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Demographic Profile: Here Comes the Millennial Generation!
By chris | July 10, 2008
Millennial Generation
- Years they were born: 1980-1996
- Number in the segment: 86 Million (28% of US population)
- Key Characteristics: Ambitious, Authentic, Relational, Collaborating, Civic-Minded, High Energy, Self-confident, and sometimes, a little Vain
Generation-Y is still coming of age in the United States. The youngest of them is twelve years old. This ambitious group of young people is also called “Echo Boomers” because their size (86 Million) is even larger than the Boomer population. Their numbers are only partly due to the size of their Baby Boomer parent’s generation. Since Boomers had much fewer children that their parents, the Echo Boomer generation is also the product of the rapid increase in immigration in the United States. This generation is more culturally and racially diverse than other generational cohorts in America.
The fact that Gen-Y is also known by another name, ”Millennial Generation”, so that you can call them what you want, is a reminder that one thing that marks this generation, their ability to choose among a range of options for just about everything they want or need. Millennials have a mind-numbing range of options for their consideration because they have grown up in a consumer-driven era where the various products and services around them were always striving for market-share by differentiating themselves with endless value-added benefits. Echo Boomers are used to a lot of options and tend to be very choosy customers!
A typical Gen-Y childhood experience of going to the dentist is an illustration. Besides what dentist they go to, they have their choice of several mouth wash flavors, color of disposable sanitary bibs, headphones music styles (if they forget their iPods when they come) what kind of sunglasses they want to wear as the dentist shines the light in their mouth, the color of rubber bands in their braces, etc. The list could go on!
Besides having multiple choices for every situation, the Millennial Generation has also been constantly encouraged and uplifted by their parents and general society. They have been protected by the school system from any feeling that they may in any way be inferior to others. Everyone seems to have been telling them from their earliest years that they are of special intelligence, gifted with talents no others have, and they can be or do anything they set their mind to. As a result, Millennials are the most self-confident generation in history. This confidence lends itself to powerful feelings of ambition, Echo Boomers truly think they can achieve anything. Sometimes their self-confident tendencies express themselves in outright vanity.
Their approach to life is not with trepidation and caution, instead they boldly seek to drain every bit of benefit out of every experience and every activity they attempt. They are not afraid to try new things and are at times too extreme in how close they get to the edge. This is exemplified in the many Y’ers who choose to get extensive tattoos and body piercings, adopting radically dangerous pastimes such as skateboarding down stairway handrails, bicycle flipping, and even “surfing” on the hoods of cars. They feel what could happen to them, the world is their oyster?
Not all Echo Boomers live on the wild side, but most of them have a galvanized sense of community that is in many ways similar to the values held by the WW II “Greatest Generation” when it comes to having a civic mindset. The aftermath of the attacks of 9-11 seared in this generation that the real heroes are the civil servants like policemen, firemen, and soldiers who have been celebrated in the public forum as long as they can remember. This generation truly wants to give back like the civil servants of our country. Even the musicians and celebrities they admire are giving back.
They are polite, hard working, and ambitious, so whatever organization they work with get’s their best efforts. In fact, in the workplace around the United States, Boomer managers have fallen in love with the Y-Generation. They admire their youthful outlook and their sense of civics so much, that in many places this Millennials are getting promoted past the Generation-X. Because they are in demand, Echo Boomers tend to skip from place to place when opportunities for advancement come up. And why shouldn’t they take the opportunities? After all, despite their lack of skills and experience, they honestly feel they deserve it. What’s not to love about them?
The last thing an Echo Boomer wants to hear is that in some way they don’t measure up. For this reason, the thing that bothers them most is to be told they are not experienced enough or skilled enough to do something.
Gen-Y is hardly out of the gate and already they have contributed technology advancements that are multi-million dollar international blockbusters. Two examples, Facebook and MySace are leading the pack (not ironically, two web-based media tools that help advance one’s ego in cyberspace) with a seemingly endless stream of new social media applications being developed. The Echo Boomer generation is a generation of tinkerers who have known no period when technology wasn’t readily available to them. As such, technology is not as daunting or impressive to them as it is to other generations.
Ministering to Millennials
- They are Multicultural! This generation is large, but they are very diverse. Once-size-fits all programs will not work with them. They are very sensitive to the wide range of cultures and lifestyles “out there” and are turned-off by one sided parochial thinking. Many of them have cross-cultural skills that will make them ideal missionaries and outreach leaders.
- Keep it real! Authenticity is the defining halmark of the Gen-Y. They admire people who are open about who they are and willing to share what they are going through. Echo Boomers may have a vain streak from being over-hyped by their parents and society, but they don’t tend to misrepresent themselves. Confident to a fault, they border on “over-sharing” with others.
- Give them something big to do! Echo Boomers are very ambitious. They want to try it all and do it all and expect to be rewarded for their efforts. They don’t believe they necessarily need to “pay their dues” to get where they are going. They are working now for their big break. To them leaders are achievers.
- Stay in constant contact! Gen-Y’ers don’t have remember to keep in touch with people because they tend to be in almost constant contact with the people they are closest to through instant messaging on the social web and text messaging via their cell phones. Social media like Facebook and MySpace are important tools for cultivating relationships to Gen-Y. Many in their generation have abandoned email and using telephones. With tools like Twitter they can even stay in their social network through text messaging.
- Don’t assume everything has to be digital! They are as not as impressed with your video presentations and high production values as you might think they are. Remember technology is not a big deal to them, they can become victims of “digital fatigue.” Besides, your media presentation may not even be to their taste anyway, so don’t hang everything you do on reaching them with digital media. You can dial down the techno and still reach them–just be real. They’d rather go rock climbing than surf your church’s church website, taking their cell phones with them of course so they can text everyone and send a shot of themselves at the summit to their Facebook page.
- They are customizers not customers! Give them options. They are not likely to accept anything you give them at face value. They will tend to alter just about everything to their specifications.
- Command-control is a bad idea! Millennials are relaxed around authority figures because they have been raised to think they are inferior to none. They come across as poised and relaxed around leaders. If a leader is seen to be a competent achiever, they want to get to know them personally and think nothing of approaching them directly.
- Tap into their network of friends! Echo Boomers have a cadre of friends in their network that can help them solve problems. Their ease of communicating in social networks makes them natural collaborators in problem solving situations.
Further Reading
Topics: Demographics, Uncategorized |
July 10th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Great job on this article Chris.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Thanks Bobby!