Millennial Musings

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  OK, I’ll be honest – unless we’re talking about holidays in the realm of Arbor Day, it’s my least favorite.  Dressing up in costume just frustrates me, and I’d rather buy the exact type of candy I want.  But, in honor of the holiday, I decided to post things that truly inspire horror in Millennials.

1. Phone Calls

Seriously, just send a text or an email.  Most Millennials don’t even respond to voicemail.

2. Low battery

Remember the days when cell phones could last for days or a week on one charge?  Now, we’re lucky to get 8 hours.

3. Paper Files

It’s 2015, people.  Using paper is not only archaic, but is bad for the environment.

4. Traditional work hours

Millennials aren’t particularly interested in working a 9-5 in a traditional office setting.  What used to be a selling point to prior generations is now a turn-off.

5. Politicians in General

Regardless of the party, Millennials don’t trust politicians or political institutions.

6. Debt

The ultimate horror story for most Millennials is related to their crippling student debt.  Combine that with a sluggish economy, mix well, and don’t sleep at night.

The above screenshot is from Erik Qualman’s Social Media Revolution 2015 YouTube video.  It’s kind of a shocking statistic, but one that I’ve seen numerous times.  We are so inundated with inputs on a daily basis that an individual stimulus receives very little acknowledgement.  The average child takes in 26 hours of media in a given 24 hour period of time (which is even more shocking when you consider that 6-8 of those hours are sleep).  And we all know what this looks like: headphones in while studying, scrolling through Twitter during a lecture, having the TV on while doing homework.

So what’s the solution?  While there may not be a single right answer, there is definitely a wrong answer.  And the wrong answer is this: eschewing the technology and trends by trying to force them out.  Like the professor who says no electronics of any kind in the classroom, or the school system that tries to enforce an archaic ‘no cell phones at school’ policy.

Rather than trying to use a push strategy to force the message/lecture/ad/communication onto the target audience, use a pull strategy.  If the content itself is engaging, then the audience will self-select to pay attention.  Think of the Dos Equis ‘Most Interesting Man in the World’ character.  The campaign ran in the US from 2006 to 2010.  To put that into personal perspective, I turned 18 the year that the ad went off the air.  And yet, 3 years later, when I turned 21, the no-longer running ad still impacted my beer purchasing habits (and still does).  And the ad has become a viral meme now, effectively perpetuating the campaign into what will be its 10th year next year.  Think, too, of a compelling speaker capturing the audience’s attention.  Every year, I attend the National Storytelling Festival, where 10,000 of the 7-second attention span people spend 3 days listening to stories all day every day.  And not only do we all self-select to hear and be focused on those stories, but we pay a good deal of money to do so.

Integration with technology and social media is key, particularly when it comes to education.  For Millennials, social media is woven throughout their lives, from choosing a restaurant in a new city (Yelp), to buying coffee (Starbucks app), to keeping touch with an increasingly global network (Facebook, Twitter, etc).  I’ve seen this done well twice (although I’m sure there are more instances out there).  In undergrad, one of my professors had us follow her on Twitter on the first day.  She had ‘Skype hours’ in addition to regular office hours, and very clearly told us she could care less if we were on our phones or tablets all class.  The second, in grad school, had its own Twitter handle and hashtag.  Students were not only encouraged to interact with the class via Twitter, but were often praised in class for doing so.  Integration is key.

At the Mentoring conference this week, I met Clarissa Unger, who is the Director of Partnerships at Young Invincibles (in case you read my last post, she was the presenter mentioned who was the only other one doing Millennial-centric research that I saw).  I got the opportunity to spend a couple hours having Clarissa Explain It All to me (and yes, I’ve used that joke about a dozen times now, and am quite aware it isn’t funny anymore).  That, followed by a couple more hours of online research, has led me to believe that Young Invincibles is a best-in-class organization for addressing Millennial issues.

Young Invincibles is a non-profit focused on economic, health, and job-related issues for the Millennial generation.  Through education and advocacy, the organization works to bridge some of the societal gaps that I’ve talked about in the past.  The organization works with politicians on both sides of the aisle, as well as US business leaders and researchers in a consulting function to help drive necessary changes to policies and practices.

This week I have been at the 8th Annual Conference on Mentoring at the University of New Mexico’s Mentoring Institute.  It has been an incredible opportunity, and I made several great connections!

