Category Archives: Generation Y

A Framework for Relationship Capital

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I’m willing to bet you can name a few products that you’d never buy, but think the advertisement’s are great right?  (I’m looking at you citroen advert).  Finding great marketing that speaks to your customer’s persona & values is the end game.

That shared values relationship with your customer is everything, and keeps you in business.  The major problem with large corporates is somewhere along the line this was forgotten in the name of cost cutting.  In the never ending search for efficiency the customer lost out. (Press 4 to be put on hold for another 20 minutes…)

Word of Mouth is the Marketing you know
Thinking with your customer hat on, you know when a restaurant waiter has been exceptional.  There is a social code for it.  We tip them, and think highly of the restaurant.  We may even recommend it to friends.  This is Word of Mouth, and it’s the oldest and most well known type of marketing.  The equation used to be simple.

First Class Service = Repeat Business.

With larger organisations this still applies… but when a call centre worker has a script and a customer has a problem not on that script.  The picture breaks down.  Your employee isn’t empowered and neither is your customer.  Enter Relationship capital.

Happier employees = Happier customer
The way to deliver emotional integrity is by empowering your employee’s to make decisions.  This is something that can’t be taught in a class room & requires the right kind of hire.  Zappos call it “Delivering Happiness”.

Moving from the script to giving more power to your staff can seem like a scary idea.  It is much harder to measure quality than quantity after all.  Yet corporates are waking up to the concept.  Just look at how the banks are bending over backwards to be helpful to customers.  I wonder if this will continue to be token marketing, or involve deep, culture level changes within business?

Your thoughts

  1. How can you deliver more emotional integrity in your day job?
  2. Have we all become too corporate?
  3. Are you one of those frustrated employees not given enough autonomy?
  4. Do targets and KPIs confuse the real picture of what your customer thinks of you?

Business Evolved – How Social Good is changing business

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I was reading at Scott Gould’s blog, that the one word you never hear contestants use in The Apprentice is “Leadership”.  Which got me thinking…

Why is the show such a hit? The show itself focusses on what are essentially 1,000s of year old business practices; manufacturing, buying, selling, marketing etc. Yet what makes the show sell, is the social aspect, how these humans interact, and our view as a society as judgement on each of them.

The Apprentice is a reflection of humanity, with the volume turned up, and the Top Gear blue filter over used to make everything more contrasted than it needs to be for effect.

They stop just short of touching base, before running an idea up a flag pole while searching for the blue sky thinker… just.  Yet what we find compelling is the human element.  Humanity in business.

Humility in Competitive Business?

The Apprentice: You’re fired is my favourite part, because it offers the fired hopeful a chance to demonstrate humility and humanity that the editor didn’t feel fit into the 1 hour magazine style swooshy editing. Sir Alan is definitely looking for a certain type of person in his organisation, and if anything uses the apprentice to demonstrate his might rather than as a hiring supply pool.

There are some great lessons to take from The Apprentice in what not to do. What I believe is missing, is what they did for the US Version. Donald Trump gives business lessons, some of which are surprising. “Find the person” was one. Find the most effective person within an organisation, whom you can trust and deal exclusively with them rather than with the anonymous drones.

You’ll never hear “humility” or “human” in the board room, because it has an adversarial nature, by selection and by editing. It is frankly, more entertaining than genuine people trying to help each other win.

Business Evolved; focussing on our human needs

Trying to sell the opposite message back into the corporate world is an interesting challenge. I believe this is something Scott is a shining example of. How to be humble, and how to be human, to create a slowly building, incredibly valuable network. It’s much more Warren Buffet than Gordon Gekko, and is in my view the only sustainable economy. The economy of mutual gain.

Vs

It’s why we’re seeing globalisation begin to demonstrate how interdependent humanity always was.  For every massive currency reserve, there is a central bank able to print its way out of trouble.  Selfish endeavour and hoarding is only a temporary solution to an evolving world, with evolving technology and economies.

Business can be used for good, and when doing so, can be massively profitable. Social Good now has to compete & beat the Gordon Gekko’s of this world.  The de-centralisation of knowledge brought by the internet means that is now more likely than ever

Social Good – Core to business in next decade
I’m willing to bet the theme of business for social good will soon move from neat marketing tool for the Generation Y consumer, to fundamental core theme for most business.

If you look at the businesses that have shown mega growth in the past decade, a belief in social good, or greater purpose unites them. Humanity is capable of its greatest achievement, and teamwork when it has a shared vision. I look at facebook, google & twitter as companies who believe they offer a basic level of social good, and a useful tool, rather than a pure cut throat business.

I believe we are going to see some old world businesses, and many new start-ups embrace social good as a core business practice and value.  Investing in human potential through Social Enterprise is proving much more profitable than handing over Aid or Loans.  Harvard Business Review article demonstrating Social Good with Microcredit

The focus isn’t ROI, but do people find the product useful. I for one, continue to read Scott’s blog on a regular basis to see how this is becoming more possible even in coporate and government sectors.  If you’re looking for an entire new growth segment for your portfolio.  Consider Social Good

  • Is Social Good at the core of your business?
  • Can Social Good help your business?
  • Does Social Good have anything to do with your bottom line?
  • Can doing the right thing be profitable?
  • Is business by nature adversarial?

The Lost Generation

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I was talking with a friend who is struggling to find a job after uni, sharing with her the experiences of recently being a job hunter myself.  It’s becoming an all too familiar conversation.  There is a wealth of passion and talent in the UK that simply doesn’t know how to advertise itself .

In the age of Social Media, Mobile Commerce and TED Talks, we have reached a peak of knowledge sharing… but have we forgotten how to teach the most important skills in life?

