SocialSphere, Inc.

This blog is coming to you from a pretty good airport bar, Chickie’s and Pete’s in Philadelphia’s C Terminal.  I'm watching the tournament and waiting for the 6:15 pm back to Boston and just wrapped up a talk to several hundred college and university executives who attended the SunGard Higher Education Executive Summit.  I also just saw this ridiculous photo on the wall of the bar’s owner with Jon Bon Jovi – "Dude, What is up with the wig and glasses?"  But I digress …

I hope I did my job -- our session ended with hands in the air waiting to ask questions, which I will take as a good sign (rather than a sign that they were terribly confused).  While you can download the presentation at SlideShare – here’s the case I made:

In order to educate, communicate, employ or work productively with Millennials, they need to like you and trust you first.  Building a relationship like this is much easier said than done, which is why I started my talk with 5 facts about the Millennial generation that are critical to understanding where they’re coming from and their place in the world.

1. They are the biggest generation in the history of the world.  They account for about 1/3 of the world’s population and 1/4 of U.S. population.
2. They are spiritual, religious and see themselves as a small part of a much larger global community.
3. They care deeply about their community.  More than 60% of college students in the U.S. volunteer on a regular basis (and have been doing so for many years).
4. They crave opportunities to make an impact -- in school, at home, in their communities, at work.  They will help if asked.
5. They elected a President (and know it). If not for Millennials, Obama loses the Iowa caucus and America would very likely have its first female President.

Of course I also dipped into the tried and true playbook to mention that Millennials also are: digital natives, fierce multi-taskers who crave collaboration, travel in packs, value positive reinforcement -- and at least at Harvard -- don’t mind a good title, recognition or status.  

Definition of Digital Native

Next, before I spoke about the future, I talked (thanks to Jonathan, like always) about the past.  Using a timeline, I attempted to put into context several significant technological advances that shaped the way that Millennials think and interact with technology -- and prepared us all for Facebook and Twitter.  Basically, explained what digital native means and why it's more than a cliche:

1990-1992:  PCs and Macs entered the classroom and curriculum was beginning to develop around computers.  Computers soon became mixed use -- not just for education but they came to be viewed as fun as well.  

Oregon Trail references will still make any 25-30 year old go into fits of nostalgia.

1993-1995:  The PC did not stop in the classroom -- three major developments happened as Millennials entered adolescence that allowed for powerful, revolutionary home computing to occur: Intel’s processor, Windows and Netscape – it was these developments that let Millennials connect with the outside world, but still not with each other.

1997:  AIM changed everything.  AIM allowed Millennials to connect with friends from home for the first time.  Away messages and profiles became an expression of personality -- it really was a Beta version of Facebook and Twitter – perhaps more importantly, it planted the idea that computers were made for social connection, and created a need and desire to be in constant contact with friends even when at home.

1998-2000:  The omnipresence of Google and the ability to search profoundly impacted the way that Millennials view information and changed the way they think -- file directories vs. search features and the idea that the world should be at your fingertips.  In 1999 Napster and later the iPod emerged and with it the notion that content should always be available, not behind walls.

2003-2006:  This is when things exploded -- back to back to back to back -- we saw MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter introduced spawning thousands of other organic groups and communities dedicated to learning, college, admissions and life on campus. 

What's Next

The consequences of these changes are many – they effect how students learn, how institutions position themselves, and how deans manage (or not) enrollment when new communities like College Confidential, The U and Zinch are competing with, if not replacing, traditional college ranking and search methodologies like the US News and World Report, Education issue.  My only regret is that I did not ring more alarm bells -- I believe that like traditional advertising and email are slowly dying -- so are the traditional enrollment management practices at thousands of institutions. 

I left by teeing up the SocialSphere approach for identifying your influencers and strategies for engaging them -- and a few of what we'd consider best practices so far:

• John Maeda's interactive presidency at RISD;
• MIT's blogging culture that includes administrators, professors and students;
• Tufts' student life website; and
• The iStanford iPhone application (thanks to Perry).

Much more to come on this topic -- very interested in other thoughts -- especially from those at the conference or in this space.  I love comments...

Thanks again to Ken for the introduction and everyone at SunGard -- this was all time well-spent -- look forward to seeing you on campus and at next year's conference.

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