Gen Y’s have the perfect attributes for innovation
Just so this is clear, I have no hidden agenda in singing the praises of Generation Y’s. I am a Gen X and my children are Gen Z, or Gen Next or Gen Now, whatever they are called. But I do admire and even envy Gen Y’s and am excited about the difference they will make to society.
In my previous post, I discussed Victor Finkel’s presentation at the Creative Innovation 2011 Conference and the three questions that a typical Gen Y asks employers.
The three questions all start with ‘why’.
Why am I doing this?
Why does it have to be this way? and
Why can’t I cite Wikipedia?
With this mindset they are the perfect people to drive innovation.
Finkel argued that the Gen Y’s ask ‘Why?’ and unlike the baby Boomers who also asked why by defying and rebelling against everything, that Gen Y’s at least listen to the answer!
A previous speaker at the ci2011 conference James Moody talked about waves of innovation and that there have been 5 to date. He explored the fact that each wave ends with a global recession which leads to a new wave of innovation.
So looking at where we are at and feel excited that we are most likely to witness the start of the 6th wave of innovation. Moody believes this will be the ‘Resource Efficiency’ wave were we need to figure out how we live in a world with scarcer resources such as food and water.
If Moody is right and we are at the dawn of a new wave of innovation and we have a generation entering the workforce that have almost been bred for innovation and been told they can achieve whatever they want …imagine what the future will hold.
Exciting or scary? Perhaps a bit of both. But regardless, we should all buckle up for one helluva ride.
Reframing the problem? Let’s drink to that
As an entrepreneur I am fascinated (unhealthily?) by what sparks ideas in other entrepreneurs. Most people would be familiar with wotif,an Australian success story. In 1999, Graeme Wood was a consultant when hotels presented him with their problem of last minute room availability. He saw this as an opportunity and founded wotif to make these rooms available at discounted prices…and now we have a global business.
I was presented with this same ingenuity when listening to Simon Griffiths (pictured) an engineer, economist turned entrepreneur.
Simon knew that biggest bug bearer for ‘not for profits’ and ‘charities’ is fund raising. They constantly have to get us to donate money and we on the other hand suffer from what is described as ‘compassion fatigue’. We are sick of constantly being asked for money or already have hand picked a few causes we support, but feel guilty or resentful and really altruism should make us feel better about ourselves and the world!
Simon then thought about this problem differently and came up with the concept of the ‘consumer philanthropist’. Instead of asking people for money, what if we looked at what they already consume and tap into that? So he set up ‘Shebeen’a non-profit bar in Melbourne. It sells exotic beer and wine from the developing world. The profit from each drink sale supports a development project in that drink’s country of origin. A drink for Kenya? Go for it. Today Shebeen supplies its beer to various venues. But then he hit his next hurdle, not everyone drinks beer and not everyone is happy to drink African beer. So what other consumer product could he tap into? He has now come up with his next venture, called ‘Who Gives A Crap’, which produces toilet paper manufactured entirely from recycled materials. 50% of the profits of this toilet paper will be used to build toilets in the developing world. Ingenious and the name always makes audiences roar with laughter.
Simon’s concept could revolutionise the globe – turning everyday consumers into philanthropists – let’s drink to that.
Milk Crates
This story was from a HR professional who needed to convince her business unit on the growing importance of continually striving to attract and retain good employees (Consultancy company McKinsey & Co, termed this the War for Talent).
“When I was about 14 my Dad took me to the football every week. We would stand in the outer and being smaller than everyone else, I often missed out on seeing the action. One week we decided to bring along an old milk crate we had lying around to stand on. It was great – I was finally ahead of everyone else and could watch the whole game. The next week we brought along the milk crate again but this time we noticed that a few other people had also brought along their milk crates. We were actually a bit impressed that we had started a trend. Unfortunately, within a few months nearly everyone had a milk crate and I was literally back to square one, back with the rest of the pack. My experience at those matches reminds me of what we are trying to achieve with the war for talent. We can’t be happy with starting a trend and taking an early lead, we need to constantly be on the lookout for our next milk crate.”
Comments
This story worked and to add to the impact the narrator actually brought in a milk crate and held it up at the end. This story works for this specific purpose but also has such a wide application. So while her purpose was around the war for talent, this story could easily be about striving for excellence or to capture the concept of continuous improvement.
