I spent a day this past week attending sessions on Generation Y in the workplace presented by Max Valiquette and Giselle Kovary. I’ve seen both speakers before, but they’re both entertaining and continue to evolve their presentations to include interesting points, so I was glad to spend the time to hear their messages again. Plus, all-day workshop are a very welcome respite from the day-to-day work sometimes.

Listening this time, though, I was struck with something that’s actually been rolling around in my head for a while. Whenever anybody talks about Generation Y these days, they mention technology.¹ According to conventional wisdom, Generation Y loves technology. We love video games and cell phones and the internet and every gizmo, gadget or doowhacky under the sun. It is undoubtedly a very very ironclad part of our overall generational identity.

It’s not hard to find evidence. The Financial Post ran an article about the Ryerson Facebook incident (which I touched upon here) this week, and included a standard technology-is-everything piece in their explanation of Generation Y:

Confident, global -thinking and impatient, this generation of workers — approximately everyone born between 1982 and 1990 –does not know life without computers. It takes technology for granted, turning to e-mail, blogs and social-networking sites 24/7 to gather information and interact with colleagues and friends.

I’m not meaning to appear as contrary to this, because it totally does describe me. I’ve been a lifelong nerd, accessing the internet well before my teens and living a life largely based in three-letter acronyms for over a decade now (ICQ, IRC, AIM, WWW, FTP, HTML, CSS, JPG, BRB, LOL, ETC.) And the connectivity and virtual communication piece seems obvious: look at the explosion of popularity in any kind of online service that connects people with their friends.

But the paradox part of is that, for the last few years, I’ve spent a significant amount of time interviewing, hiring and working with other, younger members of Generation Y and throughout that time my questions to them about computers have yielded a fairly consistent statement:

“I’m not very good with computers”

This kills me, because it just seems so unbelievably wrong. We’re the COMPUTER GENERATION! How can you not be good with them? That’d be like a Gen Xer not being good at wearing flannel! Or a baby boomer not being great at complaining about everything! Or a traditionalist not being great at making babies!²

Plus, generally the same people making the claim that they’re not good with computers are the same people who spend their evening with seventeen instant messenger windows open while downloading tracks from Limewire and working on a term paper: “I’m not very good with computers, but often I use them for ten hours straight to do any number of tasks simultaneously.”

Trying to make sense of all of this

I’ve been trying to figure out why this disconnect exists, and I’ve come up with some potential explanations:

• Pure Semantics: Refer to the idea of a Digital Native and think about cars for a second. I would never describe myself as “good with cars” but that has absolutely nothing to do with my ability actually operate a vehicle. I’ve got no real idea where the fuel lines are or even how to change a tire but I still do pretty good at driving to work a few times a week.
  

  Similarly, I think a lot of Gen Yers see themselves as “not good with computers” because they don’t know how to install RAM or put in a hard drive, but that doesn’t mean they’re not adept at using software and performing creative/administrative/organizational tasks on a computer.

  As so-called “digital natives”, we tend to speak and think differently about computers — more compartmentalized, specific to software, hardware and even individual programs — but Gen Y needs to be aware that, by and large, this isn’t how the older generations (read: the ones hiring you) think.

• Confidence: Gen Y lacks a lot of confidence when it comes to some of their skills, particularly their computer skills. Again, if you think about it in terms of being a digital native, it’s easier to understand why this is.
  

  If you asked a native English speaker if they were “good at English” they’d likely reply that they weren’t, especially if they struggled with Shakespeare and hated James Joyce. On the flip side, though, if you asked a native English speaker if they were “good at Spanish”, they might answer in the affirmative even if all they know is how to ask where the bathroom is or how to get back to the cruise ship.

  One of the more difficult things you need to do when selling yourself to a potential employer is frame your skills in relation to their expectations, not yours. This goes beyond computers, but it is perhaps most important within the technology sphere. Just because you don’t feel like an expert at Photoshop, for example, because you don’t know how to work with Lab colours and multi-layer documents, doesn’t mean your potential employer won’t see you as “Photoshop expert” because you know how to do rudimentary tasks. It’s all context.

