Take a second to stop, pause, and look around the next time you’ re in the office, or at a meeting or event, and you may notice something surprising: the faces of tomorrow’ s leaders are quickly changing. With 75.4 million members and counting( data from the U. S. Census Bureau population projections), millennials, or Gen Yers( individuals born between 1977 and 1994) are now the single largest generation, both in and out of the workplace. What’ s more, the way they communicate, interact, and process information is vastly different than any generation that has come before. In addition, Gen Zers( the generation that follows with members born after 1995)— whose habits and norms vary wildly even from millennials— are quickly following right behind. As we discovered while researching our new book, Millennial Marketing: Bridging the Generation Gap, those of us looking to inspire and motivate these individuals must learn to communicate with them in vastly different ways than with the generations who have come before them.

BY SCOTT STEINBERG

What Millennials Value Regarding Gen Y, there are several important points to note before crafting messages or outreach efforts. By the year 2020, one third of adults will be millennials. Nearly nine in 10 of those millennials won’ t measure success in terms of money, but rather their ability to accomplish goals and make a difference in their business or community. Roughly 80 percent will want to work for innovative companies, and expect, in fact, to run their own forward-thinking entrepreneurial ventures at some point. Furthermore, like baby boomers, millennials will hail from a wide swath of age ranges, so cultural touchpoints and references that speak to one group of millennials won’ t necessarily make sense to all, as you’ re actually looking at multiple generations rolled into one category.

However, it’ s important to note: virtually every member of this generation will have grown up in an online and connected world where they’ re bombarded by media and messaging on a daily basis. The net result? Attention spans are shrinking,

28 PULSE ■ March / April 2017