Albert, I see your point and am sorry if you believe I have painted your generation (again?) with a broad brush. I did not set out to bash your generation, in fact, the story idea came from two of my colleagues, both under 27 years old.

I appreciate your opinion. Incidentally, the Beatles were before my time.

Maria

While I did appreciate the response, shockingly, I wrote a long clarifying email.

Hello Maria:

I appreciate your response and sorry for my own delayed one.

Perhaps it is unintentional, but I don’t think it’s difficult to see where I (and many other more silent individuals my age) might take offense. I will concede that we are a little hypersensitive — there are a whole lot of books, web sites, consultants and “experts” who seem to feel the need to proclaim something profound about our generation, much of it negative. This sensitivity is especially true for our generation of men, who seem to be written off as parents’-basement-dwelling slackers who, as you quote, seem to be suffering from a “failure to launch”. Is it really that extreme to think that a title like For some 20-somethings, growing up is hard to do might arouse some suspicion that it’s not an article that reflects well on Gen Y?

As for the Modern weddings a social conundrum article, I concur that social media platforms do complicate the wedding scenario, an event that is already a minefield. It just seems so foreign to me that anyone would be offended by a lack of wedding invitation from anyone other than the closest of friends. Facebook is not a great indicator of friendship regardless of the connection terminology (and, for the record, Twitter is about “followers”, not “friends”), as demonstrated by my nearly 640 friends. While I do have a more-than-just-hello-in-the-hall relationship with each person in that group, few would expect to attend my own theoretical nuptials. I’m not discrediting the premise, I just think that you could easily focus on technology and its challenges versus an age group.

Finally, it is good to know that the idea came from a couple of individuals who are within the age range of the group about which you’re writing. However, I don’t think that’s justification for two articles that aren’t particularly accurate (for instance, I would equate that defense with me feeling free to use the word “faggot” anytime I want because I have gay friends).

There are plenty of examples of people who are around my age and are doing extraordinary things. I would have no problem saying that individuals of my generation are incredibly talented and have already accomplished a great deal in our short lives (we wouldn’t have Facebook to complain about if a college kid in a dorm room hadn’t invented it). Here in Pittsburgh, we have so many examples of 20-somethings who have tried to change their own little piece of the world (the P-G’s own Annie Tubbs does a great job of this in her Right Here series). I suggest taking a look at Brazen Careerist to find a group of like-minded Gen Yers who are doing what they can to make an impact. My generation has plenty of warts, but we’re a whole lot better off than we’re credited.

Thank you again for your time.

Regards,
Albert

My only regret in my response is a missing P.S. — I don’t believe that the Beatles are before anybody’s time.

Dear Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editors:

I’m writing because I’m a 20-something and just can’t take it anymore. The “young people need to grow up” articles just have to stop.

On April 14th, 2010, Maria Sciullo wrote an out-of-touch, connect-the-dots-that-aren’t-there article entitled For Gen X men, seems growing up is hard to do, re-titled on the web as For some 20-somethings, growing up is hard to do, an adjustment that was likely made because she seems to have confused Gen X for Gen Y. In addition to being factually incorrect, Ms. Sciullo makes a leap of Grand Canyon proportions — from Ben Roethlisberger’s abhorrent behavior as a $102 million Super Bowl-winning quarterback to the behavior of the average 20-something male who’s making his way in society. Somehow, she brings the boomers into the fray as well, suggesting that the 50-to-65-year-olds who feel a decade younger than their age is a celebration of immaturity. Add a heaping helping of Tiger Woods, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Sandler, along with quotes from authors and experts, and you have the perfect example of a “the kids aren’t alright” hit piece, even if it veered off course for a moment to mention the generation who sang the Beatles’ When I’m Sixty-Four at the top of their pot-smoke-filled lungs.

I wrote a lengthy letter to the editor then, but never quite nailed the tone, so it sat in my “Drafts” folder for a few months. I forgot about it. Until today.

