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Entries in China (7)

Friday

Feb052010

Generation Real-Time

Originally posted on huffingtonpost.com.

A few years ago I was publicly fretting over the arrival of millennials—young people in the generation after X—in the workplace. I described how these new adults would bring with them a sense of entitlement, a need for constant praise, a habit of multitasking to the point of distraction and even their helicopter parents (HR departments were reporting that parents would call on their children’s behalf).

The millennials would change the way business is done, and not necessarily for the better. “These young people will tell you what time their yoga class is, and the day’s work will be organized around the fact that they have this commitment,” I told “60 Minutes” in 2007. “So you actually envy them. How wonderful it is to be young and have your priorities so clear. Flip side of it is how awful it is to be managing the extension, sort of, of the teenage babysitting pool.”

Two years and a global economic crisis later, I’d like to take a lot of that back.

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February 5, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Brazil,

China,

Euro RSCG Worldwide,

Facebook,

Google,

London,

Obama,

One Young World,

baby boomers,

change,

millennials,

social networks |

How Young People Are Changing the World

Originally posted on huffingtonpost.com.

The opinions of young adults—which today have solidified into values—are not to be ignored. Not only are people in their 20s powerful voices within their communities, but they’re also consumers. These first adults of the millennial generation (roughly, the people born between 1981 and 2000) are bellwethers for a group that’s already estimated to earn more than $200 billion a year, of which they spend about $127 billion in the U.S. alone.

With this generation’s population vastly outstripping that of its predecessors, the baby boomers and Gen Xers, it’s not just spending power but also the ability to influence others that matters, especially as they’re armed with the power of social media and narrowcast communications. While the effusions of the Flower Power generation could have been chalked up to irrelevant ranting, the exhortations of today’s youth—for companies to clean up their acts, for the news media to be independent and for the privatization of public services to stop—are socially significant and underpinned by ethical meaning.

All this makes the results of the Global Youth Study important. The extensive 38-country online survey of 15,844 people ages 23 to 28 was fielded by SurveyShack in association with YouGovStone between July 2008 and December 2009. Its results will feed into the inaugural One Young World summit, a global leadership forum for hundreds of young leaders from the world’s 192 countries taking place in London next week.

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February 4, 2010 | by

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR | | tagged

Brazil,

China,

Europe,

Gen X,

India,

London,

One Young World,

baby boomers,

brands,

change,

media,

millennials |

How Young People Are Changing the World

Originally posted on huffingtonpost.com.

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February 3, 2010 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Brazil,

CSR,

China,

Gen X,

India,

London,

One Young World,

baby boomers,

brands,

change,

economy,

millennials |

Copenhagen: A Missed Opportunity for the Planet

Copenhagen was a failure. Despite going into it with fairly measured expectations, the agreement, or lack of it, is a massive disappointment and a costly missed opportunity for the planet. What we needed from the Copenhagen summit was a global, binding and fair climate agreement, and we came out of it with none of those things.

Key to solving the climate issue is legislation. We have seen around the world how powerful and effective binding legislation can be; look at how we have eradicated CFCs or how smoking is now banned in restaurants and bars in most major cities around the world. However, the agreements reached at the summit are weak, ambiguous and voluntary—being free from any compliance provisions—and they are a long way from binding legislation.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the failure of Copenhagen is the fact that China, the world’s largest polluter, reportedly left the Danish capital happy.

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December 23, 2009 | by

David Jones | | tagged

Africa,

China,

Europe,

London,

Obama,

politics |

Monday

Nov302009

Dusting Off My Crystal Ball

creativecommons.org/by BitterjugIt’s trend season again, and I’ve been working on compiling my top trends for 2010. In doing that, I looked back at my predictions from five, 10 and 15 years ago, and I’ve been struck by all I saw coming (if I do say so myself).

Stay tuned for what to expect in 2010. In the meantime, here are highlights from my forecasts for 2005, 2000 and 1995, along with links to sites that create a virtual report card of how I did.

Trends for 2005, from an article I wrote for The Sunday Times of London. Somehow five years doesn’t feel like such a long time.

The “us and them” mentality—a reaction to terrorism and insecurity—will continue. European politics is set to be dominated by the immigration question. Anti-Americanism will spread.

Gender lines will be redrawn as men reclaim their masculinity. Watch out for predatory, liberated he-men and a new battle of the sexes as males decide they don’t want to be soft metrosexuals anymore.

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November 30, 2009 | by

Marian Salzman | | tagged

Africa,

China,

Europe,

India,

media |