In what has become a 20SM tradition; the first podcast of the year, I dedicate to resolutions and some words to live by in 2008.

Referenced Links:

• OwenBloggers

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Technorati Tags: Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, resolutions, Vanderbilt

The basic premise of the article is that youth in this country are sometimes forced into very specific age roles and, as you can imagine, this piqued my interest.

As we’ve seen, particularly with 20-somethings, as the soon as you put someone in a box, they are going to fight to get out. As you can expect, the article brought out some interesting comments from WaPo readers.

Regardless of what you think of him, however, you have to give Alex some serious credit for building an incredible organization. A very insightful 20-something following his dreams and his passion; we should all be so lucky.

Also, to get more information on the National Youth Rights Association – Goto www.youthrights.org

Technorati Tags: Alex Koroknay-Palicz, NYRA, washington post

Ok, “avoid” may be an overstatement. Ok, I’ll admit that as I was writing this post, I checked my facebook wall at least three times.

It’s not that I don’t like my birthday, it just always seems to come at the most annoying times. Grad school has tempered my expectations of just about everything now-a-days.

For instance, I could be doing a lot of things today but the act that is bringing me the most pleasure is the completion of a marketing research focus group analysis. As long as I am procrastinating however, let’s see if I can’t ping out a couple of the things I learned when I was 26….Click Here To Read More >>

Technorati Tags: birthdays

The buyer arrived at my apartment, knowing full well what I was asking for the desk, and proceeded to haggle with me over the price. She first claimed that I posted it for less than I was asking for in person. She then proceeded to list off every scratch on the desk (which there were very few of) and why they entitled her to a lower price.

Even when I did capitulate to a price that would make it affordable to even the most broke 20-something, she reached into her wallet and was “stunned” to see she only had cash to pay me $5 less than what we agreed to.

Long story short – I was in a hurry, I didn’t feel like re-listing the damn thing and I accepted what cash she had on her. The experience 1) left me glad I had sold the last item in my apartment and wouldn’t need to return to CL again and 2) realizing that some people tips on haggling:

1) Respect each other’s time.

Buyers, the sellers don’t have patience or the responsibility to explain market economics to you so if you show up at their door, expect to spend no more than 20 minutes there.

2) Damage can entitle you to a price break, but don’t push it.

As my grandfather says, “there are always three distinct prices to something; the price the buyer wants, the price the seller wants and the price that they are going to eventually settle on.” If the seller is kind enough to let you come into their home and view the object, expect to pay at least 80% of the asking price if its within the description you read.

3) Read the bloody description.

Before you e-mail the person, go over the description of the item with a fine-tooth comb. If the description is unclear, ask questions. Sellers are always going to be ready to answer the questions if they really want to sell the item.

4) Beware of “craigslist karma.”

Realize that even in the online marketplace, you reap what you sow. For instance, you may never had thought to ask what the seller kept in the desk drawer before you bought it….{insert evil laugh here}.

I don’t know why, but there is something about this morning that warrants a really deep shout-out to all hard-working 20-something professionals.

Personally, this week has been fairly intense and the one thing I have found about writing this blog is that this kind of intensity is usually felt across the board (think a kind of collective karma only for creative/ambitious types). Combine that with a larger-than-average workload, some introspection on my part and you have the need to draw something real out of all of the noise that surrounds us.

Last night, I sat down and tried to write something about how someone could be so busy and yet feel like they have done so little.

Perhaps this is a signal of my attempts to bring the show around to pay some attention to “the intellectual head space of marketing” over the next week or so. It also may be a result of considering a statement that I have made earlier about balancing who you are, genuinely and the pressure to edit yourself to become someone that can be adaptive and successful, professionally.

Here’s what I came up with…

If the bravest thing you’ll ever be is yourself, what is the smartest thing you’ll ever be?

There is a lot out there to answer that question but it’s the kind of statement too interesting to keep to myself. What do you think? If we are to stay true to what we think is unique about ourselves, how do we balance that with what it takes to be a successful relationship-builder within a professional space?

I’ll post some of my own thoughts later but for now – let’s hear what you think. If you don’t feel comfortable posting it online – send it to me via e-mail and I can combine it in an anonymous listing with things I’ll collect from my friends.

The once exception is when co-workers with very narrow frames of reference refuse to even consider trying to meet me half way in a conversation.

Again, I understand that we may be coming from different places, conceptually. I also understand it is my job as a marketer to adjust my own style based on that but for crying out loud, at least try to follow the very basic trail of intellectual bread crumbs I leave out for you in a conversation.

I just spent 25 minutes talking with a co-worker about how they should respond to client feedback based on a piece of market research I was setting up. To me, the process was simple and the trigger was straightforward. Some reason though, I still found myself back-tracking in the conversation trying to figure out what part of “once you get the response e-mail” they didn’t understand.