Maria Sciullo is back today with an article entitled Modern weddings a social conundrum. She mentions that there are many people who are upset about being left off the 400-person guest list for the Chelsea Clinton, which is undoubtedly true and has been covered extensively by the New York Times, Washington Post, and other publications that often cover well-connected, politically-oriented, elitist whiners. However, Ms. Sciullo once again makes a leap even Evel Knievel wouldn’t attempt, going from the multi-million-dollar wedding of the former first daughter to the average couple who happens to share details about their nuptials on Facebook/online. She uses the word “friends” in quotes when referencing the connections made on Facebook and Twitter, and goes on to talk about how rude it is to make all of these people feel left off a wedding guest list. There is another round of quotes from authors and experts that reinforce her view that, again, us kids aren’t alright. At least she spared the baby boomers this time.

It seems that Ms. Sciullo’s opinion of Generation Y is as follows: we’re a bunch of immature social media addicts who just don’t understand basic common courtesy, offending our Facebook/Twitter connections left and right with our need to tell the world about every minute detail about your lives. The repeated publication of articles like this (I once had an email argument with Bill Toland regarding an article he wrote in his The Diaspora Report series that had a similar tone) suggests that this isn’t simply the opinion of one reporter, but something a bit more pervasive throughout the culture of the newspaper. To put it kindly, this again shows that the Post-Gazette is hopelessly out of touch.

I’m more than willing to help you understand the culture of being a 20-something in our modern world (my contact information is below). However, if you prefer an example from another columnist, I suggest reading The Kids Are Alright by the New York Times’ Gail Collins, who covers the exact same topic as Ms. Sciullo’s article, but comes to a much different conclusion.

Thank you for your time and I hope you take this to heart. I will be publishing this letter on my blog (http://blog.ciuksza.com) and will be sharing it with my “friends” on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I will be interested to hear their reactions.

Best regards,
Albert Ciuksza Jr.

P.S. My reference to the Beatles and Evel Knievel was intentional — unlike your disinterest in better understanding my generation, I have a love for the cultures of my older cousins, parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents. I wanted to make sure I made connections we could both understand.

It looks like confetti!

I threatened you that tampons would be my first women’s marketing post. Might as well go big or go home, right? Why not tackle one of the things us men are most challenged in discussing on the first go ’round?

So, I’ve been particularly fascinated by U by Kotex since encountering it in the health and beauty section of Target. It was featured on an endcap (I’m particularly obsessed with the endcaps at Target, which often feature some amazing clearance items). The black box with the big ‘U’ and color contrast was a particular draw, having no clue on first sight as to what it was. I saw the Kotex brand, tilted my head, furrowed by brow and said “Really?” out loud, drawing the attention of a couple of women in the section (awkward). Since then, I’ve seen these boxes everywhere where feminine hygiene products are sold, as they’re being displayed in very prominent store placements. At this point, the guy-freaked-out-by-the-monthly-cycle-that-shall-not-be-named was bested by my marketing mind.

Wow, that's boring, even for me.

The next natural progression was to take a stroll down the feminine hygiene aisle, where I found some fascinating packaging (see above). There’s really nothing to distinguish a brand — category leader Tampax is at the top (I noticed that the logo had been changed since the one on the box used by my mom to store batteries in the closet as a kid — Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!), positioned next to the store brand that has a very similar scheme (the usual tactic when a company wants to sell their higher-margin private label and have it be compared to the market leader), with a bunch of indistinguishable pink and baby blue boxes. Playtex Sport stood out because the women on the box were depicted as having an absolute blast while on their period, contradicting the behavior of every one of my ex-girlfriends while in a similar state. Perhaps the most interesting was Kotex — not only was it on the bottom shelf (retail products and Tequila have a similar rule when it comes to placement on the shelving hierarchy), but it had a generic box design with red flowers. Not sure exactly what subliminal message the flower was supposed to send, but, even in my open-mindedness, I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about it. Kotex obviously figured out that, well, its brand sucked.

Speaking with a friend of mine about the subject, she said that she goes to the aisle, grabs a box of the tampons to which she’s been brand loyal since her first period, and vacates the premises as quickly as possible. “I HATED it when they changed the box on me, because it made me stay there longer than I wanted to”, she complained. So, maybe that was exactly the point in the package design and positioning — keep it simple for women bothered by the experience and help them get the hell out of there.

