Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964, Boomers are approximately 100 million strong. By 2015, they will represent 35% of the US population.

Burden of Choice: As a merchandising problem, the burden of choice is the result of introducing too many product variables and/or a poor design interface for interacting with such choices. The burden of choice can lead to an information overload (Neumann, 1955), resulting from a limited capacity of humans to process information (Miller, 1956).

Customer-Made: The phenomenon of companies creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.

Generation C: Not an age demographic, but a phenomenon based on the creation and sharing of content by consumers. Using the Internet as the primary delivery mechanism, these consumers use the latest gadgets and gizmos including software, digital cameras and blogging to create and share unique content. Gen C is about active participation, not watching or listening.

Flow Manufacturing: A form of build-to-order manufacturing inspired by the Japanese concept of “pulling” materials through the production process in response to customer demand rather than “pushing” them through based on a pre-determined schedule. Flow manufacturing discourages inventory of finished goods and places emphasis on speed and flexibility.

Generation X: Although the age range for this demographic is still in dispute, Generation X is generally applied to those born between 1965 and 1976. With a population that totals only a third of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers came of age in the 1980s. The first generation of “latchkey kids”, Gen Xers are viewed as independent. Fueled by television, video games and personal computers, the decade was the most comfortable and automated time in history (up that point). However, the 80s have also been described as the “decade of greed”, an era obsessed with status, consumerism, money and social climbing when baby boomers deteriorated into self-absorbed “Yuppies” who placed career and financial goals ahead of personal relationships. Gen Xers have been characterized as a generation cynical of these forces and prone to disillusionment (grunge movement) and marginalization (slackers). However, Gen Xers have proven to be more misunderstood and complex than these generalizations suggest.

Generation Y: Also called Echo Boomers, or the Millennium Generation, Generation Y was born during a baby bulge which took place between 1979 and 1994. Gen Yers are 60 million strong, more than three times the size of Generation X and they’ve grown up in a more media-saturated and brand-conscious world than any of their predecessors. Gen Yers are also the most racially diverse in history (one third are not Caucasian), 75% have working mothers and 25% live in a single family home. However, access to information is perhaps the biggest difference between Gen Y and their predecessors. The first generation to grow up with the Internet, Gen Yers have been clacking away on keyboards since they were babies. They have email accounts, cell phones and access to a dizzying array of fragmented media outlets. 10% of Gen Yers also have cosigned credit cards and a sense of financial responsibility and pragmatism which was previously unimaginable. As they continue to enter their 20s, Gen Y will soon be an economic force to be reckoned with.

Kanban: A Japanese word used in connection with lean or “pull” manufacturing.

Lean Production: A manufacturing methodology originally developed by Toyota “to get the right things to the right place at the right time.” Lean Production delivers goods on demand, minimizes inventory, maximizes the use of multi-skilled employees, flattens management structure, and focuses resources when and where they were needed. (Also known as the Toyota Production System).

Mass Confusion: A term coined by author Joseph Pine to describe the problems and confusion which can result from the burden of choices or complexities involved with the interaction processes used to deliver mass customization.

Mass Customization: Addressing markets of one by producing individualized or personalized goods to match an individual customer's needs with near mass production efficiency. First identified as a concept by Alvin Toggler in his 1970 book Future Shock, the term Mass Customization was coined in 1987 by Stan Davis in his book Future Perfect.

Prosumer: Term coined in 1980 by futurist Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave as a blend of producer and consumer. He foresaw a time when consumers would become involved in the design and manufacture of products, so they could be made to individual specification. He argued that we would then no longer be a passive market upon which industry dumped consumer goods but a part of the creative process.