• Education: This is a big one — almost too big to go into here — but to sum it up: everything they currently teach about computers and the internet in high schools is terrible and does more harm than good. The track in high schools has been, until very recently, to separate “computers” into its own once (or maybe twice) a week ghetto, where you learn how to type and not much else.
  

  As a result, I think a lot of people come to understand “computer skills” as separate from math skills, writing skills, artistic skills, communication skills, business skills, etc. When, in reality, a computer should be thought of has nothing more than a tool through which you exercise and develop these primary skills.

  As a first step toward providing real, valuable and much-needed education that fits into the ‘digital native’ sphere, schools NEED to start blending computer-use into every class, in a way that makes sense and isn’t just window dressing. (Letting the kids who finish their math problems first play on the computer is not, for example, a good way to handle this.)

But, then, I don’t know

I think there’s even more to this that I fully understand at this point, so I pose the questions back to the readers: have you ever claimed that you’re “not good with computers.” Why? How do you justify that to yourself? And is Generation Y’s much ballyhooed technological expertise a myth?

Photo by practicalowl. Licensed under Creative Commons

1. In fact, I recently attended a session where a presenter summed Generation Y up thusly: Love technology, difficult to manage. Which, you know, I won’t dispute, but there’s a little more to it than that. [↩]
2. I’m kidding. Don’t get mad. [↩]

I spent the last few days at a work conference (and hence not updating this site like I should!). These conferences — for anyone who’s never been — are ostensibly about sharing so-called ‘best practices’ (empty buzzword alert!) and learning about new products, procedures, and programs. They take place (generally) in stuffy, windowless hotels where you can’t get so much as a bottle of water for less than $4 and you have to wear a name tag CONSTANTLY.

Does that sound boring? I can see why it might. I can see why Gen Y might, given our increased desire to put Task Before Time, gravitate away from old-fashioned concepts like work conferences. On the surface, giving up three or four days of your week (and sometimes your weekend) to ‘work’ doesn’t seem overly appealing.

But skipping events like these is a big mistake, particularly for the young worker just getting started.

Sure, most of the workshops and keynotes are forgettable and sometimes painful. A lot of concepts are better introduced online than through a slapdash presentation, especially if that presentation includes a painful Power Point. There’s not a lot of real, marked advantages to learning about something this way. It’s rather dynamically old-fashioned.¹

But, despite surface appearances, these presentations aren’t where anyone finds real value in business conferences. The real value, in fact, comes long after the workshops and keynotes are done, and everyone gets off the stage. That’s when the networking begins.

‘Networking’ is a tricky word, because I used to think it meant making painful small-talk in a crowded room with someone whose name you keep forgetting (thank god for those name tags) and who you’re only vaguely interested in (mostly because you feel like you should be). That’s not real networking, mostly because it’s unlikely to have any kind of lasting impact.

No, real networking is loose and casual. It can involve jokes and stories and drinking and dancing. Sometimes work doesn’t come up at all, but that doesn’t matter. What’s important is finding people — who are involved in the same industry as you and thus (hopefully — if you’re doing this right) have the same passions as you. Do this, and you don’t just build a network, but instead make connections to people who matter and can prove incredibly valuable down the road.

Not convinced? Think of it this way. You’re Gen Y — you’re likely going to change jobs more than a few times in your life. And only 15-20% of jobs are advertised. Where do you think the rest of those 80% of jobs (and these are mostly the GOOD jobs) are found?

I think, often, they can be found at conferences.

So suck it up and go, Gen Y. In the end, you’ll be glad you did. You’ll get used to the buffet and, honestly, probably end up having a lot of fun. Make those connections as early as you can — it’s one of the best things you can do. 

Photo by Wonderlane. Licensed under Creative Commons

1. That’s not to say there aren’t great presenters out there, though — I’m speaking in generalizations here. [↩]

I’ve been reading a fair bit recently about privacy on Facebook. This has always been a hot topic, whether it’s because campus security at certain high-minded universities have used the service to keep tabs on student parties (and bust the rowdy-looking ones preemptively) or because employers are, more and more, checking out potential employee’s profiles before making job offers.

