The Digital Election – Is it engaging young people?

So we’re three weeks away from the big day now, the event we’ve been excitedly anticipating for longer than I care to remember. No it’s not the start of the World Cup, nor is it the Britains Got Talent Final; it’s the 2010 General Election. OK, so maybe it’s not keeping you awake at night with uncontrollable enthusiasm, but following the deepest and most damaging recession for more than a generation the outcome of the election on 6th May will have a long lasting impact.

I was excited to hear politicians suggest this would be the first ‘digital election’, an opportunity to engage a generation supposedly more interested in the latest TV talent show than policies on economic recovery or Afghanistan.

Whilst we still have some way to go, it does seem we really are witnessing a shift in the way political issues are discussed and shared. The first of three TV leaders’ debates last week saw an estimated 2,500 tweets every minute; discussing everything from the colour of the leader’s ties to serious policy analysis. Ingenious web techies across the country have developed a range of online tools to encourage people to take notice. From the rather satisfying ‘Slapometer’ to using twitter to create real time opinion polls, the internet is proving that whilst the major parties still seem to be missing the point when it comes to digital engagement there are plenty of people showing just how powerful it can be.

For years I’ve been angered by reference to the so called ASBO generation. “Young people don’t care!” “Teenage society is broken!” We’ve heard it all. The reason this type of rhetoric has gone unchallenged is the unwillingness of the political classes to engage with, and attempt to listen to, the millions of brilliant young people working hard to make their small part of our world a little better. Maybe the internet has finally given everyone a voice.

I’ve been staggered by the passion many of my peers have shown in this election, but I don’t believe this is entirely down to the fad of social networking. Young people care about what the government does. Students graduating this year are doing so into the most competitive job market imaginable, and they may well be footing the bill of the budget deficient for the better part of their working lives. Millennials care about issues of equality and freedom of speech; and the response to the steamrollering of the Digital Economy Bill onto the statue books illustrates brilliantly how young people understand and care about the decisions that shape our society.

The internet has not caused this passion, but is has given a voice to young people where they may have otherwise been ignored. Whoever walks up to number 10 on 7th May will do well to remember that a politically engaged young generation demand and expect so much more. Deals made in darkened Westminster offices about issues that really affect young people will not be tolerated if this trend continues.

Microsoft believes in the Millennials

Recently a Microsoft evangelist covered a story on his blog regarding millennials, which he took influence from a podcast we recorded for The Envisioners (www.theenvisioners.com).

Great exposure, and it goes to show that even the big transnational organisations are taking notice of what is a very pertinent subject to the times!

Check out James Senior's blog here!

Rise of the Pro-Ams

Experience and tenure are at stake, we are starting to see an army of amateurs falling out of the clouds (pun intended), and the new heroes are the underdogs, the unknowns and the every day Jo’s. We see it everywhere, from television atrocities such as X-Factor, where you can become a hero just as quick as becoming a loser. But there are important success stories to consider, such as the Cuban blogger, Yoani Sanchez who through political persecution spread the words around the world of the real experiences of those living in Cuba, to which she was awarded the prestigious ‘Maria Moors Cabot’ journalism award

Leadbeater and Miller describe professional amateurs, or ‘Pro-Ams’ as “Innovative, committed and networked amateurs working to professional standard. This emerging group, the ‘Pro-Ams’ could have a huge influence on the shape of society in the next two decades”. I certainly wouldn’t disagree…But it’s also not a new thing, take Richard Branson and Bill Gates as examples, Pro-Ams in their own right back in the hay day, but I think what Leadbeater and Miller are getting at is the opportunity that the Internet, and more importantly the Web has created. In the past 15 years we have seen a proliferation of more multi-million dollar organizations than ever before, just to name-check a few: Google, Twitter, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, PayPal (etc) and these are not just fads, each organization in their own right has changed intricate details of society, and out of nowhere they were sprung by Pro-Ams. So what does this all mean? It means opportunity for those less fortunate, innovation enthusiasts and entrepreneurs.

