Understanding the Millennial Mind: A Menace or ... - Big Business Zoo

26 | Free eBook Part 2: How Do You Make A Millennial? How Do They See Things?
♦ Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television
show.
♦ Gigapets
Beginning in the late 1990’s:
♦ Tickle Me Elmo
♦ The Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings book &
movie series crazes
♦ The Beanie Babies craze
♦ Furby dolls
♦ A rise in electronic music with samplers,
drum machines & computers. This fosters:
techno, house, hip hop, trance, break beat,
drum & bass, IDM & many other new genres
♦ Web 2.0 – MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr
As you look at these lists, consider how many
of these events you have forgotten. This is
their life too. Now you may be wondering why
I tell you all this? We’ll get there in a minute.
It is here and it is gone. How many of these
things are like a flash in the pan to us now?
But when they occurred, they were a big deal,
everyone was engaged.
The interesting thing here is the technology
continues to advance and proliferate. Video
games, computers, the Internet and so on,
are training Millennial minds faster, better and
differently all the time.
Now, imagine growing up with all of this.
Imagine this is your life and you were born
in 1982, 1985 or 1990. What sort of outlook
would all these events bring to your perspective?
This is their life. Change is a given, stability
is unnatural. They have an expectation
of change. Things are always going to be
different because they always have been for
them. There is not one constant that they
can point to in their lives, other than their
family and it is very likely that may have
changed significantly somewhere during
their adolescence.
There are no cultural anchors, there are no
constants.
That means they are becoming increasingly
immersed and adapted to very rapid
and constant transitions. Change does not
bother them. They are not traumatized
with it. As a matter of fact, they barely
even notice it. They mostly notice when
things stay the same.
Their capacity for radical operational shifts
and shifts in environment are significantly
higher than any preceding generation.
They can adapt in a heartbeat.
This is a very, very admirable trait. They
can accommodate changes that would have
been traumatic or overwhelming for most
of us from previous generations. But this is
not the only thing. There is a lot more that
is different about this generation.