Some people find these kinds of things vaguely unsettling in a “Big Brother” sort of way. Local T.O blog Torontoist recently weighed in, after a pseudo-scandal where a university student was brought up on charges of cheating because he was running a study group through facebook:

As we’ve seen demonstrated, the whole frenzy isn’t about fairness. It’s that the rules have changed; Facebook is no longer the domain of the student alone, and students have good reason to be wary of newly watchful universities. With the medium’s shift away from “hot” or “cool” to a lukewarm blend of both, people like Chris Avenir [the student who got in trouble] or anyone else in the business of operating under the radar—for whatever reason—should probably think twice before all but advertising their activities.

“Be careful” seems to be the standard advice when it comes to social networking sites like Facebook and more ‘legitimate’ enterprises like getting a job. I’m not so sure it’s the right advice.

Being careful versus being smart

‘Be careful’ doesn’t quite make sense, especially if that advice comes with recommendations to use Facebook’s own privacy controls, because here’s the thing: privacy is dying. It implies that people have an expectation — maybe even a right — to not have people they don’t know check out their Facebook profile. But all the ideas behind social networking (communication, interaction, expansion of network, new friends, sharing) are contrary to any ideals of privacy. You cannot have both and, as a society, we’ve chosen: we like social networking.

It’s not about being careful. It’s about being smart. You should ABSOLUTELY have a Facebook account¹, and a LinkedIn account, and any sort of account that connects you with people in the industry you want to involve yourself in. These online platforms are rapidly becoming the online gateway to people and, in fact, for making introductions and strengthening connections they beat the snot out of old-fashioned conferences and trade show meet and greets.

With your accounts, you should operate under the assumption that everything you post is potentially viewable by anyone. Your boss, your parents, your teacher, and any and all deities you choose to associate yourself with — they can see it all: your party pictures, your favourite films, that quiz you filled out that told you that, out of all The Office characters, you’re most like Stanley — everything.

But that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, nor should you censor yourself significantly online. In fact, I’d urge people to be as honest as they can with their profiles: present your likes, dislikes, opinions, goals, your humour (hugely important). Use the online space to show the world who you are.

Concerns about privacy in the sense that maybe a potential employer will see it, and be offended and not hire you or whatever, are entirely outdated and almost insulting. You need to ask yourself if you’d ever really want to start a career with someone who just can’t handle the fact that you like to drink alcohol on weekends. Or if someone who can’t handle the fact that you occasionally use a certain f-word is really the kind of person you see yourself spending 40 hours a week with.

Selling You

It’s best to think of your online profiles as analogous to the clothes you wear everyday. Sure, you could wear a suit every day and look very presentable in the eyes of a bunch of stuffy older people, but you’ll get really uncomfortable before long (and the summers will be a chore). Or you could go all-out and wear a leather vest and 1993 grunge-era Levis, but people are going to judge you for that too. Best to split the difference, and wear something casual but presentable and at the same time uniquely you — something appropriate for both work and play.

A tortured analogy, maybe, but here we are, and the bottom line is this: your Facebook account is out there, and, just like with the clothes on your back, the only way to avoid being seen is to not show up at all. Generation Y should leverage social media as a way to find opportunities, welcome interactions from all people, but never censor their own true selves in the process.

Privacy is overrated anyway.

Photo by robleto. Licensed under Creative Commons.

1. I should say that, yes, I have some concerns about the long-term viability of Facebook. I like to ask people if they really think they’ll be using Facebook in five years. Odds are, we won’t be. But there will probably be something else that takes its place. [↩]

Sarah Bunting, late of Television Without Pity, posted an interesting response on her blog this past week to the proposed ‘congestion tax’ for New York City. Essentially, she wants to know why people even need to go to work?

I can think of dozens of industries that either don’t require workers to physically appear at all, or could easily get by with telecommuting at least part-time, or split shifting — have employees choose their eight- or nine-hour workday, and come in then. 

