jessie newburn dot com

ing is no dingaling

I have an ing direct account. It didn't take me much to become a customer. There was a tonal quality and resonance that I felt and liked when I read their marketing materials, both print and online. (I'm not much of a TV watcher, so the TV ad world just kind of passes me by.)

ing knows how to talk to GenX customers. GenXers, clumped in a peer personality, trust de-institutionalized info. You know what ing does? They talk. They use conversational language. Their tact with customer communications is to get real. And guess what? I'm interested in listening to what someone has to say, though I'm rarely curious about what an institution has crafted as its message.

Here's the opening text from an email I just got from ing.

Below is some important information that we're required to send you each year. It seems like a lot of legal stuff, but we promise, it will only take a few minutes. Give it a look.

I actually did as they said. I "gave it a look." And they were genuine; it really only took a few minutes to read, garner the meaning and move on.

How civil. How respectful. How real.

And how functional and effective.

Yay.

GenX Political Statements

GenX, as a whopping 82 million strong generation, actually lean Republican. GenX social/political commentary is often through the art of *quirk,* and I'd bet these vids are GenX productions. I'm sure there are pro-Republican candidate vids out there. These are just a few that caught my eye ... Double click the vid to blow it up to full size.

Why Obama is such a completely different choice

Just read this and this. Now, I don't align with any particular political party. I don't care much for politics. And I'm not campaigning for Obama, per se. But, my goodness, if you want some insight into generations, politics and the positive and negative endowments of different generations on leadership, well these articles give you a tiny taste of what's been going on. And why Mr. Obama is such a completely different choice.

For a short audio inteview of Obama talking about coming of age as a first-wave GenXer -- vs. the majority of presidential candidates who are Boomers and Silent Gen -- listen here.

Community Building in the Age of Facebook

One of my social media-focused Facebook friends had a link that led to this conference: Community Building in the Age of Facebook. It's as much (if not more) about building a community of customers than it is about geographic communities.

Connected, I also found an article on "The Four Tenets of the Community Manager." From the post, "The budding Community Manager industry holds four tenets; these values resonate as a common thread within the role. The include community advocation, brand ambassadorship, online communication skills, and product requirements gathering and improvements."

Folks, this new style of business is uber-GenX energy 1) to understand that such things as having a "community manager" are necessary, 2) to know how to do this kind of work and 3) to do it. Why? Because GenX (the Nomad archetype), more than any other extant generation --

1. have very little brand loyalty,
2. want direct and easy access to information
3. want measurable results
4. want accountability
5. are highly entrepreneurial themselves
6. are less tolerant of ineffective procedures and systems
7. and don't give much of a hoot about your organization's high-faluten mission and vision statements -- unless they can see and experience them manifest in your product and service.

GenX and Boom : Burning Man and Woodstock

I've just come from a mild version of Burning Man, the east coast event called Playa del Fuego. It was my first such event, and I generally find Burners my kind of people. It was pretty easy for me to conclude that Burning Man is mostly organized and attended by Gen Xers. Duh. Though it was initiated by a Boomer, in good Boomer fashion of pointing to something requiring attention.

Here's an overly simplified version of Burning Man: It's a city accommodating 40,000+ people; it's  built, occupied and then completely dismantled in the desert. Everyone who attends is self-responsible for their health, safety and behavior. Everyone contributes. Some of the underlying principles include: Do-ocracy (Do what needs to be done ... don't talk about it), manage your Moop (you're responsible for all your trash ... no public trash cans or dumpsters ... and that includes no dumping of gray water), Bring everything you need (nothing is sold or allowed to be sold at the event other than ice and coffee), and basically, "You can die here in the desert, so, plan well, pack well and be really, really smart about your choices." In short, Burner events are astoundingly well-organized, and the people who attend are astoundingly well-prepared. 

Let's go back almost 40 years to Woodstock: Absolutely filthy living conditions. Poor planning. Bad onsite management. And very little self-responsibility of the attendees for food, water, hygiene or behavior. Oh, and it was a one-time event, never to be repeated with any degree of seriousness. Now, Woodstock was a high point for the Boomer generation, and, of course, there was a ton of good from the experience. Both for those who were there and for the generation that called the event theirs.