Looking back over the past decade, the Internet and the Web have advanced and become pervasive commodities, and looking five years ahead it’s possible to see it becoming a mere service that we WILL take for granted, like many of our developed world pleasures. However, unlike the ‘real-world’ in the cyber-world your voice can be heard if you shout loud enough. Fede Alverez, a keen amateur film maker uploaded a video project that he’d been working on, it was a 4 minute sci-fi spectacle depicting giant robots destroying the capital city of Uruguay…not too dissimilar to Michael Bay’s blockbuster hit Transformers 2, but unlike Bay’s $50million flop, Alvarez’s powerful short film was made for free, instead opting to use his own skills behind the camera, creating his own CGI robots and getting his friends involved. Within a few days, Alvarez was contacted by many Hollywood studios and has now signed a $30million deal to shoot a film for Sam Raimi (Famed for his Spider-Man remake, and Evil Dead trilogy).

These are stories of glory, and maybe your next-door neighbour isn’t going to become the next James Cameron, but one thing is for certain, there are millions of people around the world being discovered for their fresh and new ideas. Talent is easier to spot than ever before, don’t be blind-sided by experience and tenure, because originality and passion will never become passé.

2009: A Review and Millennial hopes for the future

If it were possible to sum up 2009 in one word, what would it be? My suggestion: ‘Change.’

The past twelfth months have been a time of significant change across many areas of our lives. The year was rung in by a resounding speech from the newly elected US President. Obama’s ‘Change we can believe in’ slogan marked what many hoped would be a new era of progress. As the year draws to a close, it would seem like a good time to reflect on the changes that have, for whatever reason, affected the life of a millennial.

Proliferation of Twitter
2009 has been a great year for the micro blogging service. Recent research from eMarketer shows the number of ‘active’ twitter users at 18 million as the year comes to an end, up from 6 million last Christmas, and that is just the users who regularly update across multiple platforms. So what is behind this success? The truth is it’s hard to say. The ability for people to access the news they want, when they want? The increase in celebs using the site? For me, it’s the new found ability for self-broadcast that has helped the meteoric rise of social networking. The unrestricted ability for an individual to share what they feel people will want to know has created the most profound change in media of our generation: giving each of us our own broadcasting network. For our organisations, the tricky yet powerful ability to open up the marketing message to any employee who uses the service has already brought great success for many. In a year dogged by recession, companies have looked increasingly toward easier, cheaper and more efficient ways to reach their customers.

So what next for Twitter in 2010? The site is not without its challenges, with a reported 60% of new users leaving within the first month, and a less than certain business model, it will be interesting to see its progress. The change in the way we communicate and consume our media, brought about by such sites, will surely last much longer than this year’s mince pies.

Debate over Web 2.0 use
Even with the success of sites like Twitter in 2009, the role social media is to play within the enterprise remains unclear. Many see common sites as time wasting fads that will pass as quickly as they arrived. By recording the time their employees spend on Facebook, with a very real throwback to twentieth century Taylorism, some organisations have taken a very defensive approach to these new tools. Yet 2009 has seen a huge cultural shift for many companies, with many examples of employees being given the trust and responsibility of communicating with stakeholders using to powerful collaborative tools of Web 2.0.

2010 will, I predict, be a tipping point for the use of these technologies within organisations. Managers will be faced with a choice to tighten their firewalls or give the people they employ the responsibility to innovate and collaborate using techniques that are entirely new to traditional industries.

Digital Britain
With the release of the most comprehensive review of government policy on the internet and computing for a decade, 2009 has been a year of great debate as to how we should be approaching technology as a society. Many would welcome the announcement of a taskforce to tackle the issues of digital exclusion. Plans to deliver broadband speeds of 2Mbps to all homes in the UK by 2012 are also welcome, but are some way behind the likes of South Korea, Sweden and Finland; the latter of which this year made fast broadband a legal right. First Secretary of State Lord Mandleson’s recommendations in the Digital Economy Bill to remove internet access to serial illegal downloaders was met with great anger by industry and bloggers alike. A joint response from the online giants urged restraint from the government over the issues of copyright, suggesting that banning users from the internet risked “stifling innovation and damaging the government’s vision for a digital Britain.” It does seem somewhat contradictory to encourage universal broadband access on the one hand, recognising the dangers of digital exclusion, whilst threatening cutting people off on the other. It would seem that a choice is emerging between criminalising online file sharers, or encouraging the music industry to modernise their business models to compete in the digital age