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the idea of telecommuting or working from home as a strategy to keep your employees happy, but the environmental side is hugely important and relevant too. People look at congestion taxes like they have in London (and which I am in favour of, for the record) as a ‘green’ solution, but they’re only truly green if they’re getting people out of their cars, full stop. As long as businesses and organizations — and, to be fair, I’m only referring to certain industries here, where face-to-face interaction is not continuously required — require their employees to come in every day at set, specific, already-congested hours, there are always going to be people who will drive.

We desperately need to ask tough questions, and it starts with employers asking themselves why their employees need to be at work each and every day.

Sarah, again:

Again, I think trying to get people off the road is great. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for the remaining drivers’ stress levels — it’s a good idea. But as long as people still have to take their asses into a place of business, it isn’t going to have the dramatic effects the government probably expects.

The Environmental Impact

Philly.com has some numbers:

In “The Green Book,” authors Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen found that workers commute an average of 10,000 miles per year and consume 67 billion gallons of gas.  Telecommuting reduces vehicle miles traveled per year by more than 35 billion and saves almost 2 billion gallons of gas.

There is, of course, the argument that working-at-home is a zero-sum game, because energy is still used, just at home instead of at the office. And, unless you’re in a really specific probably creative industry, you still need to have the office, staffed and with lights & computers on. So, in effect, the world is having to power two workplaces (your home and the office) where it used to only have to power one.

This ignores technological advances, though. If the last ten years are any indication, we’re likely to see great strides in the efficiency of office technology — things like lights, computer monitors, printers, etc — while the car will still probably stick around as is. Sure, some people will drive hybrids, but the internal combustion engine is just not going to go away. 

It’s far easier, and far cheaper, to make your home office energy efficient than it it is to really ‘green’ your commute.

Photo by _e.t. Licensed under Creative Commons

From The Atlantic comes The Next Slum an article about the movement in North America away from suburbia and toward a new kind of urban living, characterized by high density, high culture and high society.

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

Gen Y is obviously playing a major role in this.

Cities, of course, have made a long climb back since then. Just nine years after Russell escaped from the wreck of New York, Seinfeld—followed by Friends, then Sex and the City—began advertising the city’s renewed urban allure to Gen-Xers and Millennials. Many Americans, meanwhile, became disillusioned with the sprawl and stupor that sometimes characterize suburban life. These days, when Hollywood wants to portray soullessness, despair, or moral decay, it often looks to the suburbs—as The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives attest—for inspiration.

The pop culture point is a good one. We haven’t seen suburbia portrayed as ‘cool’ in mass media in years. Even sitcoms, which for a good decade were generally set in tree-lined suburbs, have now given way to single-camera comedies set in more urban areas. (There are still some, like The Office and My Name is Earl with more suburban settings, but the suburban nature is always played for laughs.)

Generally, though, the article rings true to me. I cannot, at this point in my life, see myself setting goals that take me toward suburbia. At this moment, I’m a reverse-commuter, living in the city and working in the suburbs. I could live closer to work and spend far less on rent (I might even be able to buy) but that holds no appeal to me — I need the city.

Demographic changes in the United States also are working against conventional suburban growth, and are likely to further weaken preferences for car-based suburban living. When the Baby Boomers were young, families with children made up more than half of all households; by 2000, they were only a third of households; and by 2025, they will be closer to a quarter. Young people are starting families later than earlier generations did, and having fewer children. The Boomers themselves are becoming empty-nesters, and many have voiced a preference for urban living. By 2025, the U.S. will contain about as many single-person households as families with children.

It comes down to goals with Gen Y. That ten year period between your 20th birthday and the time you hit 30 is incredibly critical and, for Y, our goals are markedly different than the goals the boomers held when they were the same age. The biggest difference-maker is the family thing: I am not looking for things like good schools, big backyards or “safe” streets. I have no interest in expanding my family anytime soon. (Except that maybe I might get a cat.)

The moves you make in your 20s tend to trickle down and inform the decisions you make for the rest of your life, so these choices Gen Y is making — to eschew suburbia, to embrace urbanism, to value culture — are not simply some passing phase. As the article shows, our attitude has the capability of revolutionizing the entire housing market.