Because my research centers on Millennials, I couldn’t help but notice that there was very little being discussed with a focus on unique traits of the Millennials as opposed to prior generations.  In fact, I only saw one other presentation the entire time I was there with this as facet.  It appeared that, at best, 20% of attendees were Millennial, with very few presenters.

This creates a problem unique to the subject matter.  Certainly, mentoring takes place throughout generation and age groups, and can take many different forms.  However, even at this conference, the majority of the mentoring discussed focuses on older individuals mentoring younger ones.  In the US, Millennials are the largest generation to date, even outnumbering the Baby Boomers by around 8 million.  Not actively including the demographic to be mentored runs the risk of misaligned objectives.

Particularly when it comes to career mentoring, Millennials face a very different environment than prior generations.  As was mentioned over conversation at the conference, Millennials are the first generation to go to college because that was the next step after high school, rather than being driven by a clear objective (a specific job, industry, field, etc).  And often, these degrees are debt-financed.  Combine that with an over-saturated job market (except for a few fields, such as engineering), and Millennials are increasingly being pushed into sub-optimal jobs or those not related to their degrees, in order to pay off debt.

This is in area that Mentoring can heavily address.  In fact, my salaried corporate position ultimately came about as a result of advice and coaching from my professional mentor.  A mentor attuned to these unique issues can help a mentee focus on skill growth, professional networking, and becoming an ‘attractive’ candidate.  But unless the mentor is fully in tune with these issues, the focus may erroneously be placed elsewhere.

A common misconception about Millennials is that, as a group, we are most concerned with getting high-paying jobs.  This drives management to set compensation and retention policies that aren’t fully attractive to Millennials.  It can also leave management baffled when Millennials leave seemingly ideal jobs for something less certain.  According to a Pew Study, the following represents the % of what Millennials’ say is “one of the most important things in their lives.”

Being a good parent (52%)

Having a successful marriage (30%)

Helping others in need (21%)

Owning a home (20%)

Living a very religious life (15%)

And, after all that, only 15% of Millennials list a high-paying career as one of the most important things in their lives.  Increasingly, Millennials value the ability of a job to integrate with their lives, rather than to take them over.  The implication is that a salary is not the same hold that it used to be for the average worker – certainly not enough to be unhappy.  From my own experience, I gave up a very high, stable salary (top 10% for my age bracket) because I was unhappy and wanted to pursue a Master’s degree.  Management should keep this in mind when evaluating incentive packages – gone are the days when a high salary is able to buy loyalty from employees.

Pew Research Center. (2010, February). Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next – Confident. Connected. Open to Change. 2; 4; 10. Retrieved July 2012, from The Pew Research Center: Millennials: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf

I think it’s very important, when talking about different generational cohorts, to include definitions and objectively researched traits.  These give a good descriptive picture of the generation as a whole, and can be useful for generalizing and making comparisons.  As an example, the average Baby Boomer would be more willing to stay late after work than the average Millennial, and the average Millennial would be more willing to telecommute to a meeting than the average Boomer.

But just as interesting, I think, is what happens when the generations are asked to self-identify.  The Pew Center did a study, in which participants were segmented by generation and asked the open-ended question “What makes your generation unique?”  Here are the top 5 responses based on age group:

• Millennials
  • Technology Use (21%)
  • Music/Pop Culture (11%)
  • Liberal/tolerant (7%)
  • Smarter (6%)
  • Clothes/Fashion (5%)
• Gen X
  • Technology Use (12%)
  • Work ethic (11%)
  • Conservative/Traditional (7%)
  • Smarter (6%)
  • Respectful (5%)
• Boomers
  • Work ethic (17%)
  • Respectful (14%)
  • Values/Morals (8%)
  • “Baby Boomers” (6%)
  • Smarter (5%)
• Silent Generation
  • WWII, Depression (14%)
  • Smarter (13%)
  • Honest (12%)
  • Work ethic (10%)
  • Values/Morals (10%)

It’s interesting to note that every generation believes that they are smarter than all the others.  This sort of self-valuation may be at the root of many inter-generational conflicts in the workplace (going into a situation with the ind set of being the smarter generation).  Research-wise, that’s a very difficult claim to test.  The Millenials are are par to be the most educated generation ever, but education level and core intelligence do not necessarily correlate.  The other option is to look at IQ tests, which doesn’t necessarily hold up due to the Flynn Effect.  The Flynn Effect is a noted perpetual uptick in average IQ over time, in the US to the effect of about 3 IQ points per decade.

