Joyce Davis is having one of her busiest weeks ever at her job, working to help her employer overcome a diversity problem.

It is not a problem of ethnic diversity, nor one of gender diversity, nor one related to sexual orientation.

It is a problem of generational diversity.

Ms. Davis is a senior vice president for content with WITF, Harrisburg's public broadcasting outlet. WITF has three media properties: WITF television, WITF-FM and Central PA, a regional magazine.

"We have the opposite ends of the demographic scale," she said, with programming that reaches preschoolers and aging baby boomers, skipping over those between middle school and middle age. That is a galaxy-sized hole in the station's demographics, and Ms. Davis' task is to begin filling it.

To help matters, the station is launching "It's My Life," a Web site for middle school and high school students "to write about life before and after the 12th grade."

DIVERSITY MATTERS
A Special Report

Exploring efforts to build a culture of inclusion that reflects our community.

• Strengthening diversity adds multiple perspectives to corporate issues
• Experience guides diversity officer's efforts to go beyond traditional programs
• City's outreach efforts build for the future
• Multicultural Arts Initiative's new director broadens perspectives
• Commentary: Benefits of diversity outweigh the fears it evokes
• Understanding is key to marketing to different demographics
• Bridging generation gaps brings more folks into the fold
• State forced to confront growing Latino population
• White men are often missing from discussions about diversity (with video)
• Commentary: Companies benefit by developing more inclusive work environments

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The Web site will have an educational focus, offering information to help students with planning either for college or for early career options. It also will offer space for young people to blog about what's important to them and to share files and photos. Another section of the Web site will help students prepare for the National Peace Essay Contest, sponsored by the U.S. Institute for Peace. When fully developed, an "It's My World" section will allow them to correspond with youths in other countries.

"The whole message is that learning never stops," Ms. Davis said.

To get all of this started with a bang rather than a whimper, WTIF has hired Kyle Rogers, a freshman at Penn State Mont Alto in Chambersburg, to develop a youth network of 20 to 40 students to share online what is happening in their lives and in their communities. The network will hold its first meeting next month.

If it all works, Harrisburg-area students will be better prepared for college and career when they graduate from high school. But that is not the only result Ms. Davis is after.

"We hope to also get them engaged in our programming on the radio, as well as on television."

Ms. Davis was one of the presenters at a seminar on generational diversity at the Pennsylvania Business Diversity Works Conference. Her co-presenter, Travis Flood, a research manager for Comcast Spotlight, began the session by sweeping away the common misconception that baby boomers constitute the largest generation ever. At 78.2 million, they were the largest generation when they were born; the previous two generations, tagged "The G.I. Generation" and "The Silent Generation," numbered 56.6 million and 52.5 million, respectively. And the generation that followed, Generation X, was slightly smaller, with 69 million births.

But if the baby boomers were a demographic tidal wave, Generation Y is a tsunami, working its way to an estimated size of 100 million. The sheer size of this generation means that, notwithstanding the aging of baby boomers, America is getting younger.

Not only is the country getting younger, but it also is becoming more generationally diverse, as a result of increasing life spans.

The average life expectancy for a child born in America in 1900 was 47.3 years; the child born 50 years later had a life expectancy of 68.2 years; for one born in 2000, it was 77 years. Increasing lifespans mean more generations being alive at once. The 1900 newborn would have been fortunate to know his or her grandparents; millenial children may be cradled by their great-great-grandparents.

For the first time in history, five generations of Americans are alive together: The G.I. generation, those born between 1905 and 1925; the "silent" generation, born between 1926 and 1945; the baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X, born between 1965 and 1985; and Generation Y, those born since 1985. More than ever, businesses must learn to choose carefully which generations they want to market their goods and services to, and how they will do it.

Mr. Flood offered pointers for marketing to multiple generations. Members of the G.I. generation, the youngest of whom are now in their 80s, are customers for niche products suited for their age and priced in consideration of a frugality shaped by the Great Depression. They and their successors, the silent generation, still rely on newspapers, radio and television for their news, and those media are still the best avenues for marketers to establish credibility with them -- especially with the use of the right spokesperson. Whatever a company is selling, "If Paul Harvey says they have to have one, they have to have one," Mr. Flood said.

Generation X'ers, he said, place less value on authority and more on choice. They are more likely to choose Fiestaware than Pfaltzgraff -- unless they go to Pfaltzgraff's Web site to customize their dinnerware: "They think they're better artists."

Their successors in Generation Y take that even further, allowing Scion to score a hit with highly customizable cars. In the world of Generation Y, "users control their environment," Mr. Flood said. "No longer does the marketer have all the power."

The first of them are in their 20s now; many of those have graduated from college, most have landed jobs -- and all, apparently, are ready to spend.

Citing a new book by demographer Kenneth W. Grombach, "The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Generational Storm," Mr. Flood said that as a group, Gen Y'ers are spending at five times the rate their parents did, adjusted for inflation, making them "the largest consumer group in the history of the world."

What drives such a pace of spending? Mr. Flood pointed to divorce and remarriage among baby boomers as a primary factor, using himself as an example.

"I went from having two parents and four grandparents to four parents and eight grandparents," he said. That meant more toys, more gifts of money, more largesse.

"What's going to happen now that [Gen Y'ers] have to go out and fend for themselves? What are they going to do? The answer is a little unclear."

But he seemed certain of one thing. "They're going to have money to spend somehow. It's not that they're going to stop consuming," even if a long downturn in the economy means that they have to take second jobs.

To reach this generation, Mr. Flood said, a company needs to:

n Be consistent: "Don't put one message out there one week because you have a sale," then put out a different message the next week.

n Target a niche. Citing Chris Anderson's "long tail" -- the idea that in a digital world, niche products and services can be as profitable as mainstream fare -- Mr. Flood noted that 58 percent of Amazon sales are for nontraditional books. (As this article was being written, "The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association" reached No. 20 on Amazon's list).

n Survey customers and engage in trial and error. Gen Y'ers expect companies to seek their input. They also expect them to acknowledge mistakes and to fix them.

That last tip may be especially important for WITF, given the scope of Ms. Davis' plans. But she feels that it is time for public broadcasting to take on risk in order to attract new audiences.

"The challenge is to hold on to our core … while bringing in the new people," she said. "The traditional view of public broadcasting is, 'They're going to come to us anyway.'"

Ms. Davis said one of the most important aspects of the new initiative is that WITF is reaching out into Harrisburg area's substantial Latino community, partnering with Estamos Unidos de Pennsylvania to promote education among Latino youth.

Still, she acknowledged that "not everybody's going to be interested" in the station's programming. She is OK with that, so long as at least some of them come into the WITF fold.

"Then we've got to go on and figure out how to reach the young professionals."