There have been many issues which have pushed the Digital Britain debate down the agenda in 2009. National debt, Afghanistan or climate change, it would seem, will shape the key debates for the 2010 election. Yet for the millennial worker a frank an open debate is needed over a whole raft of digital issues; many would hope that 2010 brings with it exciting ideas that continue to challenge the way we work and play.

So as we ring in the new decade its worth reflecting on the innovations and issues that have shaped 2009. We will look forward to the new year with excitement and anticipation. Merry Christmas.

Do you know the Millennial consumer?

Many businesses are finding it hard to attract and retain Millennial workers as they enter the workforce, sadly this will become a bigger problem as there are about 9 million Millennials still in education. But attracting and retaining these guys as employees won’t be the only problem we face. What about attracting and retaining the Millennial consumer?

Knowing how to get the most out of these guys as employees is giving most managers a headache, what about getting them to buy your products and liking your brand? In a decade or so we will have about 16-17 million Millennials in the workforce. We haven’t seen a generation of that size for about 100 years. Their disposable income will of course grow and their purchasing power will increase. Therefore, understanding how to communicate and connect with this generation will be paramount for brands that wish to have a place in their hearts and minds.

The Economist surveyed executives worldwide to see if they had a specific strategy in place for approaching Millennial consumers. 50 % did, 50 % didn’t. These statistics pose risks and opportunities for companies, depending on what they decide to do. Most consumers make their brand choices in their 20s and they don’t change much beyond their 30s. This presents a great opportunity for companies that want to target this generation and they have to make sure that they understand how to connect with Millennials or risk losing out.

As I am a Millennial myself, I thought it might be good to tell you a bit about what my generation value.

Walk the talk – Millennials love brands that are socially responsible. Find ways to involve this generation in your contributions, in that way you will truly connect with them. And remember if you’re not planning on walking the talk, it will do more damage than good. Check this blog post out to get more insight.

Connect to their phones – Mobile marketing has not been mastered yet and as phones get more powerful this provides a great opportunity. Think of new ways of engaging Millennials on their mobiles. TripAdvisor did a great job with this by asking consumers (via SMS and online) how it should allocate a $1 million in donations between five nonprofits. They got more than 1 million votes.

Listen to social media – Social media isn’t just another way for marketers to force their message on more people. Instead, listening becomes more important, by monitoring the “social media conversation” you can learn what the Millennial consumer actually wants and then join the conversation.

Contribution is key – Don’t just start a blog, set up a Facebook page or Tweet instead think about how it supports your objectives and adds value to users. Whatever you are doing online, make sure that you’re brand is contributing, otherwise you’re brand will be neglected by this generation and everyone else.

There a probably another 10 things to write about but the above 4 are crucial and I think they will be imperative to any brand that want to connect with this generation. However, I think the first question you need to answer is do you really understand today’s online environment? if you don’t, you need to get started.

Change

Over the past 12 months myself and Jonathan Peach have done so many presentations to different people that I struggle to remember them all. As people this is what we do, we do things and then forget about them. Very rarely do we get the chance to reflect upon what actually happens. Blogging is good for this purpose, because you can go back and read about what you had forgotten. When we present our research around the Workforce Evolution we tell people that things are changing and that it would be wise for them to understand that change so they can prepare for it. The change we talk about is a difficult one. The workforce is already evolving, but it might take more than a decade to see the full effects, and as anyone can imagine it is difficult to tell people to change today in order to prepare for ten years ahead. Although, I would argue that if you cannot respond to the way your workforce will change then you will probably not be in business in ten years time anyway.

