto: "Age is a state of mind."

Do you want HTML with that? Eighty percent of all new businesses started in the past three years belong to Xers. "In high-tech companies in particular, Gen Xers are managing the very Boomers who only a few years ago were questioning [their] work ethics."

Best prediction" Generation gap? You ain't seen nothin' yet. "Mixing Xer managers and supervisors with a Nexter workforce looks like a recipe for a future disaster."

The more things change "Life for every generation has become increasingly nonlinear, unpredictable, and unchartable." See, we do have things in common!

Sidebar: FC Recommends

Big Idea: "Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy," by Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster (Harvard Business School Press, 1999). Two gurus from the venerable Boston Consulting Group (BCG) offer rules for competing in the Digital Age.

Best Practice: "Customer Capitalism: Increasing Returns in New Market Spaces," by Sandra Vandermerwe (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1999). Hands-on lessons from such companies as Monsanto, Microsoft, and Amazon.com. Here's how to play by many of the new rules outlined by the gurus from BCG.

Sleeper: "The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back," by Bill Shore (Random House, 1999). One of the nonprofit world's most innovative leaders offers an inspiring guide to social entrepreneurship.

Keeper: "First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently," by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (Simon & Schuster, 1999). The Gallup Organization has interviewed more than 80,000 managers over the past 25 years. This book, an ambitious effort to make sense of those interviews, produces some mind-bending conclusions. It's also both smart and fun.