The term ‘Generation Y’ refers not only to people born between 1977 and 2000, but to a cohort with its own independent mind set who believe that self-employment is more secure and rewarding than a full-time job. Gen Y is not very devoted to the corporate world, which results in frequent job flipping and vastly ambitious enrollment in entrepreneurial activities.
This generation of young Internet savvy and technologically sophisticated employees is searching for higher levels of independence and personal liberty demanding up-to-date transformation of the work place setting, which would serve their needs and benefit the organizations’ working environment and business goals. When their suggestions receive no feedback; when they no longer feel accomplished and don’t expect to be able to bring change into an organization, Gen Y’s seek out for other employment opportunities or engage in entrepreneurship.
According to Inc. magazine 80% of academic institutions in the United States today offer courses on entrepreneurship and half of all new college grads believe running a small private venture is less risky than having a corporate job. Generally Gen Y’s are naturally collaborative, talented, and open minded. They are ready and willing to change, which in my opinion will help them get through the hardships of recession easier than to their preceding generations who will be going over terrible stress losing their careers built over decades. If Generation Y was a company its slogan would be “work to live, not live to work”, because of the healthy egoism regarding long office hours and conservative policies in the working environment.
Certainly many younger representatives of this generation are considered underdeveloped, lazy, and selfish users that move home after graduating college and then fool around doing nothing but spending their parents’ money. They are self-involved, greedy, and expect their actions to be consequence-free. But every family has a black sheep and I would characterize those as a part of the next generation, which might have somewhat merged with Generation Y, Gen Z.
Generation Z, the offspring of generation X, or also as some social scholars call it the “Virtual Generation” or “The New Silent Generation”, unlike Gen Y, the early adopters of high tech, were born into a world of digital technology. They are now growing up with laptops, cell phones, and Internet. They are visually educated and entertained which means they are exposed to marketing and teenage mass culture from the early age. This defines them as important consumers, especially since they have great influence over their “less technologically bright” parents.
These kids soon will be using RSS without knowing it is actually called RSS. And without any exposure and interest in how the things are created they will simply become blind users. Yes, they are multitaskers. But what kind of job do you need to take up to send text messages on Blackberry, talk on the phone, and browse the internet at the same time? Not a very important one. Within the next several years this generation of short attention span, laziness, and extreme obesity will comprise 10% of the workforce with the greater amount of people retiring than ever before.
This being said, I’m afraid that Generation Y will be the last cohort of true entrepreneurs who will later on turn their small private ventures into corporation-like organizations which will be inherited by their children. The Silent Generation Z will be the mere employees of these organizations with only such short term goals like satisfying the urge for technological upgrades, and other consumerism related needs. What do you think?
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In the nearest future women will have to try hard to get a present for Valentine’s Day. According to the research from Experian Simmons, 63% of the visitors to US flower websites in the four weeks ending February 16, 2008 were women. The research also showed that younger and older consumers are most likely to buy flowers. Evidently they think flowers are appropriate for any occasion, or they simply can’t think of any original present.
While women pick flowers men browse through dating websites. Data from Hitwise.com shows that up to 57% of dating sites visitors are male. The research reveals that four weeks prior to February 14 there is a spike in the number of visits, mostly coming from adventurous males looking for temporary entertainment. The most popular website today is Date.com.
The research conducted by Experian Simmons also showed that Valentine’s Day is the second-biggest card-giving day in the US. Western US inhabitants are less likely to purchase traditional cards than the rest, however looking at four geographic areas, there’s little difference between the use of traditional greeting cards and electronic cards.
So, ladies, please do not be surprised if you get an e-card the next Valentine’s Day instead of flowers, love and care. This is statistics.
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The top three marketing trends in 2009:
1. Customer satisfaction and retention remain the two most important concepts for marketers this year, followed by marketing ROI and brand loyalty. The other 62 acknowledged marketing concepts such as anti-Americanism, six sigma, faith-based marketing are considered least important.
