What Dreams May Come

“Young people born after 1982 are the most narcissistic generation in recent history”.

Dr Jean Twenge’s Generation Me (2006) marks her research into narcissism in Generation Y. As a result of over-indulgent and undeserved praise lavished on them by Boomer parents, Generation Y is apparently self-absorbed, lazy and entitled.

According to Dr Twenge, a key manifestation of this narcissism – and ironically the cause of pain and misery to Generation Y – is the pursuit of one’s dreams encouraged by parents and teachers. She argues that a lifetime of pampering has created a generation deluded in the belief that it can achieve anything without making the effort. This ‘delusion’ is revealed for what it is in business, when Generation Ys do not receive the quick promotions and recognition they expect for just turning up, causing them anxiety and stress. Life in business requires effort and dreams can fall quickly to ruin.

While controversial, Dr Twenge’s observations of Generation Y behaviour aren’t narcissism, but signs of naivety.  Indeed Generation Y was brought up believing it could achieve anything, but as discussed in our last blog, educational institutions do not sufficiently prepare students for life on the outside; they don’t equip them with the business tools required to succeed.

3M empowered its employees with such tools with its “Permitted Bootlegging” policy, which enabled scientist Art Fry in 1974 to spend a portion of his working day to put colleague, Spencer Silver’s adhesive to practical use; thus inventing the Post-it Note.

Employers who recognise the pursuit of dreams as the desire to achieve can help Generation Y develop a personal vision or dream, which aligns with that of the company, and provide the tools to empower Generation Y (and so the business) to thrive.

To finish off, President Obama, arguably the mascot for achieving one’s dreams, had this to say at his address on Tuesday:

“...In my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.” 

Get Generation Y to engage with your brand

One of the key complaints about Generation Y is how naïve they are about how business works. There are already concerned discussions happening about Generation Z and how they will transition from the education system to the working world. The younger generations seem to be hugely unprepared for the life that awaits them upon exit of the education system, often to the dismay of employers who have to foot the enormous bill to fill this skills void.  There is a need to create transparency and visibility so that expectations are matched on both sides.

In our previous blog we left you with the story of Electronic Arts, which has a Facebook page to attract and recruit the iGeneration, onto which student Mohammed Elnaiem asked for advice about which university to attend in order to increase his chance of getting a job with EA.

This signals the eagerness of Generations Y and Z to prepare for their future, but also the distinct lack of relevant career advice or training provided by education institutions – thus defeating the object of education. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Some businesses have taken to doing presentations inside schools, or sponsoring excellent candidates (much like the British ARMY sponsoring graduates through their university degree with the guarantee of a recruit after graduation).  However, this conjures up futuristic images of ‘Google/ Goldman Sachs-sponsored children’s school blazers’ – which we don’t believe is the way forward.

The answer to the dilemma is for employers, rather than waiting until students are in their final year of university before trying to attract and train them, is to get involved with this population early on, engaging them in captivating experiences (to which they can contribute), which in turn may encourage them to tailor their educational choices towards a future career with your brand. A recent example is Nokia’s ‘Dreams Workshops’, which engages children globally in ‘sustainability’ events, designed to improve life skills and raise environmental awareness. So far Nokia has reached over 30,000 young people – that’s 30,000 potential employees worldwide.

Previously we have mentioned Coca-Cola’s efforts and another example of where this has worked is the iPhone applications:  within 6 months of the launch of the Apple iPhone 10,000 ‘collaborators’ had created third-party applications for the mobile device.  Most recently a 9 year old boy created one! (Thomson Reuters).

Establishing an early (experiential) relationship with potential consumers and employees, will both reduce the high training costs upon entry into the business, and greatly increase loyalty in the long term. It’s a win-win situation that can be created for any business.

Olympic president recruits Gen Y evangelists

Jacques Rogge is the 66 year-old president of the International Olympic Committee, firmly rooted in the Baby Boomer population you might think.  But not too rooted to try a spot of interaction with Social Media.  The Belgian, talking to the Times Olympic Correspondant, gave no apology for not having a Facebook profile himself.