But, man-oh-man, when I look at these two events through a generational diversity lens, it's just so clear. Woodstock represented all the good and the bad of the Boomers: Let's come together for vision and values and religion. Let's not tend to those nasty details (like food, water and sanitation). The Prophet generations (today's Boomers) are marked by a belief that moral leadership will solve nasty problems. Who could argue with a love-in? Right?

Fast forward to the Gen Xers getting together around art, music, love and such, and you get Burning Man, an extreme venture to an extreme environment where the logistics are profound, the systems for learning and bettering the event each year are tight and where each participant has to actually be self-responsible in order to survive and walk out of the desert alive. It also has the downside of GenX: extreme everything. *Extreme* is too much for many people.

The subject and comparison deserves a much more thorough analysis, and if anyone knows of any writing on the subject, I'd love to read it. Pass it along in the comments section with a link to the site. I'd appreciate it.

Love in. Rock on.

Geeks Rule the Underworld

I know that when many a Boomer look out at us -- their next-junior generation (GenX-ers, 13ers) -- that they don't see much in our generational potential for leadership. My sense is that they don't see how we provide leadership. And this is quite understandable because our realm is not their primary interest.

While I appreciate a good public leader now and again, my natural orientation is to the Underworld of Society ... the place where systems are observed, made better, observed again and made even better yet. I'm talking about The Land of the Geeks, where hour for hour, the self-directed efforts Geeks have given to Society Itself, is enormous. By tending to detailed, often menial, tasks of developing and enhancing software, systems, platforms and such, Geeks make things happen, get things done and solve problems so detailed, it'd put you to sleep just trying to explain them.

See, Geeks make our communities, businesses, technologies, organizations ... and, dare I say, Democracy Itself -- stronger with their open source, blog-oriented, socially networked communities. They make things better because the systems need to be better, so that we can all be safer. So that Society Itself can function better. And their volunteer work -- deep and hidden from 99% of the publics' awareness -- requires no awards, no organizations, no committee meetings and no boards of directors. They just require the opportunity to serve and be of service.

Of course, some of this technological work is paid. Geeks gotta make a living. But, could it be calculated, I'd guess that billions of dollars of value have been added to our economy in the behind-the-scenes, unpaid work that Geeks have provided. Value in the form of self-directed problem solving, strategizing, technical work, publishing and technical support given freely. Such knowledge would make a fool out of those who claim our generation isn't an engaged citizenry.

So, to our next elder generation (Boom), and to our elder-elders (Silent) ... to our next juniors (Millennials), when you look at our generation and see chaos, paltry team spirit, morality that makes you shiver, and few representatives in public positions, remember, Geeks Rule the Underworld of Details. And in so doing, we allow you your role in Society Itself to be stronger, more valuable, and wondrous. So, go and live your dreams; make the world a better place. Know and trust, that whatever you do, the Geeks are doing their part to make the world a better place, too.

The GenX Lifecourse, Over the Centuries

I utterly snagged and slighted edited this text from academic superstars Strauss and Howe. This info outlines the lifecourse of the generational archetype that we currently know as Gen Xers, or as The 13th Gen (born 1961 - 1981). This generation is called a Nomad Generation, and is also sometimes referred to as a "reactive generation." Here are my  edits to lighten the archetypal nomenclature.

In the ongoing cycle of the four generational archetypes, we remember Nomads best for their rising-adult years of hell-raising (Paxton Boys, Missouri Raiders, rum runners) and for their midlife years of hands-on, get-it-done leadership (Francis Marion, Stonewall Jackson, George Patton). Under-protected as children, they become overprotective parents. Their principal endowments are in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor.

Their best-known leaders include: Nathaniel Bacon and William Stoughton; George Washington and John Adams; Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland; Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. These have been cunning, hard-to-fool realists—taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one. They include the only two Presidents who had earlier hanged a man (Washington and Cleveland), one governor who hanged witches (Stoughton), and several leaders who had earlier led troops into battle (Bacon, Washington, Grant, Truman, and Eisenhower).

