Posts tagged Millennials
Why we need social media
Jul 8th
Digital interaction is an interesting thing, isn’t it? Through Twitter, we have meaningful conversations with people we only know only online. Our Facebook accounts reconnect us with friendships we previously thought were lost to time. We carry our friends with us wherever we go and thrive on the capability for instant interactions. Some of us are reliving our past, while others of us are making business connections. In the process, many of us have broadened our definition of a “friend” to include those people we have just met and we share the most unremarkable parts of our lives as if these friends were “long lost,” rather than “newly made.”
We humans are social animals, of course. Most of us like engage with others so that we can have an understanding of where we fit into the fabric of our culture. Yet we Americans, in particular, are finding ourselves growing disconnected from those around us. We overwhelm ourselves with extracurricular activities to occupy our time, we work too much and relax too little, and we focus on getting “things” done, rather than experience doing “things.” Overall, we have lost the personal connections to the people in America who make our “stuff,” grow our food, or frankly, those who live next door. It is almost as if our individual desires for personal independence and self-reliance have eclipsed our need for social interaction. They have not, of course. Our requirements of social interactions are just different now from before.
Today, we try to balance our individual desires with our need for social interaction by leveraging digital technologies into the mix to help us maintain our personal connections in the lulls of our daily living. We all do it, but some of us do it better. It seems to me that each generation appears to connect and build relationships differently using technology. For example, I have observed that Millennials use social media as a way of extending their daily interactions with their friends. With their mobility restricted by expansive neighborhoods and overprotective parents while growing, they had no choice but to explore new online social technologies as a way to maintain their friendships. As a result, communicating by text, Facebook or MySpace is the same as a phone call or a face-to-face conversation. Social media, and the digital technologies that supports it, are fully integrated into the life of most Millennials.
Observations of Generation X show me that they rely heaviest on cell phones for social interaction, I suspect because most were in college when mobile phones became affordable for and adopted by the masses. Texting and social media tools appear to be time-consumers that this Generation has not yet fully embraced. Instead, they are practical about the use of social media, engaging with those pieces that benefit them most (such as using Twitter to build business relationships), disengaging when there is little personal gain.
Baby Boomers appear to function best using face-to-face, phone and email communications, but are rapidly adopting Facebook. I think, they can “see” their friends and feel engaged in those lives as if they lived next door. This closeness is important to Boomers, especially as they age, because it seems to provide Boomers true “social” opportunities in the context of their primary interests: connecting with old friends, sharing political news and views, discussing religion and exploring hobbies.
Each generation has found a way to make social media technologies relevant to their own lives, to give us opportunities to connect with others regularly, as we allow our culture to put increasing demands on our time. The ability for us to bend and mold social media tools to our individual needs, values, and expectations is what makes it work so well in building and re-building our valued connections.
We need social media tools to help us maintain our ability to be human in the face of the demands made on us by our culture, our peers, and ourselves. These tools are now such an essential part of how we function as individuals and who we are together as a community, that living without social media and supporting technologies is unthinkable.
It is clear to me that social media allows us to maintain some degree of sanity in our lives. Without these tools, we would give up what little socialization we do enjoy; and I am not so sure that would be good for our minds, or our souls.
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The rise of a new “Hero”
May 9th
I just finished reading, The Fourth Turning
The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values of regime propel the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.
Strauss and Howe go on to say that each Turning has its own mood. During the Fourth Turning, they suggest that we will see families being strengthened, gender roles widening, ideals championed, and new institutions founded. We will become practical as a culture, our social priority will be building our community, and our greatest sense of need will be to fix the world beyond ourselves.
It sounds like the world we are living in now, doesn’t it?
If you are familiar with Strauss and Howe’s previous book, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069
As the Millennials move into adulthood, they are merging their needs, values, and expectations into every detail of their lives. They need to feel that they are making a difference. They value consensus, relationships, and family. They hold the government, institutions, corporations, their peers, society, and themselves to higher standards than any other generation. Along the way, their idealism is resetting the expectations not just for their own generation, but also for all.