Photo by jdwag40. Licensed under Creative Commons

I saw Richard Florida do a Q&A at the book launch event for his latest — Who’s Your City? — last week. Up until then, Florida was one of those guys I had read and heard a bunch about, but never seen in the flesh. He looks a lot like you would expect a guy from New Jersey to look like. Sure, he’s a respected academic but he honestly wouldn’t look too out of place as an extra on an episode of The Sopranos.

He’s also brilliant.

I’ve yet to read Who’s Your City? but in the one-hour Q&A session he shared a number of ideas and themes from the book that are of particular relevance to Generation Y. I thought I’d share them here.

Where you live = most important decision of your life

Florida takes a different tact than Thomas Friedman and his belief that the World is Flat. He agrees that there is globalization and that we are seeing a diffusion of the labour pool across the world, but he also points out that, as this is happening, we’ll still see pockets of talent intensify in certain areas — cities — ultimately creating a labour market that is more spiky than it is flat.

So where you choose to live is still critically important, not only because that’s where the money will be, but also because that’s where the people will be. Florida points out that increasingly people are making decisions on where to live based on a city’s “personality” — the creative scene, the number of single people, etc. It’s not as simple as just “going where jobs are” — the city has to fit.

A lot of cities are missing the boat

Florida’s aroused controversy in the U.S. (and praise in Canada) due to his stated belief that the U.S. is going in the wrong direction and does not have many true ‘creative’ cities. (A lot of this seems to be motivated by his political views, but I don’t necessarily think that’s an irrelevant basis at all.) He points out that a lot of the US is littered with cities that were built on the backs of one industry (ie. manufacturing) and are now empty shells. Further, he says that there are cities that are actively booming currently that are likely destined for a similar fate, especially in the developing world (China, India, Brazil, etc.)

Cities that are destined for real success are those that work to establish their own ‘personality’ and a lot of that, he maintains, has to do with supporting creative industries. If a city isn’t appealing to artists, writers, musicians, stage performers, and so on, it’s not on the right track.

Helping the Valleys

Florida cautioned several times that the overarching message to the book wasn’t a positive one. One of the side-effects of the ’spiky world’ will be that a lot of places will be stuck in metaphorical valleys — left without economic engines to power them, they’ll stagnate. (And the smart young Gen Y workers with talent will leave in droves for the cities at the peaks.)

He does point out, though, that sometimes it only takes one person or company to raise up a whole geographic area. The obvious examples are Silicon Valley in California and Waterloo in Canada, which were both turned into major economic hubs due to IT companies moving in, but there’s a little bit more to it than just a visionary or two coming to town: what really drives these people to establish their companies in these locations is the previous existence of talented people, ready to come work for them. To get those talented people to come, and stay, it’s important that municipal, provincial/state and federal governments put a strong emphasis in two areas: education and the arts.

Without them, you have no hook.

Some interesting Y-related stories from the past week:

Toronto Police Welcome Generation Y

From Toronto Police Services Chair Dr. Alok Mukherjee:

So – what do “Yers” want?
An interesting job with many changes and challenges
Work-life balance
Superior training
Access to cutting-edge technology

Where can they find all that? The Toronto Police Service.

Generation Y demands Instant Messaging at Work

From Computer Business Review:

77% of the Generation Y respondents believed that a webcam and access to instant messaging in the office (73%) would help them offer clients and suppliers a faster and more personal response.

Make the workplace fun to retain Gen Y

From The Nashville Business Journal:

Employers who recognize Gen X and Y’s needs will retain them longer and get more and better work from them. Create a “fun” work environment. Employers who embrace a fun, rather than conventional company culture create a higher rate of job satisfaction with younger employees.

What does fun mean? It means converting the breakroom to a game room with video games. It means periodically bringing in a massage therapist for chair massages, an ice cream cart for sundaes or a rolling barista for onsite lattes.

Job Hopping an Option for Gen Y

From Penelope Trunk in the Boston Globe:

So there’s lots of chatter about how people can recession-proof their careers. But what should young people do, when their golden demographics make them recession proof already? Job hop, of course.

The best thing you can do early in your career is move around a lot so you can figure out what you’re good at and what you like. If you compare people who job hop with people who don’t, people who job hop build their network faster, build their skill set faster, and are more engaged in their work.