The Learning Spotlight - Facebook is Too Noisy

My Blog

Employer of Choice or Necessity?

08/15/2014

As we approach 2020 and more millennials (Gen Y) enter the workforce, organizations will require some honest and candid introspection. What are you doing that makes you different? In 2011, when the Talent Exodus book was published, the storm for generational change was on the radar, but it had not reached shore. CEOs were sitting in adirondack chairs on the beach (with little umbrellas in their drinks) and the sun was beaming. I felt like the guy running up and down the beach screaming there is a storm coming. They in turn, looked up and the sunny sky and shook me off as nothing more than an alarmist or nuisance. Today however, the outer bands of the storm are reaching shore and most are buzzing about generational change in the workplace. Baby boomers are retiring by the thousands each day and millennials are entering the workplace to fill the void. By the year 2020 almost half of every worker will be born between 1981 and 2000.

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Facebook Too Noisy?

Life is short Pic

Facebook is Too Noisy; I’m Moving to Twitter

By John Grubbs

I am seeing trends that should at least cause concern for Facebook. Young people are leaving and the rest of us are skeptical. Social media is here to stay. However, what that media will look like in ten years is certainly up for debate. Millennials are opting for the short bursts of information with Instagram and Snapchat while Facebook is covered in one viral video after another. The duration of information is getting longer and our attention spans are getting shorter.

Facebook is much more difficult to segregate content and the recent addition of messenger is accompanied by considerable suspicion. I am a generation Xer and loyal Facebook user; however I often find my news feed too noisy (sometimes literally) with videos that start as I scroll down the page. In fact, I can see more similarity today between Facebook and YouTube than ever before. I can relate to and understand the younger generation opting for thequietandshorterinformation bits (140 characters or less) found on Twitter.

SEOcial

Can we reach the Millennials?

Contributed by Mark Levesque with The Survey Insititute

In line with how John Grubbs stresses the importance of a generational focus on training, I thought that I would share an article on how Lindenwood University was effective in reaching Millennials.

We are often asked," How do we help our 18 to 33 year old employees or customers become more engaged?"

The answer is that you ask them. However, this age group has a pretty sensitive BS meter so you have to ask them questions about things that matter to them and not you. So then, the challenge becomes, how do you find out what you need to know from questions that are about them? You craft a survey instrument that has questions that are both predictive about engagement but that also resonate with that audience. Next, you run the results through enhanced analytics designed to uncover not just what they are saying on the surface but their true perceptions. Once you know their perceptions/beliefs, you can focus on the key drivers of their behavior.

There is a link below to an article that ran in the St Louis Post Dispatch regarding how Lindenwood University used this method to find out why Millennials choose a college program. The team at the University used this intelligence to craft improvement initiatives that resulted in their doubling the enrollment in their program in just one year.

Link to Article...