A lifecycle outline:

• Childhood: they are left under-protected at a time of social convulsion and adult self-discovery.
• As alienated young adults, they become brazen free agents, lending their pragmatism and independence to an era of growing social turmoil.
• As pragmatic midlifers, they apply toughness and resolution to defend society while safeguarding the interests of the young.
• As exhausted elders, they slow the pace of social change, shunning the old crusades in favor of simplicity and survivalism.

No Talent? Baloney! Here's the Secret to Finding It

This blog post is in response to the October 6-13, 2006, front cover story of The Economist: "The search for talent: Why it's getting harder to find."

"There's no talent," company execs cry.

"Oh, baloney!," says I.

The problem is that you're using vinegar and complaining about the flies. You* keep offering us jobs. Many of us don't want jobs. Regardless of the pay. Regardless of the "upward mobility" you claim to offer.

Rather than spending so much energy (and dollars) trying to attract talent to your payrolls, how about if you spend some time learning about generational differences. Here, for starters, read these books --

• 13th Gen
• Millennials Rising
• Fourth Turning**

They are all by William Strauss and Neil Howe.

See, 13ers are generally entrepreneurial, capitalist and solutions-oriented. We are VERY GOOD folk to bring in to projects. You want us. You want our talent. You want our perspectives. You want our solutions.

Where corporations gotta be doin' some new thinking is in finding ways to restructure their business operations to work with nimble nano-corps, with talented individuals or small project-specific groups that know how to get things done, and well.

No, I am not talking about hiring consultants. Nor am I talking about sub-bing out work to free-lancers. Don't be bringing us in simply to implement what you've already decided needs to be done. If you neglect to bring us in at the problem-identification and solutions-creation stage, you'll miss our core value.

See, the Lone Ranger Generation professionals balance a hybrid function of thinking-through a problem, project or task and THEN working to implement it as well. Maybe we only kick-start a project. Maybe we help you see a whole new way of doing things and then create a small team in which we are one of several players. Maybe we stick around and work with you for 10 hours a week for many years. Maybe, like the Lone Ranger, we do a good deed, leave a silver bullet, and vanish into the desert (after getting paid and handing over relevant files, of course.)

My point is that if companies keep looking for more employees to be like the ones they've had in the past, they're going to come up short. Hence, the so-called talent shortage. If, instead, they find ways to bring 13ers to the work table in manner respecting and using their skills and perspectives, then things'll be lookin' real good for everyone.

Now, here's the rub. The compensation has to be different. See, we aren't consultants who are just going to come in for $300 an hour. And we're not free-lancers who are going to come in like temp workers for $30 an hour. And finding the average of these two numbers won't work either.

This is NEW TERRITORY, folks. There's going to have to be new systems for valuing contribution. Perhaps it'll start as an appropriate hourly or per-project fee PLUS an efficiency and cost-savings bonus. Or an equation that factors in happier customers and higher (and easier) sales.

Let's say one of my Lone Ranger Generation brethren works with your company and puts some something-or-other system into place, and then Ka-Zam, eight months later, the number of repeat customers has jumped 37%, profits have gone up 42%, customer complaints have fallen 26% and, well, heck, the office just has a nicer vibe about it. Does my Lone Ranger friend just get paid for her time?

Now, if you identified the problem, created the solution and told her exactly what to do, then yes, just pay her for her time. But if she came up with a whole new approach you hadn't considered before, made it happen, got a team together that implemented the new computer-people-process systems with very little disruption to your company's workflow and did it all in record time, then she should be getting paid "A Hallelujah Commission Fee."

And, this, dear corporate execs, is where you're going to have to eat some humble pie. Keep your nice company cars and expense accounts. Go for it. Enjoy your perks. But if you genuinely want to find the talent that exists in the generation of people born between 1961 and 1981, then you're going to have to start compensating on a completely different level.

The super-groovy part of all of this is that after you get over the shock of having to pay, say, a database designer or a marketing project guide $120/hour to do a project and then a $57,000 (and rising) per annum bonus because the results of the project are so multi-dimensionally and demonstrably wonderful, you'll be so happy to write this check because the value to your company, your profits, your staff, your customers, your profitability and your peace of mind will all be tremendous.

Can't think quite how to go about making this kind of change in your company? Trust me: there are plenty of talented 13ers out there who can help you do this.