Regardless of the actual data behind whether some of the themes are accurate or not, it is important to recognize that this is how the groups see themselves, and serves as the initial paradigm for interaction.

Pew Research Center. (2010, February). Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next – Confident. Connected. Open to Change. 2; 4; 10. Retrieved July 2012, from The Pew Research Center: Millennials: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf

So this isn’t exactly about Millennials, except that I’m a Millennial and it relates to me.  I wanted to highlight a non-profit that I now have the amazing opportunity to help with!

The Restoration House is a non-profit located in the Knoxville area, helping single mothers and their children to be restored to a good life.  They provide medium-term housing and childcare (think around 2 years) while single mothers work to get back on their feet.  Additionally, job and life skills are taught.

But more than that, Restoration House provides a community for these families to be a part of.  It is the belief of Restoration House that the community is the bedrock of a fulfilled life, and also serves as a great safety net.  I have been given the opportunity to coordinate social media activities, and am so very excited!  I will get an insider’s view of the goings-on, as well as the opportunity to connect with the amazing families and volunteers that make up this community!

I mentioned in my last post that Millennials are the most diverse generation in history (for the US).  In hindsight, that may have needed to be unpacked a bit more.  So here are 4 things more diverse than Millennials:

1. All of these crayons

2. The ways of hating Nickelback

3. This slightly disturbing graphic

4. Taylor Swift’s dating life

Millennials in the US are only 61% white, as opposed to 70% for all of those above the age -range.  Much of this is due to an increase in Hispanic immigration in the US, with those of Hispanic descent making up 19% of the population, as opposed to 13% in the rest of the population.  14% vs 11% black, and most other non-white ethnicities remaining more or less constant.  The generation younger than Millennials (iGen, AO, or Gen Z, depending on who is asked) is actually projected to be the first generation in which the US population is made up of more ‘minority groups’ than of white Caucasians (51%/49% split).

As the 2016 Republican primaries heat up, the question on everyone’s mind is ‘Who will get the Millennial vote?’  The Millennials are the most diverse generation in the US to date, and are larger than the Baby Boomers.  CNN published an article this week titled Millennials: What They Want from a Candidate.  The article features opinion pieces from 10 Millennials walking through their political thoughts.

Of note is that Millennials tend to evaluate both Republican and Democratic candidates without great regards for the two-party system.  In the same post, one writer praises both Bernie Sanders’ free-tuition approach, and Marco Rubio’s perspective on growing up in an immigrant family that lived paycheck to paycheck.

A thread running through Millennial sentiment, of both party affiliations, is a return of the American Dream.  The growing class divide, a sluggish economy, and extremely high student loan debts hit a breaking point with the Great Recession.  We saw our parents’ generation, who had attended college, worked hard, and saved up for a better life, have all that they had worked for ripped away in one fell swoop.  This has led to a malaise among Millennials, who often find that their expensive degrees don’t turn into jobs able to repay debt and grow equity.  What we want is some sort of return to a social contract – that by educating ourselves, working hard, and making responsible choices, we can earn our place as successful citizens.

According to Eric Qualman in his Social Media Revolution 2015 update, 53% of Millennials would rather lose their sense of smell than their technology.  When I first saw the stat, it seemed completely ridiculous, and clearly wrong.  But the more I thought about this from my own perspective, the more reasonable it seemed.  I’m still not sure where I stand on the technology/smell debate, but here are 7 things that would be worse for a Millennial than having no technology:

1. Paper cuts everywhere, forever

2. Waking up to a mosquito swarm in your bedroom

3. Realizing that you’re out of milk AFTER pouring the cereal into a bowl

4. Stubbing your pinky toe on the same corner twice in one night

5. Making the effort to get up early, prep food, put it into the crock pot, and feeling proud of adulting.  Then coming home from class/work and discovering that you never turned it on

6. Having to make an actual phone call to schedule an appointment.

7. Any store that only takes cash and responds to your dejected look with “Or you could write a check!”  Sure, because I definitely keep those on me

Other than that, give me the technology!  As digital natives, technology is not a tool which Millennials utilize to get things done – it’s the toolbox itself.