Millennial Musings

This post is to serve a specific purpose, for some work that I’m doing for my high school musical theatre.

So here’s the deal:  Back when I was in Musical Theatre in high school, Clay Holt and I would always make promo videos for the upcoming musical.  Look at the bottom for some examples of past work.

This time, I need student-submitted video to complete the project, and advertise for your performance!

So here’s what I need: Video files shot during class and rehearsals.  These can be done on an iPhone, video camera, or whatever works for you!  I need action shots, of everything from tech working to reading lines, from costumes and backdrops to dance practices.  Whatever seems exciting to you, shoot it!

Here’s why you should care:  The top 3 students from whom I use the most video will be given a $25 gift card of their choice for going above and beyond to support Musical Theatre!  Also, you will be credited in the ad, and this can be a nice resume item.

Table Stakes:  There are a couple ‘table stakes’ that have to be met before I can use a video.  The footage should include both video and audio.  There may be music spliced over, but having the option is good.  Footage needs to be submitted on time, as the deadline is the day which I will start cutting the footage together.  Shots need to be relatively stable.  A little bit of motion or shaking is acceptable, but too much will render the clip unusable.

How to submit your footage:  Footage should go on provided thumb drives.  These should have the video footage put on them, and be placed in a plastic baggie with your name and contact info written on the bag.  These should be given to Hope Hiester no later than the last school day before the deadline (she will give them to me).  Alternately, the footage can be emailed to shiester@vols.utk.edu

Stuff to Think About:  Look at the past videos for inspiration.  I am not sure yet what form the promo will take, but expect it to run like a movie preview and tease the audience.  Creative shots very well may guide the direction in which I take the promo. Also, please don’t disrupt class to get these shots.  If you’re looking for something special like the silhouette scene from the Cinderella promo, please schedule this outside of class.

Thanks!  Feel free to text me with any questions, or respond to this post.

Cinderella: Cindy Trailer

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OKLAHOMA! Trailer

 

Posted by Clay Holt on Sunday, November 15, 2009

One of my early jobs was with a Fortune 500 company.  I was placed into a salaried position that was talked about as being an ‘easy desk’.  And after a few weeks of becoming accustomed to the job, that label became an understatement.  My compensation was the same as my peers, but it only took me about 20 hours per week to g above and beyond what was required of the job.  Which would have been fantastic, were it not for the requirement that I be in the office for 8 hours per day.  This led to a great deal of frustration, as I felt under-utilized and as if my time were being wasted.  When I talked to supervision and others about the problem, I was told that I should be thankful for such an easy job.  But I wasn’t….I wanted to work hard.

A traditional analysis of this situation would lead to the reasonable conclusion that the Millenial in question is simply impatient.  And there may be credence to such an argument.  But I want to approach from the perspective of untapped opportunity, rather than sticking to the status quo.

Millennials are a very time-sensitive generation; specifically, they are sensitive to passively wasted time.  Passively wasted time and actively wasted time are two very different things.  Actively wasted time is that time often referred to in pop culture as “time well wasted”[1], or time that, if enjoyed being wasted, isn’t wasted time.[2]  These are the days spent on the beach tanning, rainy afternoons with a book, a glass of wine in the evening to unwind.  Passively wasted time, on the other hand, is time being wasted due to external forces.  Think of this as being stuck in traffic, waiting at the doctor’s office for your appointment, or those ‘appointment windows’ given by cable companies.

When Millennial time-sensitivity is combined with the Millennials’ willingness to leave jobs with which they are dissatisfied, and simply being frequently bored can lead to Millennials leaving a firm.  Some may claim that the salary is enough to hold a Millennial in a position.  But if you look at the research in some of my past posts, Millennials would rather do something they enjoy for free (or at additional expense) than be bored for money.

And busy work doesn’t cut it – that’s what my supervision tried with me.  They were just attempting to simply fill the hours in the day, rather than assign meaningful work.  But what should companies do about this?  One of my first mentors accomplishes this very well with her primarily Millennial team.  Job assignments and expectations are given, but in addition a ‘menu of options’ for side-projects and professional development work are given.  These are things that don’t have to be done, but would still add value to the firm if accomplished (included in that is professional development).  The fear may be that, without a specific directive, the Millennial employees will not accomplish the side projects, choosing to waste time instead.  But due to the innate aversion to boredom, these projects will be picked up and worked on with vigor, because the alternative is passively wasted time.

So don’t decry that Millennials constantly need stimulation and want to always be multi-tasking.  Rather, leverage this to the capitalization of your firm.  Not only will the business results be better, but Millennial retention will be better.

[1] Brad Paisley, Time Well Wasted

[2] John Lennon, need to find proper source.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing the most amount of writing ever done in my life, which should not have some as a surprise considering that I’m getting a Masters of Communication.  But so far, I’ve noticed something that, in my opinion, is lacking in the curriculum: the spoken word.

Communication can be in a wide array of forms, from formal academic writing to casual conversations to body language and the interpretation of actions.  For the vast majority of human history, verbal communication has been the primary means by information is transmitted.  It has only been in the last several centuries that the written word has overtaken the spoken.