Organizations and corporations must take note of these changes because it is redefining the way success will be measured as it relates to the customer, member, or donor. Consider these points critical for the future survival of nearly every business and organization:
1. Be trustworthy in all your encounters. You have to earn the business.
2. Be transparent in all your actions. You must walk the talk.
3. Stand for something bigger than profits. Greed is no longer acceptable.
4. Make a difference in the world around you. You must care and show it.
5. Build meaningful relationships with your customers. People like to do business with those they like.
6. Ask for input from constituents and use what you are given. Collaboration and consensus means everything.
While these points could essentially be summed up into the Golden Rule, they are often lost in the business world. The Millennials are reminding us all that there is something larger than ourselves that needs tending. This is the attitude that must prevail in our businesses, our colleges, our communities, and our government.
If Millenials are successful in driving change in this Fourth Turning, our world will undoubtedly change for the better. And, they will have earned the label of Hero.
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It’s all in the tone of your voice
Nov 5th
Posted by 
Dave in Change Management
Growing up, I learned quickly how to determine when my dad wanted my attention. He could add a certain tonal quality, let’s say, to the delivery of a sentence that let me know I needed to focus on what he was saying. He never raised his voice, but I often heard him “yelling” when he used “the tone.” On the other hand, my mom’s voice often had a constant level of exasperation that allowed me to lose every word she shared to the white noise that surrounded us.
I thought about “the tone” as I watched President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last evening. His entire campaign was delivered with a different tone. It was a tone crafted for and deftly delivered to a generation–the Millennial Generation. CNN’s exit polls last evening noted that 68% of voters 18-24 and 69% of those 25-29 voted for Mr. Obama–a solid victory for the Millennial Generation. Conversely, the same exit polls placed the majority of McCain’s supporters over age 45 and a great number over the age of 65.
If you have been unable to see these change markers in your every-day life and work, it should be clear from this election that the Millennial Generation, more than other generations, responds as much to the tone of your voice, as they do to your message. This realization presents an interesting dilemma for marketers, I think. Most of us understand “the tone” concept in our gut, but do not put it into practice in our marketing or advertising campaigns. A good many of us are using a tone in our voice that is heard well by Baby Boomers, but is generating white noise to pretty much everyone else.
The November 4, 2008 election should be a wake-up call for marketers. It is time to adjust the tone of our voice if we hope to be heard by a new generation.
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Trust is still the currency
Oct 28th
As Web 2.0 and social networking technologies gain a greater foothold on our culture, I often hear LinkedIn.com founder Reid Hoffman’s quote, “Privacy is an old man’s concern,” tossed about. There is some truth to that, I suppose. Although I suspect the real issue is “trust” and not “privacy.” Trust is certainly not an “old man’s concern.”
Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers view the increasing requirements of Web 2.0 for personal and private information with a wary eye. We are the children who came of age in a time that knew Vietnam, the concept of the Cold War, and Watergate firsthand. We are largely skeptical and don’t easily trust the “establishment,” whether it be the government, the corporations or unseen faces behind the wall of the Internet. To us, relationships are built one-on-one and face-to-face, and privacy is something protected until the deepest stages of the relationship.
The Millennial Generation, the generation fueling the development of Web 2.0, are children of technology. They have grown up with computers and technology, and their distrusting and skeptical parents (see above) were increasingly protective of them in their formative years. This generation’s social life was controlled by their parent’s ability (or inability) to take them where they could engage others (play dates, dance classes, baseball games, etc.) They saw little unstructured playtime in the neighborhood with their friends and their primary means of social interaction was (and is) online. Their online relationships are real and intimate because they are an extension of their daily interaction with their friends. To this generation, privacy is not something to be concerned about; it is simply the price paid for building trust.
Although the perceptions, behaviors, interactions are somewhat different between the generations, the act of sharing information and building relationships (face-to-face or online) is tied to one single factor: Trust. Trust is what makes the relationships work. Trust is the only thing that can make or break that relationship. It does not matter if it’s a personal, friendly relationship, or one build on expectations of your company or your brand.
Yet, companies violate our trust daily; and, we keep going back for more. Well, at least those of us who were skeptical and distrustful in the first place are returning. Our expectations were low at the outset, so we largely tolerate the violations of our trust. That’s about to change though. The Millennial Generation has higher expectations of our companies and our brands. Violate their trust, and we are history. We will not get a second chance.
Trust is still the currency for business success. It does not really matter how much private information is shared and kept by the company; it is what is done with the information to build trust that is important. As our culture continues to evolve, keeping the trust is going to be a lot harder than earning it in the first place.
Are you prepared for that?
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