Category: Social Media

After reading this study on how 60% of Gen Y professionals think they’re entrepreneurs (found via Jim Kukral‘s Facebook post), I remembered an “old” post from 2011 that described the millennial generation (born in late 70’s up to ’90) as “Generation Sale.” A little googling helped me find the NY Times piece.

It’s a spot on good read:

The small business is the idealized social form of our time. Our culture hero is not the artist or reformer, not the saint or scientist, but the entrepreneur. (Think of Steve Jobs, our new deity.) Autonomy, adventure, imagination: entrepreneurship comprehends all this and more for us. The characteristic art form of our age may be the business plan.

AND that, I think, is the real meaning of the Millennial affect — which is, like the entrepreneurial ideal, essentially everyone’s now. Today’s polite, pleasant personality is, above all, a commercial personality. It is the salesman’s smile and hearty handshake, because the customer is always right and you should always keep the customer happy. If you want to get ahead, said Benjamin Franklin, the original business guru, make yourself pleasing to others.

via The Entrepreneurial Generation – NYTimes.com.

I was born in 1978, so I’m not sure where exactly I fall in the Gen Y / Gen Millennial grouping. I grew up loving Nirvana, grunge, and the entire “Nevermind” aesthetic but find myself enjoying artisanal pizza.

Nevertheless, “millennials” will change how we do marketing and advertising (and business in general). You can see the differences in food truck lines, churches that make lifelong members uncomfortable, expectations for work place experiences, and how we view the concept of “jobs” in 2014.

So be prepared.

We’re big fans of Shareist in our office and in the work we do with contractors and clients around the world. In a nutshell, Shareist is a way to manage all of your (or a client’s) social media and content creation accounts with a high degree of team collaboration under one umbrella. We use it alongside Basecamp as our company’s project management backbone.

I was honored to be asked by the Shareist team to do a chat on how we’re using the tool in our agency and for the improvement of our clients’ campaigns.

Here’s a snippet, but go read the full case study on the Shareist Blog:

Harrelson, whose clients including political organizations, religious groups, local retailers and services, brands, authors and more, says Shareist solves many of problems of how to communicate and keep in touch – for both his team and his clients.

Shareist ensures that everyone on his team has immediate access to add, share, comment, collaborate and manage their client’s projects – which run the gamut from affiliate management, social media marketing, event marketing, political messaging, to billboards and T-shirts.

I’ve been using Shareist since it first launched years ago and can’t recommend it enough if you or your team does any sort of social media or web content creation and need a tool to help manage all the disparate social web apps and accounts that you have to participate in to be truly effective in 2014 and beyond.

http://www.indiegogo.com/project/646883/widget/2785874

We’ve spent the last six months working hard with Jack Krupnick and Fred Heys to launch ZeroScope. To say this has been a labor of love for Jack and his family would be an understatement. I’m so excited to see this project get its wings and move from pre-planning to production to full on launching this month.

Today, we’re launching an IndieGoGo campaign to help fund the manufacturing costs of the ZeroScope devices.

This is a very worthwhile cause and here’s a little info from the campaign page:

“Your doctors and nurses wash their hands, wear gloves, sometimes wear a mask, and cover or seal many of the instruments they use to provide you with healthcare. But why are stethoscopes not included?

We aim to solve that problem.

Stethoscopes should not be a cause of the spread of disease by healthcare providers. ZeroScope is a one-use and easily applied device that attaches to the drum of a stethoscope and provides immediate and complete barrier defense between the instrument and the patient receiving care.

We’re looking to raise the money needed to help us launch ZeroScope as a cost effective and ubiquitous device to solve the problem of hospital acquired infections that lead to more costly treatments or even death.”

We’ve made some huge leaps and bounds over the last 182 days since our first brainstorming session. We’ve had our first large batch of devices designed and manufactured and invested so much of our own personal time and money into the project. So, we’re looking for help to get the costs of manufacturing and shipping lower in order to provide more ZeroScopes to hospitals, clinics, burn clinics, urgent cares and physician practices.

It’s been an amazing ride, and we’re hoping you’ll help us reach our goal!