Generation Y 2.0

With job cut backs and hiring freezes, graduates may be wondering what’s in store for them this year.
The Graduate Market in 2009 report by High Fliers and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) own report, there will  be less opportunities for graduates in this years’ hiring round despite reported increases predicted earlier in 2008. Cuts are of course being firmly blamed on the credit crunch/recession.

Last year there were approximately 2.8 graduates for every place in the leading companies and with more graduates coming onto the market this year competing for potentially less jobs this ratio is likely to be at least 3.5 to 1. Competition is likely to increase again in 2010. Yet stories continue that employers are looking to overseas candidates in order to find the skills they are looking for, as found by the AGR. Focus on university league tables showing the employability of their graduates is likely to increase and employers may be thinking of targeting their rounds very carefully.

Most of the vacancies continue to be based in London and the South. According to the AGR, banks are likely to cut graduate vacancies by at least 28%, together with cuts in graduate starting pay. Engineering sectors may see an increase in graduate vacancies but continue to have a shortfall in the right calibre of candidates. So perhaps engineering graduates will be less inclined to head to the City for banking jobs this year, but the shortfall in this field continues. And there appear to be reports of pay freezes for graduates elsewhere.
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A high dose of the net can enable those under thirty years old to learn quickly but this can lead to difficulties in concentration as we are becoming increasingly aware. However, when an older or even more senior citizen carries out internet searches, it stimulates parts of the brain that regulates decision making and complex reasoning. This is where there can actually be an improvement in intellectual capacity. In fact the lines are blurring between the generations with regard to the ways they adapt to the use of technology.

UCLA recently announced that research on the internet can stimulate the zones of the brain that enables effective decision making and complex reasoning. The process enables an improvement in the memory capacities and overall brain function in those of a more mature age. Balancing that, if our over fifty year olds don’t spend their days surfing the web, large numbers of Generation Y appear to be totally devoting their time to it by comparison; a habit that partially modifies the brain function of these ‘digital natives’.  This was underlined in a neuroscientific study by Gary Small. The conclusion: young people who spend more than nine hours per day on the web are more capable of taking rapid decisions and efficiently filtering information.

Creativity and speed, but difficulty in concentration
The under 30′s users proved that they were more creative but on the reverse poor at concentration and in assimilating large amounts of facts. According to Gary Small, the brain is in effect very sensitive to changes in its environment, thus the use of technologies can have a direct impact. “If you repeat the same task regularly, it trains certain circuits of the brain, and ignore others “  as he tells journalists.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, another effect of the information age is the tendency to withdraw into a virtual world, whether a digital native or a ‘digital immigrant’.

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“In love, two is company and three’s a crowd, but in friendship ten is the magic number” according to a report by Fiona McRae of the Daily Mail. The question is how close are we to those with social networks and how important are these friendships in the current climate.

 The report highlights studies by Dr Richard Tunney of Nottingham University showing that those with 5 to 10 friends in their close circle will be happiest and content in life, some say potentially adding to our longevity.

It would seem that communities, teams, and above all close friendships not only give us comfort and moral support in troubled times but pulling together our resources and contacts can help with entrepreneurial activities and job hunting more than ever.

However, although it can help, it seems that adding more ’friends’ doesn’t particularly increase our happiness. Today’s GenY and upcoming Z’s take comfort in being seen to be part of a wide social network, giving them the acceptance and approval they need from their community and peer groups. But are the 200+ contacts on their Google Talk, Messenger, Beebo or Facebook superfluous to their needs? How well do they know them? How many have they met or spoken with on a regular basis? Many Generation X and Y are spending their evenings in darkened rooms, or with their Blackberry’s and iPhones on the train, texting and chatting online with their virtual community but as Ryan Healy commented earlier this year, there are a ‘plethora of weak ties’ yet few strong friendships in the social networking arena. Many are starting to ask just how superficial these connections are.

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Two analysts from Forrester Research, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, have an interesting blog called “Groundswell, Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”, with an associated book.

What is a groundswell? Technically by definition it is:

1.  
   A sudden social gathering of force, as of public opinion, or
   A broad deep undulation of the ocean, often caused by a distant storm

In this case, it is all about the wave of rapidly growing use of social technologies such as YouTube, Facebook, podcasts, wikis, blogs, and other online communities, etc. This ‘social evolution’ is more important, more profound than the technology evolutions we have seen in the past; the 2.0 society seems to be progressing faster than we’ve seen with Web 2.0 itself.

In line with the growth of online technology, the core of the authors’ work in Groundswell is the analysis of a comprehensive North American study of their customers’ social technology adoption behabviours. This resulted in the creation of a ‘Social Technographics Ladder’, classifying the level of adoption from the ‘inactives’ who remain untouched by this social revolution through to a scale of ‘actives’:

The Inactives – Those who don’t participate in any kind of online social activity
The Spectators – Who digest websites, blogs, forums, videos and/or podcasts
The Joiners – They surf and have a profile or two on social networking sites
The Collectors – Are picking up RSS feeds, tagging and booking/voting for web pages
The Critics – Typically contribute to forums, comment on blogs, and edit material on wikis
The Creators – Publish their own blogs and websites, and paste their videos or materials to sites such as Technorati or YouTube

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