2. Insight and innovation are viewed as main ways to compete in times of recession. 39% of responders believe that their use of marketing research will increase and another 39% of marketing execs believe that their use of marketing insights will stay at current levels. At the same time 49% of responders believe in the value of search engine optimization, while social media, blogs, and Web 2.0 are regarded as the most irritating buzz words. However 69% of respoders consider themselves as beginners when using social media for marketing purposes.
3. Green Marketing and Global Warming are viewed as the least important issues: global warming dropped 14 places in the rankings, while green marketing showed a 5% drop. Time to take the “this is a green website” banners down, folks.
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There are plenty website value calculators out there on the Internet. Some of them provide us with hope that our web creations may turn out to be the golden seeds, some abuse us with sheer disappointment. They take into account domain history, number of backlinks, Google PR, Alexa rank, technorati rank, etc. So far, my favorite tool was Dane Carlson’s project powered by Technorati API.
However recently I’ve encountered a brand new value estimator tool called Stimator, which does the same calculations as all the others but it also allows you to collect information from financial markets (info from Yahoo Finance), and takes into account the strength of a top-level domain (.com VS .info VS .us, etc).
I quickly ran this tool for i-trepreneur.com and you may see the results below.
Even though Dane Carlson’s tool makes me happier about the bright future of my Internet projects, I just feel Stimator is more trustworthy. I attribute this to the fact that Stimator actually shows how the calculations are performed and what factors are taken into account (it is also quite entertaining by the way). Certainly to receive a correct estimation you’ll also need to add your affiliate, advertising, and other earnings on top of these calculations, however so far the info provided by this tool is above average on the web. Congrats to the developers!
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Surrogacy Abroad Inc. (rentawomb.org)
One in six American families suffers from being childless, which has made surrogacy a common option nowadays. The option is rather costly though. It would cost around $100,000 in the US to rent a womb. But with the help of Chicago-based entrepreneur Benhur Samson it is now possible to outsource birth abroad and save a significant amount of money.
So to get yourself a baby you need a total of $35,000 and nine months of time. The product is “manufactured” in India using state of the art IVF technology and is promised to be of the finest quality. The idea is nice; however would you really want to offshore your pregnancy? But perhaps during the economic recession this will be a useful service for some people.
NFN Travel International (www.nfntravel.com)
Nudists for the nudists! A Southern California home-based travel agency found by Aaron and Rhoda Block specializes in clothing optional and nude vacations located on beautiful beaches of the USA and the Caribbean.
Interesting, if the were to start hiring employees, what would the qualifying criteria be?
Final Ride Products, Inc (www.1finalride.com)
Dead biker riding! Keeping your dead grandma on a shelf is no longer cool. Steve Radz the inventor of the mobile cremation urn offers custom made memorial containers specifically made to be attached to a motorcycle. The urns also may be applied by paramedics, military, golfers, firemen, and the police. A Final Ride urn has a crash rate of sixty thousand pounds, once sealed, which makes it “tougher” than the vehicle you mount it to. So even if your bike crashes and explodes, your dead relative will not be disturbed.
Soul’s Calling (www.soulscalling.com)
Gina Cotroneo, a small business owner with a gift and accessory line called Soul’s Calling has this to say about her enterprise: “I send conscious positive energy into all the products by means of prayer and meditation, with the intent that they carry joy wherever they go. Requests for awareness and conscious creation are also made to the manufacturers as a way of helping to ensure that each product contains the highest “vibe” possible in addition to its more obvious positive message.” So, by ordering cups and bracelets from Soul’s Calling you not only get the products, but the karma that goes with them.
Mix Match Shoes (www.mixmatchshoes.com)
Nancy Archambeau started Mix Match Shoes in 2007 desiring to help people who have two significantly different-sized feet or are physically impaired, buy shoes one at a time, rather than in pairs.
From her website: “Our vision is that people with different size feet or just one foot will find buying shoes an affordable and enjoyable experience. And that this will be the first time in their lives that they can say that.”
more interesting home-business ideas here
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