It's almost 30 years since the heralding of The New Majority and increased attention given to multicultural marketing. Currently African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics together represent 34.7% of all Americans. Yet they have been the majority in America's top ten cities for years, or decades in several cases. Early on, the focus was on ethnicity, then later on culture. So what's up now? There is still lot's of interest in cultural marketing, with the elementary question of "How" (to proceed) still being asked.

Asian multicultural marketing continues to be a discipline that is attracting new categories and brands, as well as welcoming back clients whose Asian cultural marketing programs have heretofore 'lapsed.' This trend is underscored by the Census 2010 data which has been released in the last year that confirms that Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in America (neck and neck with Hispanics), and remain the most attractive segment with respect to many other critical demographics.

Make this a great business year by resolving to make a few changes in your business habits that you will set you on the path to business success in 2012.  Start the New Year off well and your efforts will pay off all year long.  Here are 10 habit-changing resolutions for your diverse workplace, your career development and a growing interface with the global economy.

A futurist recently came to town to address the Chamber of Commerce.  He spoke to a packed house even though most of us had no idea of what a futurist actually does.  According to the Association of Professional Futurists, “A futurist usually does not set out to describe “The Future.” Generally a futurist is called upon to help make a decision, solve a particular problem, adapt to a coming change, or identify paths toward innovation.” Our resident futurist did exactly that and began by stating that he had no intention of speaking slowly.  Our challenge was to keep up no matter how fast he went.

Is the era of diversity compliance in the workplace now over?  Diversity policies and legal requirements are basic tenents for equity advocates, but they have also been contentious, controversial and, at times, combustible.  It took 50 years of wrangling after the first Women’s Suffrage conference in the mid-1800s to achieve a constitutional amendment granting that vote.   It took another 50 years for the Civil Rights Movement to seriously impact equity in the workplace, not only by race but also gender, ethnicity and other diversity categories. Affirmative action and the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1964 addressed long-standing inequities.  Compliance became an issue of legality as well as social justice.  Today, almost 50 year later, we are seeing another major societal and economic transformation, and it will be more combustible than ever.

There are two basic motivations of the entrepreneurial spirit.  The first is the business side of the endeavor and its bottom line, otherwise known as ‘show me the money.’  The second motivation is self-fulfillment.  Some refer to this element of entrepreneurship as ‘personal satisfaction.’  At the core of the vague term ‘personal satisfaction’ is what is best described as a spiritual sense of purpose.  This spirituality is sometimes linked to one’s faith tradition, but is not necessarily so.  Rather, there is a commonality of spirit that translates across the boundaries of specific religions.  Most importantly, there is tremendous power where spirituality and business overlap.

The field of Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is in the process of evaluating and redefining itself.  A recent conversation on LinkedIn had more than 1,000 comments on the topic of the meaning of diversity today.  The wide-ranging discussion looked at the social context of diversity and its global context as well as the effectiveness of D&I in the workplace.  The professionals online revisited the many business cases for implementing diversity initiatives:  innovation, marketing, community relations and compliance.  They discussed the impact of diversity decision-makers including CEOs, Human Resource Departments, Boards and middle management.   In the more than 200 pages of debate, it was clear that the D&I field is facing a challenging future.