* "YOU" here in this blog post is the execs who say there is no talent in the Lone Ranger Generation.

** I have yet to read Fourth Turnings; I have read -- oops, that's not true ... I read SOME of -- the book's predecessor, Generations, also by the same authors.

:-)

Dear Sir - Letter to the Economist

I wrote this "Letter to the Editor" in response to The Economist's issue with the cover headline of “The search for talent (and why it's getting harder)"

Dear Sir,

Perhaps unlocking the mystery behind finding good talent lies in looking in another direction.

Corporations might wish to ease up on their attempts to “fill jobs” and, instead, do some research and strategic thinking on the true and observable differences in generational attitudes. They might just discover that there is a well-spring of innately entrepreneurial, bright and skilled professionals available in the 13ers, the generation born between 1961-1981. These Lone Ranger Generation workers will rarely be found on a company’s payroll; rather, they are easily located as nano-corporations. They are, often, independent.

Many of us 13ers simply do not want the jobs which companies offer. Regardless of the pay. We don’t want to wait patiently for real leadership positions to open up while the older generations keep delaying their planned retirement dates. So, we stay on the periphery, nimbly coming together to accomplish a task, solve a problem or implement a new system. Then we go on to the next project. And we take our talent and our increased knowledge with us each time. 

Complaints aside, the solution requires, in my opinion, that corporations redesign how they function and how they access, incorporate and compensate the wealth of younger talent. And if corporations balk and refuse to change for this current generation and its lifestyle, worldview and professional differences, let me tell you, there are even bigger surprises and changes coming down the pike when the Millennial generation becomes a significant portion of the labor market.

Dear corporate executives, adapt. And if you don’t know how, there are a slew of talented younger professionals who can help you think through your situation, create solutions and implement them.

Jessie Newburn

The Lone Ranger Generation

I'm a 13er. Born in '63.

For years, I'd hear-read-encountered the "official news" that I was a Baby Boomer in a generation categorized as Thems Born Between 1946 - 1964. And for years, this gut feeling inside of me said, "No, I'm not a Boomer. I'm just not one of them." I'm not anti-Boomer; I simply knew that my generation hadn't been recognized yet.

So I've spoken up about this: a oft-lone voice in a sea battling "official demographer wisdom." For the past dozen years or so, I had one floating log onto which I could hold: Carrie Megginson, uber-smart chick and super-girlfriend whose primary academic and intellectual focus is astrological archetypal archeology. Um, maybe she's an archaeological archetypal astrologist. I forget. Anyhoo, for years, Carrie has been the only person I knew who also insisted that a new generation had begun in 1961. (Actually, Carrie stated the year, and it felt so right to me that I claimed it as true, too.)

Now, when I would ask my peers born between 1961 and 1964 if they felt that they were Boomers, they would categorically answer "no," though few of them had quite the focus on the subject the way I did. (This is a good thing, in my mind, as God would probably get utterly bored if all us beautiful humans saw and experienced The World in the exact same way.)

Well you can probably imagine my exuberance in discovering the concurrently academic, honest and humorous work of Neil Howe & William Strauss, who, through their exhaustive examination of American history through the lens of generations, boldly defied demographers and stated a new generation had begun in 1961. Turns out they wrote a book about the subject in the early '90s. It's called 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Fail, Ignore? (And, no, I am sooooo not spending my time linking this book title to some totally lame affiliate program trying to get 8.5% of sales on a book which -- as of today -- I can find four copies priced at ONE CENTS each on  amazon.com.)

Strauss & Howe, quoting the MIT president of the early '90s, call 13ers' attitude toward civic responsibility akin to the "Lone Ranger: Do a good deed, leave a silver bullet and move on."

... Which, by the way, is one reason Boomers and Silent Gen (in broad sweeping generalizations) have such a hard time with Us and think we don't do much to contribute to society. We (generally) ain't lookin' for a pat on the back, an award plaque or a position on a sludgy, thick, too-PC-to-be-effective board of directors of a 501(c)(3).

Yep, Lone Rangers is what we are, Ke-mo-sah-bee.

PS to y'all and a reminder note to me: this "Lone Ranger Generation" concept is just the beginning of some thoughts I have on the subject. More to come as my thoughts unfold before me.