Event Life
Gen Y Time: A new generation is coming soon to a meeting or event near you. Are you ready?
by Ryan Hanson | Published in February 2008 Departments
My name is Ryan, I am 27 years old and I represent the next big thing in the event business. And that statement is only one quarter ego.
I am among the first forming the line of a new generation checking themselves in at the registration desk of the meeting and event industry. Now what are you going to do with us?
We represent some 76 million worker bees — with billions of dollars at our disposal — who are just beginning to make our impact felt in the workforce. Over the next 10 years, we’ll significantly change the way work is being done in the office — and by extension the way meetings and events are held. You will see us infiltrate meetings in growing numbers and, for the most part, we have no interest in sitting in ballrooms, classroom-style, listening to your talking heads.
Out with the Old
Gone are the days of CEOs delivering a “State of the State” while a passive audience watches. Gen Y is a group conditioned to participate! From birth we have been raised in a media-saturated environment, constantly bombarded and entertained while parents, teachers and coaches filled up our calendars. The result: We feel entitled to share our opinions, we think we deserve a seat at the executive table, we want constant feedback, we want to be on the team — and we want to do it however and whenever we want.
Why does any of this matter to meeting and event planners? Because Gen Yers will not feel bad about walking out of your next program if they do not feel personally engaged. We are a generation that works to live, not the other way around.
Don’t assume, however, that this MTV2 generation needs to be entertained in order to be educated. Do you need to gain our attention? Yes. But proper engagement means creating events to meet our generation where we are: Work towards our strengths; create opportunities for teamwork; allow us to brainstorm and voice our thoughts with leaders who can implement those ideas; create visual and hands-on learning experiences; and create connection opportunities with the greater global society.
Neither do I advocate technology for technology’s sake. While we were raised online, technology and its toys are not in themselves the solution to make us more engaged — though they may be tools. Too often, planners jump on the bandwagon of an emerging technology because it is trendy rather than because it facilitates the function of the program. The assumption seems to be if we give a tech-savvy 20-something a PDA to play with, an RFID tag that geo-positions him and his friends at the event, or hold the meeting in Second Life, somehow he will be engaged. This risks losing the real jewel of our programs: face-to-face interactions.
Gen Y’s Greatest Asset
So what’s a planner to do? Meetings and events are evolving creatures that in the coming years may push beyond the group experience of today into completely personalized opportunities. Learning may take not one but several forms with the same material, and meetings and events will need to serve diverse populations in diverse locations. A program on social responsibility may mean a group of creatives sitting in a boardroom in New York conceptualizing solutions, while tactile learners simultaneously visit a factory in China. Still others may head online into a global classroom while their colleague in the cube next door plays a virtual video-game with a built-in learning module.
This is about delivering content in the attendee’s format of choice, not the attendee adapting to the delivery of the content.
While some dismiss Gen Y as entitled, I prefer the cup-half-full perspective: We’re confident in our abilities; we believe we have the right to ask questions and to challenge; and we are uncommonly flexible, creative and able to process vast amounts of information quickly — all the while honestly believing we can make a difference.
That, in short, is Generation Y’s greatest asset: We are a group of experience-driven individuals who see ourselves as capable of changing the world.
Harnessing this talent is, I believe, the challenge before our industry.
About the author: Ryan Hanson
Ryan Hanson is an award-winning event producer based in Minneapolis.
Contact: ryan@beeventsdesign.com