Don’t follow your bliss
Posted On October 23, 2014
Have you seen this story? Mike Rowe, the guy from the FORD truck commercials and Dirty Jobs, responded to a fan with an answer that would make many managers give him a standing ovation. The fan was asking Rowe why he should not follow his dream; a reaction to a Ted Talk where Rowe told the audience that “follow your dream” was awful advice. Rowe, a young Boomer, told the fan, whose generation is not disclosed, that “Passion is too important to be without, but too fickle to be guided by.” Rowe is known for Dirty Jobs and his new… Read More
Categories: Work, Workplace
The Boomer List: The stories of a generation
Posted On October 21, 2014
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, PBS has a new documentary film, The Boomer List, which provides a look at life from the perspective of 19 famous Boomers. I had a chance to watch it and I think it is worth the 1:22 of your time. The film doesn’t have a specific point other than that there are common threads and vast differences in the people who make up the Baby Boomer generation. The stories told by the 19 individuals, each born in one of the 19 years that make up the Boomer generation, are shared out of… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers
Do-it-yourself customer service? Yay or nay
Posted On October 16, 2014
Back in the day, if a customer had a question, she went to the office or store and spoke to the manager. Perhaps she called on the phone. Either way it was a one-to-one conversation. The same was true with making a purchase. A person selected what they wanted, brought it to the checkout and paid a real, live person (and usually with cold, hard cash). Today, customers can engage in entire transactions – from purchase to return to replacement – without ever speaking to a single person. And while I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been frustrated by the… Read More
Categories: Product Design, Work, Workplace
Creative benefits: An example that resonates
Posted On October 14, 2014
I’m on the road at least one night per week for 30+ weeks a year talking to companies about how to attract, engage and retain the next generation of talent. Whether in a small group workshop or to a keynote audience of multiple hundreds, we are often discussing creative ways to look beyond pure dollars and identify other benefits that make employees feel appreciated and understood. The examples I share and ideas that come from the audience frequently focus on achieving the elusive work-life balance. I’ve heard a lot, but I found this example recently on slate.com and it is… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Workplace
Nothing like those Millennials? Maybe, maybe not.
Posted On October 2, 2014
Here’s a fun one. The fine folks at the Pew Research Center have come up with their own Buzzfeed-worthy quiz. How Millennial are you? It’s a simple as it sounds – click through 15 easy questions about your habits, actions and beliefs, and find out how Millennial you are on a scale of 1 to 100. Millennials actually score at 73, with Boomers hovering near 11 and Xers at 33. Your responses are compared to those of the individuals who participated in a 2010 study on Millennial behaviors. It’s the Pew Center, so I give it some clout, but it… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials