A potpourri of data appearing this April in PROMO’s sister title AMERICAN demographics.

Speedy Office Connections

At-work broadband access is growing at lightning speed. The number of people with increased bandwidth at the office will more than double to 55 million in four years, from 24 million in 2000, according to Jupiter Media Matrix, New York City. And while a robust 57 percent of the 42.7 million at-work Internet users presently make use of broadband on their jobs, the number will jump to 87 percent by 2005, predicts Jupiter. As broadband reaches critical mass in the workplace and makes inroads into connections to consumers outside the office, companies with their targets fixed on these “multimodal” consumers will certainly face a 24/7 challenge.

Fast Track

Forget climbing the corporate ladder: college students want the brass ring, pronto. A survey of 1,000 college students and recent graduates by Jobtrak.com finds that 81 percent believe it will take them 10 years or less to achieve their career goals. Forty-eight percent think it will take them five years or less to get the corner office or to add the title of CEO to their résumés. America’s working neophytes’ unrestrained optimism stems from having come of age in a flush economy and a tight labor market, with lots of highly visible examples of meteoric corporate career arcs. Success is expected, and quick promotions and salary increases from potential employers are a given among the young turks. After all, 79 percent of these whippersnappers believe that Social Security won’t be around in their golden years.

Weight Watchers

Americans give significant weight to dieting. Some 52 million people (more than a quarter of U.S. adults) say they are on a diet, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau’s National Consumer Survey. While two-thirds (66 percent) of those say they’re on a diet to shed pounds, 18 percent are simply trying not to gain any more. Women lead the battle of the bulge: They are 75 percent more likely than men to curb their caloric intake. Perhaps surprisingly, 35 percent of the over-18 set contend that they exercise regularly. Sixty percent of the nation’s adults acknowledge that they need more exercise.