Something in the company’s research said that there was a major branding gap, specifically in the younger Gen Y set. These young women don’t WANT to be bothered by the experience or afraid of a tampon falling out when they open their purses. I’m sure that Kotex realized that this cohort is not yet brand loyal and, based both on what was likely a combination of focus groups, survey research and generational strategy, the company decided to take the plunge on a totally different way to position a commodity product. The result is a stunning display of packaging (a deep black box [did you see any bold colors on the retail rack above?] with a peek at the contents, which feature bright colors) and, later, a social movement.

I decided to see if there was more to this strategy and came upon the U by Kotex website (http://www.ubykotex.com/) and was shocked by the design. This wasn’t pretty-in-pink, but rather a very contemporary look that you’d likely see at a high-end retailer’s site. A few features:

• There is a black menu bar at the top, but the attention is drawn (once the flash-based site is loaded) to the four main links at the bottom, entitled: Challenge the Norm; School Yourself; Take Better Care; and Join the Cause. What? Wait, what cause? Challenge what norm? What a great way to get someone to stick to the site.
• A slide show starts, highlighting statements by young women (my guess is a target of 14-to-22 years old) that express embarrassment (“My mom blabbed to everyone when I got my period. So embarrassing!!”) or contempt (“Cartwheels are the last thing I’d ever do on my period”) on a backdrop of images of various young women (none show their faces in their entirety). With these quotes appeared some data points about tampons, one of which reminded me of my aforementioned friend — 85% of women are afraid to be seen with a tampon. A few others struck me — if this is unbiased research, there was obviously a glaring opportunity that the other companies clearly missed.
• There’s a Facebook Connect button at the top, along with a “sign in” link. That’s only the beginning of the social integration of the site. Each section takes its shots at the traditional thinking about tampons and periods, with spoof ads, the ability to tag bad ads, make comments and take polls and, boldly, “take back the conversation”.  There is an educational section (“get advice from a doctor, mom and peer”) that has videos that answer questions from whether tampons hurt to the history of these types of products. (Note: Facebook now knows I’m interested in U by Kotex. Maybe it’s time to revisit the privacy settings.)
• Videos (www.youtube.com/ubykotex) that feature social experiments that challenge these norms! Pictures that make fun of traditional ads to which you can add your own captions (my personal favorite is a picture of a woman doing cartwheels in a field with the caption, “Forget blood, grass stains suck.”)! All in a fun, interactive format.
• The the kicker of the campaign is “Join the cause”. This area of the site boldly calls women to action, declaring, “Let’s stand together in the mission to help girls everywhere feel better about their bodies and their periods.” The site also shows 5,874 girls have joined the cause. Sign the declaration (below) and Kotex will donate a dollar to support social change through Girls for a Change, a non-profit that “empowers girls to create social change”. Finally, throughout the site, there are statements telling women to Break the Cycle (almost 1,000,000 have committed to break said cycle as announced by the brand ambassador on Twitter, @JordanGetsReal, who, in an unrelated note, is cute), perhaps one of the most awesome applications of double entendre I’ve ever seen in branding.

I don't think John Hancock will be signing this anytime soon.

Guess what? Gen Y loves social change. Gen Y loves being part of the conversation. Gen Y loves sharing its opinion. Gen Y has decided to change girl power, too. This isn’t about women, this is about YOUNG women. And these women can change the world, 28 days at a time. And, dammit, U by Kotex wants to let you know that Gen Y is going to take on this mission and change the way girls think about their periods, one profitable box of cotton-stuffed neon-colored cardboard tubing at a time.

I admire Kotex for this move. It’s obviously a departure from their red-flowered branding and it looks like a really great way to build brand loyalty with the largest generation. As with many things Gen Y, there’s a tendency for us to shed social norms and what better norm to shed than something that is totally natural and a part of nearly every woman’s life? Gen Y is also ridiculously brand aware and, based on my incredibly unscientific survey of my female friends, there’s never a deviation from the brand of tampon they’ve used all their lives. I can’t imagine that young women have anything but respect/interest in this branding campaign and I’ll love to see what happens to their sales as a result. And, maybe the branding is already working — they’ve gotten a guy to talk about it on his blog. Minus the “celebrate my body…” and “respect my vagina…” lines, maybe I should be signing the declaration too.

P.S. – The Australian version of the brand and site is totally different. I might take a look at that and do a compare/contrast in the future.