Our society has steadily created a world where younger generations cannot afford to own their own home, they can’t find work & have little real world experience with which to market themselves.  This will become a growing problem for our economy unless we address some of the key challenges.

The Key Themes emerging are:

  • Identity Crisis: “Where do my skills fit in?”
  • Hopelessness: “Nobody will give a job to someone without experience”
  • Insecurity: “I have done nothing of value so far”
  • Disappointment: “My current job is not challenging”
  • Financial Stress: “I’m in heavy debt and can’t escape”

These themes all become apparent at a time in life between the security of childhood and the uncertainty of adulthood, often called the Quarterlife Crisis.  There is a Generation of people trying to establish their identity and chase their dream but they don’t know how to do it.

What can we do?

Firstly, it is vital we recognise that Social Mobility has become worse.  The ability to come from nothing and make something of your life is harder now than it was 20 years ago.  There is a lot of experience locked up in industry, busy being productive.  Once we get on that ladder we tend to use all our efforts to climb higher.  How much could we gain by lifting the young talent around us on to the career ladder too?

Fixing the Identity Crisis

The criminal mistake of education is not making it relevant.  Perhaps you can relate to the scenario of sitting in class being genuinely frustrated.  For us to value knowledge we have first to believe it is important to us.  How do we make it important?

Universities, and crucially student placement, or first job apprenticeship roles give very little responsibility to a young talent.People learn by doing.  Education has become about passing exams, rather than gaining experience.

How would you feel about attending or contributing to an event designed to bridge this gap?  Can you help out?

Replenishing Hope

It’s a sad indictment of our society that our young people buy into an election slogan of hope, because they themselves are running low on desire at a very young age.  Desire comes from belief, belief comes from hope.  Hope comes from our peers, our parents and our society.  When did we turn off the “Hope Supply”?

Action for Mentors: Can you find someone that and needs help and give them that shot in the arm, and benefit of your experience?

Action for Apprentices: Can you find a mentor who understands your talent and is willing to spend the time to work with you?

Sometimes it just takes external validation for us to begin to believe in ourselves, enough to pursue a dream.

Insecurity, Disappointment & Financial Troubles

These all disappear, crucially, when we gain experience.  Who do you know who needs a chance?…  Two key things need to happen.  Apprentices need to look for help from their peers, but we, the employed and skilled, need to look for talented young people to lift up.  Our society needs it, and our Education System is woefully inadequate.

Starting a movement.  We’re racing towards an epidemic of unemployed de-motivated young adults, and by virtue a dying economy if we don’t fix this problem.  Can you help?  Email me sy@sytaylor.net contact me on twitter @sytaylor or via facebook

Looking for ideas, suggestions or thoughts on an event we can create to start this movement.

The Social Media Vibe

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“The vibe” is something that you either love or hate about twitter, and social media. Like everything that is a trend, from the outside it is downright annoying. Partially because everyone won’t shut up about it. The criticism is that all people do on twitter is talk about their love of twitter. (Unless they’re the celeb stalker type, I’m looking at you Justin Beiber fans).

But is there something to this twitter thing?

The mainstream media loves to talk about how big Facebook got on a slow news day, but you get the sense they still don’t take it as seriously as they could… and I’m beginning to think the gap is generational. For this post to make sense, we’re going to have to generalise a little, but here goes:

Baby Boomers – Born Prior to 1961


The Baby Boomers still occupy the prominent social & business positions, their thinking is the status quo for how business and society reacts to new trends. Their lens, is the lens we have used successfully for a very long time. Kudos to the Baby Boomers. Things are a changin’ though…

Generation X – Born between 1961 and 1981


Generation X or the “MTV” Generation is often cited as the rebel generation and is a little more reactive. Responsible for the .com boom, the growth of the personal technology industry and further liberalisation of media Generation X lived up to its name. It still did all of this through the Baby Boomer lens of Globalisation…

Generation Y – Born between 1976 and 1990


Generation Y is the favourite of AdAge and a whole lot of PR / Marketing companies right now. Understanding Generation Y, is fundamental to getting the Social Media Vibe. Having grown up with technology and to a lesser extent the internet, as a generation; Y see’s nothing wrong with giving away its data to the information for convenience. Facebook and Google are trusted because they are Trust Agents, ie. They are trust worthy in the eyes of todays youth.

Social media has real value to these Generation Y types. Not because it’s a fad, but because it fits the way they see the world. These views are challenging convention and causing an awful lot of upheaval in the old economy. Just look at how unhappy News Corp is with Google, or the Advertising revenues of Newspapers. The Baby Boomers and Generation X take some level of comfort from the human interaction, but the very key of Social Media is humanising our online interactions. Being ourselves online.

It leads to a lot of philosophical questions. Am I more myself online? In person? Alone? Outdoors?

These kinds of questions don’t sit well with the old world, since they challenge some pretty fundemental beliefs. The key is how this change will impact YOU. The way we interact is changing. Knowing the change is coming means you can take action today to be ready as these changes begin sweeping through into daily life, and business as usual. No matter what age you are, these trends beg some very interesting questions indeed.

  • Maybe you could pitch social media to your company?
  • Maybe you could start a blog and begin building your digital identitiy?
  • How about looking into this Social Media thing, are you part of the conversation?
  • Does this Generation Y lot have a point?

Or you could just wake when the change has already happened. You don’t have to do anything, you lucky thing! There is an awful lot to be gained by taking advantage though. Worth a shot right?

Oh and a word to the wise. High pressure sales don’t trick anyone but other high pressure sales types. Snake Oil is endangered.