But beyond overtaking the spoken word in academic and knowledge-based transfers, it has now, in some circles, transcended the spoken in day-to-day, interpersonal interactions.  Which is not something that I’m commenting on, but rather I’m setting that as the baseline for what’s happening whether we like it or not.  The implication is that Millennials are not naturally learning advanced verbal communication skills.  We are growing up in an era where we are used to expressing our thoughts written, from ubiquitous school papers, to personal statements, to 140 character Tweets.

This should be a gap that is covered in a Communications program, particularly at the Masters level.  The irony is that, as Comm programs increasingly focus on writing skills, societal trends are moving towards learning via visual and auditory means (think of how much more likely you are to watch a YouTube how-to than read a manual).  What this is leading to is communications professionals who can write all day, but don’t present in an effective manner.  I’ve seen this recently with my interactions within the College of Communications and Information Sciences.  Meaningful academic discussions and the ability to verbally problem-solve are nearly non-existent.  I mean, my Communication Theory class is online relying solely on written discussion boards, textbook readings, and written papers.

Come on academia, let’s work on rounding out Communication professionals, so that when a reporter confronts them, the verbal statement is as clean and precise as if it were written and edited for hours.

There’s a string of graffiti I’ve been following.  It’s in one of the bathrooms of the campus library, and is a discussion of change.  It began with a comment about life always flowing, changing course, and ever-moving.  The discussion has featured (as far as I can tell) 3-5 different writers, and has touched topics of depression, getting over loss, and countdowns to graduation.  The latest ‘installment’ I saw was a direct quote from Disney’s Pocahontas”

“What I love most about rivers is, you can’t step in the same river twice.  The water’s always changing, always flowing.  But people, I guess, can’t live like that.  We all must pay a price; to be safe we lose our chance of ever knowing, what’s around the river bend.”

So this made me think about constant change, which is one of the hallmarks of the Millennial generation – comfort in change.  This comes from a great number of influences.  Much of the literature suggests that the ever-changing world in which Millennials were raised is responsible: Columbine shooting, advent of the internet, Y2K, the dot-com bubble, 9/11, two Iraqi wars, unstable oil prices, the Great Recession, on and on and on.  While I do think there is  virtue in this, I wonder how much is also due to the messages we received as children in a positive sense.

I grew up on Disney, as many Millennials did.  The theme of accepting change runs rampant though the Disney films produced at a time when Millennials would have been children:

The Little Mermaid (1989) juxtaposes “Part of Your World” with “Under the Sea“, essentially the story of Ariel wanting to change and be a part of something new, and be accepted for that desire.

Beauty and the Beast (1991) with a song entirely devoted to “There must be something there that wasn’t there before” and ‘A Change in Me’ opening with the lines “There’s been a change in me, a kind of moving on” moving to “I never thought I’d leave behind my childhood dreams, but I don’t mind” ending in “No change of heart, a change in me.”

Aladdin (1992) give us ‘A Whole New World‘, which is at its heart an invitation to try new things and see new perspectives (which ends up playing out in the end of the film, albeit in a bit different way).

The Lion King (1994) promises in the very opening scenes that there’s “far too much to take in here, more than can ever be found”

Pocahontas (1995) as mentioned above.

…and on and on and on.  I believe these positive messages that Millennials were exposed to early-on have greatly impacted the generation’s acceptance of change as much, if not more so, than the catastrophes that occurred.  From a young age, this group was taught that what may initially seem to be frightening really wasn’t so bad after all, and could actually be a good thing in the end.  Not only that, but this posturing makes the Millennials, in general, open to those with different views, opinions, and styles than their own.

So then it’s no wonder to me that, as Millennials are coming of age, we are taking actions to accelerate the change, rather than stifle it.  Take, for example, the ‘issue’ of gay marriage.  In a single Presidential cycle (from the 2012 to the 2016 elections), this moved from a decisive issue which was critical to a candidate’s platform, to a non-issue.  Oh, there certainly are ‘candidates’ who oppose it, but they’re fringe candidates at best (like Mike Huckabee, who just needs to give up – he’s been trying for too long).

Keep on changing, Millenials – it makes the world at the least an more interesting, and at best a better, place to live.

I thought I had escaped the pandemic…I really did.  Moving from a mid-sized town to a bigger city with a major University was supposed to remedy the problem; not only a major research university, but also national research labs were here.  Surely such an advanced area would be free from the re-animated dead.  But alas, it was not to be so….

The trees lived again…..

What I am talking about is the exclusive usage of tree-corpses to facilitate transactions.  that’s right: paper money and checks.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly acceptable for businesses to accept the dead – they are, in fact, legal tender.  But some of us prefer to keep the sap off our hands, and need a plastic or digital option.  Actually, when it comes to Millennials, most of us prefer alternative options.  Only 26% of Millennials use cash.  There are many reasons for this preference: tracking (ironically, non-paper payment creates a paper trail), accessibility, ease-of-use, security, convenience.  But one of the greatest impacts is that, by and large, we live in a cash-less society.  We are paid digitally, purchase digitally, pay bills digitally, and even send money to one another digitally.  It is, by and large, entirely inconvenient for a Millennial to get cash, much less carry it regularly.

In a world of ever-increasing marketplace competition, the refusal to accept digital forms of payment may very well be what causes Millennial business to go elsewhere.  Actually, that seems inaccurate.  Digital payment processing is table stakes now – Millennials won’t even engage if that is not an option.