Getting to know millennials:
I've been working with a lot of higher ed clients lately. Projects that let us connect to some of the country's most glass-half-full, do-some-good, look-toward-a-brighter-tomorrow audiences: kids shopping for their perfect-fit colleges and their proud parents. A few recent tags:
Gen Y and Boomers Reshaping the Workplace: Harvard Business Review has an interesting look at the demands of the workers who sandwich my generation >> Boomers and Ys want unique kinds of flexibility that deliver not only balance, but broader impact.
What Colleges Don't Know About Applicants: Wow, game changing study excerpted in the Chronicle with lots of incidental, fabulous quotes, like
- ... it costs four-year public colleges more than $400 to secure an applicant, and four-year private colleges more than $2,000
- Parents use the rankings to ask, "What's the best college?" when they should be asking, "What's the best college for my child?"
The Millennial Primer Library: Brand Amplitude has put together an interesting set of white papers and other boot camp basics on the trophy generation. Check out the introductory slides in "Using Social Media to Connect With the Most Connected Generation"
Specialization Helps Colleges Move Up the Ranks: Andrea Jarrell pairs selectivity with strategic specialization in the formula that has helped colleges make big jumps in the all-important U.S. News rankings.
University's Crisis of Purpose: This New York Times series looks at how colleges struggle to meet almost irreconcilable demands and deal with the wave of criticism on issues ranging from the cost of college to universities’ intellectual quality to their supposed decline into unthinking political correctness.
Millennials Set to Do Nothing Short of Changing The World: In this ebook - Generation We - Eric Greenberg and bestselling author Karl Weber explore the emerging power of the Millennial Generation, show how the Millennials (and their supporters from other generations) are poised to change our nation and our world for the better, and lay out a powerful plan for progressive change that today’s youth is ready to implement.
Impact of our word of mousing:
And, of course I'm endlessly fascinated by the impact we have when we act, share and talk in our everyday, increasingly-online lives. A few top picks from my usual reading list.
Enthusiast vs. Influencer Marketing - Another smart take from Whuffie girl Tara about the the differences in targeting those who wield huge broad-ranging influence online and those who truly love us. I had a similar experience last month. I was featured on a wildly popular, but out-of-my-category-entirely blog. I expected a big uptick in traffic from my A-List association, but in fact - I got nearly 10x the referrals from my own network that week.
Happiness Is Contagious - Mitch takes a highlighter to the top quotes from the recent New York Times mega-piece about how good behaviors — like quitting smoking or staying slender or being happy — pass from friend to friend almost as if they were contagious viruses. And these social signals can even skip a link - spreading to a friend of a friend without affecting the person who connects them. No surprise, the article is by my favorite newsie - Clive Thompson
What if there is no crowd? Sarah Perez covers some recent research by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) professor Vassilis Kostakos that pokes a big hole in the prevailing wisdom that the "wisdom of crowds" is a trustworthy force on today's web. The findings showed that a small group of users accounted for a large number of rating - there is no crowd, just a big gang.
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