I think many business leaders find what we say interesting, but they do as we all do, they forget. Buzz words like strategy, innovation and future are widely used by business leaders, but do they act upon it? Some people argue that short term thinking brought us the recession; business leaders talked the “long term language” then but clearly did not walk the talk.

Over the past couple of months I’ve met with many decision makers and its incredibly tough for them to make strategic decisions as the whole economy seems to be in survival mode. If your ideas do not show quick ROI or saves money then it’s not interesting. To me it seems we have gone from one extreme to another. Looking to the past to determine the future can sometimes work really well and when it comes to recession behaviour this is definitely true. Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Walt Disney, Microsoft and Google were all recession era start ups. Also, let’s not forget that transformational innovations such as the PC and the IPod were invented during tough economic times.

These companies believed in innovation and the long term but still managed to survive tough times. Maybe focusing all efforts on driving down costs will work for some, but the real winners will be those who can do what’s right now and act upon what they predict will happen in the future. Too often innovation is associated with technology and inventions, but it’s much more than that. Innovation is “a new way of doing something”, so how about behavioural innovation? Businesses will have to change their culture and behaviour to suit the most diverse workforce ever witnessed, and the way in which they respond will have a massive impact on their future success.

Millennial Marketing

I remember my first lecture at university, having enrolled on a marketing course I was sitting in a massive room with around 70 other nervous wrecks and my tutor was attempting to explain how important it is to understand the traditional communication model. One of the few things I can remember from that day is how much he kept repeating that this model was fundamental to marketers. If I was sat in that room today, I would still have been too scared to even move, but my thoughts would have been very different. The internet has changed so much, it has changed the way we buy things, the way we communicate, collaborate, find information, the list goes on and I am sure it will get bigger.

Marketers are not embracing web 2.0 communications. Many might be using them but that doesn’t mean much.

Frankly many marketers read about blogs, Twitter and social networks and then they attempt to jump on a massive bandwagon before they understand what it is and how it works. This is so evident, I have around 5 companies a day attempting to join me on Twitter, they then broadcast stuff that I don’t care about, which then annoys me and gives me a negative view of that company. However, there are many that are leading the way and using Twitter in the right way and oh boy are they receiving kudos from the people above. Free marketing is always appreciated.

The problem is that many marketers have never used any web 2.0 tools in their private lives and then their boss tells them to suddenly start using it to communicate with customers. Writing a blog or creating a group on Facebook that aims to catch people’s attention is extremely hard without any experience. If you think of Facebook (or indeed social networks) as a country, it has a specific culture and a different language and Facebook happens to have a population (users) above the 200 million mark, which would make it the world’s 5^th biggest country. My point is that it would be pretty daunting to be chucked into a country of that size and be told to start engaging with the people that live there.

It’s interesting to see Millennials coming in to marketing roles and applying their communication techniques. Because to Millennials all the stuff happening on the net is pervasive, its sometihng they have grown up with, its not something they learn, its just there. This might be the case for many other generations but as digital natives Millennials have already embraced web 2.0 technology and applying it at work is no big deal. If you are thinking about a social media strategy then get the younger workers involved and let them lead the way, because within this area they really have got the experience.

Millennial 101 and where we are

So what is a millennial? A millennial is someone who was born between 1980-2000 - there are currently 8 million in the UK workforce, but by 2020, they will be 17 million strong, over populating the previous generation (the Gen Xers) by over 6 million.

Will this make a huge technological impact on the direction of how and what we use in the workplace in the future? Well if you look at the trends, the expectations and the general attitudes of this generation, then "Yes"!!

There is a possibility that a lot of things will change on the road to 2020, some of these changes are already taking place, and this is likely to aggressively continue until these guys retire.

HOWEVER, it's not just the influence of the millennials that are changing the way we look at the use of technology, its every generation, because now information technology is not a fad, a complication (well...sometimes) or optional...its pervasive, part of our nature and not just second nature, we use it instinctively, without questioning it or taking the time to understand it, its throw away...and that’s not a millennial influence, that’s a sign of the times...