Trust model stolen from Paul English

In my forever-ago last post, I talked about personal branding and reputation, but realized that I might have missed the point. In all the conversations taking place online, from marketing, ‘personal branding’ and credibility to religion and politics, trust seems to be at the core of what everyone is talking about. How do we build trust? How do we keep people from thinking us untrustworthy? Who deserves our trust in the first place?

A friend and I were having a couple of beers post-finals and got to the question of trust. We came to the conclusion that trust is in crisis: the Catholic Church is waging a battle for survival as a result of a sexual abuse scandal that might point to the Pope himself; a movement of vocal activists are declaring their distrust of government, accusing it of attempting to become a socialist state; and banks are being charged with fraud for purposefully selling investors funds that were specifically designed to fail.

This wouldn’t be such an issue except that we’re built to trust, we need to trust. We don’t have the energy to evaluate all of the things in our life every day, so we find those cornerstones that we can lean on. When those things crumble, we have to find something new. We’re now forced to evaluate everything in our lives for trustworthiness and are incredibly quick to pull the trigger on the least hint that it is being violated. This isn’t healthy but we’ve been given little other choice.

This article by Pete Blackshaw in Advertising Age speaks well to the current challenges facing marketers attempting to build trust. He mentions the study showing that peer-to-peer trust is down significantly as a chilling reminder that we’re not even trusting our friends’ opinions anymore. And why should we — a recent study that I can’t seem to track down concluded that Gen Yers work very hard to manage their online presence to show their ideal selves (pictures attending parties vs. winning 1st place at math camp). Perhaps the best point he makes is that we have many more questions than answers.

My personal theory on trust was well summarized by Dave Popelka from Mullen Advertising, who wrote a great article about striving to be good rather than the best. He talks about the challenges and pitfalls of measuring your business (or, as I think about it, yourself) against others and suggests that shooting for “good” is the best approach. In my world, this means being good, being consistent and doing as much as possible to avoid our human tendency to pass blame to others when I’ve failed.

Overall, I see trust as an incredibly personal thing. Attempting to manipulate people’s perceptions of you lowers that trust, makes the relationship (be it you or your products) superficial and renders already fragile brand loyalty null and void. However, I still don’t see this as an answer, but rather the beginning of a series of questions that helps us to figure out what trust means to us and how we allocate it to the people, companies and brands we interact with.

While my answer was pretty short (you can read it here), I didn’t come to it easily. It has been a hard year for learning tough lessons and I can’t say that I’m happy about some of the situations I encountered. As I thought about the last year, I kept reliving some of the individual frustrations that made it difficult. I’ll admit that I also got into a bit of a “poor me” mood, rehashing mistakes and reliving decisions that, while not wrong, I might have made differently with the benefit of hindsight.

However, as I started looking at 2009 in total, I realized that I had made some considerable strides, all in the shadow of a horrible economy. I chastised myself a little bit for the woe-is-me attitude and realized that the year was actually one of the greatest opportunities for learning I’ve ever had. In addition, I got to go through these challenges while remaining gainfully employed and with the support of friends and family.

Maybe you’re a Gen Yer, maybe you’re not, but for what are you thankful in 2009? What has made this year an important one for you? What challenges and opportunities helped you grow?

AlphaLab Logo

Instead of a summary of each company (Alan Veeck ( @aveeck ) at Meakem Becker Venture Capital and author of Pittsburgh Ventures blog did a fantastic live blog roundup of the companies here), I’d like to toss out some gut reactions to the companies, presentations and the feel of the environment overall.

