As I write this, no word better describes the 2009 economic outlook than grim. Retail season projections look very pessimistic, and consumer confidence has dipped lower than any point in recent memory. Some marketers have already slashed their 2009 budgets while worrying about how they will respond should things get even worse.

Every week, my wife complains about a few unread magazines lying around the house. After enduring her complaints for a while, I am forced to read the magazines or throw them out unread. She regularly suggests I kill my subscriptions because I can always get the news I want on the Internet, anyway (I'm an inveterate online newspaper reader).

The resounding success of President-Elect Barack Obama's grassroots campaign is a powerful example that proves why social media must remain part of your media mix this year. In fact, your use of and spending in social media should continue to grow - just focus on utility and not application doohickeys.

If you thought it was difficult to launch a campaign that successfully accounts for the complexities of attention economics, then just try launching a campaign that grabs the attention of the ADD generation itself.

As a general rule, we like to think of ourselves as individuals who make our own choices and decisions. Sure, we're informed by the factors around us, but, ultimately, we're independent of them. Mavericks, if you will. The reality, of course, is far less simple. Many of our choices are heavily influenced - if not predetermined - by what we have been exposed to throughout our lives by family, friends and others around us. Leaving aside for now that, by definition, we can't all be mavericks, just how maverick can we be?

The pace of change accelerates every day. My parents no longer just sit down to watch TV, they also engage with online media, mobile content, and, yes, even video games. In other words, their media use has become every bit as diverse and changeable as that of Gen Y. Yet our media plans still carry a 1960s-era broadcast bias. The world is changing, even in the retirement community. How do I know? My retired mother called me earlier this week. "I want to get your father a Wii for his birthday this year," she said shyly. "A …

Since the debut of the first television program at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, Americans have been enthralled by TV. Subsequent advances in technology - the advent of color, cable television, HD, surround sound and DVRs - make today's TV-watching experience almost unrecognizable compared to that of those first viewers, but the love affair is still going strong. Even as alternatives proliferate, total TV viewing hours continues to increase.

The only thing worse than pitching a new piece of business is winning it. I jest, of course - but it is incredibly hard to ramp up a new account. Learning its intricacies is exhausting. If you're lucky, the previous agency will send you a box of old post-analyses and random documents. However, an even better way is to utilize the product firsthand. Personal experience illuminates the difference between understanding and true knowledge.

Happy New Year! How happy are you right now? Not very, I'd imagine, if you've been reading the coverage of our industry's health. It's bad out there, and if the forecasts are right, the media business is going to get worse before it gets better. Personally, I think they got that only half right.

Things have been the same for a long time. Quiet and peaceful would be the wrong words, but with a few concessions to technology, the way we advertise and are advertised to has remained basically unchanged. When Ed Cotton, director of strategy at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, looks ahead, it's not six months or a year out - but way out into the abyss.