If you decide to ask for advice, do yourself a favor and at least attempt to keep up with the conversation. Barring that, please understand that it’s not always a case of talking over your head – sometimes your head is just in a hole!

I once scoffed at that idea but now that I am back from an interesting AMA Seminar on building better work relationships, I am prompted to reconsider that statement. In fact, it’s tough for me to admit but one major truth I realized is that to be really successful, you need to be more than good at what you do, you need to play the popularity game as well.

To be continued…

Show Notes:
I) Sherpa Update, Audience Growth Update
II) Fleishman Hillard’s Out Front Survey
III) Game Plan: Luck & Life in Atlantic City

Referenced Links:
Dousing the Flames at Fleishman-Hillard
Marketing Diner Podcast – New Episode This Week
20SMF Skypecast – Get in on next week’s show LIVE!

Next Week’s Show:
20-Something Marketing Skypecast
Wednesday, July 5th
9:30 EST / 6:30 PST
Click Here For More Information

Podcast:

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Today, online publishing like blogs and podcasts have completely changed the game.  Those same recruiters (and now even love interests) now have literally reams of unvarnished testimonial about what we really think and that, sometimes, can be a problem.

Just like products often have long tails in adoption our content that we produce now, sometimes in the heat of the moment, can still be picked up long afterwards.  For instance, I like to blog about my hatred of Starshmucks.  The danger with that is who knows when I might get into a situation when a recruiter might think those comments are childish and inflammatory, disregarding their context?

My point is this; sometimes we are so quick to prove ourselves that we disregard that long tail of content.  Remember that what you put out there now is probably still out there years from now.

Show Notes:
I) Ticking off Tourists
II) The 20-Something Rules of Change
III) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Alcoholic Beverages
IV) Game Plan: How To Not Get Fired

Podcast:

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In roughly 3 years of working full-time professionally and at least 2 years prior to that part-time, I’ve met resistance in just about as many forms as possible. I have been discounted because of my appearance, walled-off by indifference to change, and ostracized because of my ambitions. I play to win. I don’t, and can’t, hide that.

When someone hires me to do a job, I have one directive that’s my own – leave a place better than I found it. I will keep every other direction that you give me but frankly I am not content to wallow in my own mediocrity and neither should you as my co-worker, boss, or friend.

As the newest generation enters the workforce, I feel like there is a growing tension between the ages. Once content to withstand the yolk of entry-level doldrums, the workers that are now emerging are eager to stretch their legs and apply ever–evolving tactics to age-old problems.

We were the generation inspired by “Doogie Howser, MD” and the tech-savvy boom brought on by Generation-X. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a manager of someone like this; cringing like Jerry Seinfeld hearing Newman is coming down the corridor at the prospect of keeping one of us under control.

In the same way, we are also the generation of spell-check, snood, and the 5-second attention span. Ritalin was just a drug before we came along. We made it a lifestyle. It’s no wonder that if you want something big, you call us. If you want something done right – ask someone still on a first cup of coffee.

I picked up a book last week (ok, so I didn’t go to the store…I got it on Amazon) on Millennialas, the proper name of this workplace terror. It describes the newest generation of workers as the “next, great generation.” This moniker is of course derived from the WWII generation. They gave their lives and their livelihoods to wipe a great evil off the face of the planet.

Do we really deserve to be the ones that follow in their footsteps? Are the feats we are going to achieve going to be that great?

Our predecessors can only make that determination. I can say one thing for certain, though; if it’s going to happen, it’s going to be because we embrace our reality more than simply our potential.

It’s not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be willing to embrace the faults as well as the strengths and figure out how to profit from both. I’ll leave the rest for fate but I will leave this thought off with one story:

In high school I worked for a small bagel shop. About 6 months in, the manager made me a shift manager. This was my first promotion ever and so I was very excited. I got the keys to the store, my own security pass code to the register system, and the responsibility of the weekend operations of the store.

Another 6 months passed and we got a new manager. This one was 180 degrees opposite from the old one. She promptly demoted me and handed the reigns of the weekend operation over the head baker who was about 15 years older than I was. After a few missed shifts and middle-of-the-night calls to her to open the shop in the baker’s absence, I asked her “Why won’t you trust me with this shift? You know I can do it and I am as reliable as any other staff member we have and at least twice as eager.”

Her reply was something that still sticks with me today; “If you want to be a manager, you better well damn start acting like it.” This struck me just because as long as I had the keys and the skills, I didn’t think anything else was necessary.

As a generation, we have the skills – its time to earn the keys. If we want them, we better damn well start acting like it.

Show Notes:
I) What did you do to the host?
II) Entrepreneurs
III) The Spector of Real Life