However, rather than risk the ignominy of “poking” Generation Y and not being poked back, Rogge is enlisting the 3,500 teenaged athletes competing at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010 to spread the Olympic gospel for him. By asking each competitor to link a personal blog to Facebook, MySpace and other online networking communities, he hopes to reach the millions of under-18s more likely to play Grand Theft Auto than hockey.

The president even said that he wanted to hire more baggy panted, pink haired gen Y to work in his Geneva headquarters.  The basic premise here though is that you use your own to reach your own.  If you want to attract the attention of generation Y and even Z then... well, they are online, so the best and most transparent way to reach them is through the mediums and channels they are already using. 

However, it wasn’t all optimism from the IOC president, saying: “Kids are attracted to visual, interactive forms of communication. It's not going to be easy for sport to counter that… You won't hear me saying sport is not fun - it is. But it requires austerity and discipline. The answer is achievement. You will never achieve in a video game. It is not really success.”  I’m not sure that is necessarily a view supported by the audience he’s trying to attract. 

Other examples of where organisations are starting to use online technologies to recruit and attract the next generation of supporters, or employees include political party communities (e.g. Conservatives), and corporate employers (Electronic Arts).

It seems this works as a recent post on the Electronic Arts Facebook wall read:

Mohammed Elnaiem (Saudi Arabia):

“do u employ people with game design degrees from singapore/malaysia and if u do can u recommend any universities because i want to become a games designer :)”

Medical uses for Facebook

A new article highlights the benefits of Social Media for the medical world.  In the article is given a description of how ‘Facebook users are coming to the aid of children who need life-saving transplants as the networking website presents its users with more serious dilemmas than they usually have to contend with as they stay in touch with friends. Campaigns launched on the site have inspired thousands of people to join groups urging them to become members of tissue transplant registers. Joining the registers helps widen the pool of bone marrow and blood donors available and increases the chance of a match being found for patients.’

Inspirational uses of Social Networking like this should at least deter even the hard-line skeptics away from thinking that Facebook is just for playing.

‘The parents of 23-month-old Iona Stratton, who fell ill with leukaemia when she was 13 weeks old, launched a Facebook appeal in October to find a bone marrow donor. The appeal attracted almost 7,000 members and they found a match in Australia within weeks’.

The Pope gets Video Blogging!

The Pope, Benedict the XVI has launched his own You Tube channel in the hope of reaching the Digital Generation.  In a video blog (‘vlog’), broadcast on You Tube (of course).  Saying that the internet has become a ‘resource of upmost importance’ and especially for the digital generation, the Pope continued (text is linked to You Tube video):  ‘Undoubtedly, wise use of communications technology enables communities to be formed in ways that promotes the search for the truth, the good and the beautiful, transcending geographical boundaries, and ethnic divisions.  To this end the Vatican has launched a new initiative which will make information from the Holy See more readily accessible on the World Wide Web.  It is my hope that this initiative will reach a wide range of people...’

The Vatican has committed to updating the YouTube site daily with papal news items produced by the Vatican television station CTV and Vatican Radio. They will further be translated into Italian, German, English and Spanish – to ensure its reach across language boundaries.  Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, who heads the Vatican's social communications office, said the pope fully approved of the YouTube channel, saying Benedict was "a man of dialogue" who wanted to engage with people wherever they were (Source: Channel4.com)

This shows how committed the Catholic Church is to sending out its message and reaching the audience it aims to ‘recruit’.  It will be interesting to see whether corporations – even in tech sectors – will follow suit, with their CEO’s reaching future employees.  From our research we find that ‘viral’ communication such as this has a much greater impact on the ‘Digital Generation’ as it is reaching them using one of their preferred consumption mediums (youtube), which is also easy to share across networks, and uses visual media (pictures, stories, and moving images) which are much more likely to capture their attention than a page of traditional text.  It’s considered to be more ‘transparent’.