• In monitoring local media, it seems like there has been a lot of funding activity in the region recently, from early stage angel investments to larger acquisitions of Pittsburgh-based startups. That feeling of optimism was present at the event today as well, and from the folks I was able to speak with, there might be more good news coming down the pike.
• It was great to hear about some of the success stories coming out of AlphaLab. One of my personal favorites is a company called The Resumator, led by Don Charlton ( @TheResumator). They’ve gotten some serious press and some seed funding post-AlphaLab, which is helping them to expand their feature set.
• Social is everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. It’s hard not to get sick of hearing about it, but it really doesn’t make it any less important. I’m reminded of when everyone was talking about the internet being game-changer in the late 90′s-to-early-’00s — while it was so annoying to hear, the folks saying it were absolutely right.
• The actual design of the various PowerPoint presentations was pretty good. I know it sounds superficial, but a stylish presentation makes a company look much more “together”. Great job, everyone.
• Loved the presentation by Nick Pinkston, CEO of CloudFab ( @cloudfab). I continue to believe that storytelling and metaphor are the best way to connect with an audience, and I think Nick did a very good job of doing just that. Speaking with him afterward (both about his company and about using his technology to develop some components for a project on which I’m working), it was evident that he sees this as a product customization revolution rather than simply a sourcing opportunity. I love the vision.
• Fooala has developed a site called CollegeBite ( @collegebite), a very cool open ordering platform that enables restaurants to create/expand an online presence using mobile and the web. One of the things I loved about it is that I’ve already used the site! While the presentation was a bit difficult to follow at times, I did find the team to be very, very strong. Finally, they’re classic Gen Yers –  smart, mobile, experienced, passionate, hungry and making a difference. Two of the guys are from Duke, one of whom met one of the CMU founders while in Sydney, Australia. What a story.
• Brian at NavPrescience has a compelling pitch — a software package that is integrated into GPS functionality that learns your driving habits and adjusts routing and point-of-interest suggestions accordingly. One of my favorite lines of the day was Brian’s deadpan delivery of “[GPS] devices are pretty stupid”, referring to the dictionary definition of  “slow to learn and understand”. As a recent owner of a BlackBerry Tour with GPS capability, I’ve found how dead wrong TeleNav can be with even the simplest of directions (he cited that only 35% of GPS routes are actually ‘fastest’, confirming my experience). Brian’s use of a scenario in his presentation (there’s that storytelling again) was very engaging. Things that I disliked are mostly brand-oriented — I’m not a fan of the name (I keep wanting to say NavPresence and the word ‘prescience’ is a bit SATish) and the logo is a rough (use of Verdana, complicated design and the invocation of magic when the system is built on three years of solid R&D at CMU). I know that the company isn’t looking to sell to consumers, but it’s still something that could be improved.

While it’s a tough time for everyone in this economy, I’m really optimistic about the entrepreneurial community here in Pittsburgh. Being named the second-best place to start a small business in the U.S. doesn’t hurt, either. All-in-all, I have to commend AlphaLab Class #3 on a job well done.

This presents an interesting challenge for Gen Y. What once appeared to be a fast-track to positions of authority as older workers retire is a now fierce competition for available jobs, a fight that pits early-career professionals with much more experienced counterparts. For Gen Yers lucky enough to have a job, the opportunity to move up and contribute to meaningful projects  (identified by Herb Sendek and Buddy Hobart in Gen Y Now to be one of the major needs of Gen Y workers) has decreased considerably.

The challenge, as Hobart and Sendek identify in the book, is leadership. Many Baby Boomer and Generation X managers have negative perceptions of Gen Y, which lead to managerial decisions that hurt everyone, i.e. the manager doesn’t get out of the employee what he or she needs and the Gen Y worker in turn doesn’t get the fulfillment/experience that they are looking for. The inevitable consequence is that the Gen Y worker “checks out” and eventually moves on. This situation is often blamed on the Gen Y worker (they’re lazy, they’re entitled, they don’t try to fit in, they’re babied, they’re spoiled, they’re not willing to ‘put in their time’) as opposed to the individuals who are leading them. For both short- and long-term results, organizations simply can’t function this way and hope to be competitive in attracting/retaining talent.

However, where larger organizations might falter in assimilating Gen Y talent, start ups and smaller entrepreneurial companies can thrive. There are several reasons:

• Gen Y’s skill set in technology, communication, information-gathering and well-rounded thinking make them ideal employees for startups that need people who can do more than one thing well in order to survive.
• Gen Yers prefer flat organizations with an open communication structure, and rarely feel uncomfortable expressing concerns. This makes it much easier to get candid intelligence regarding business/operational challenges, which can positively impact executive decision-making.
• Gen Y thrives on feedback. In a startup environment, feedback is impossible to avoid, since projects often have immediate results, including the trend line of revenue. Combined with honest, constructive personal feedback, a Gen Y worker will know exactly where they stand.
• Gen Y feels a need to be working for an organization that aligns with their values. Passion for their work and the quality of work-life will often allow smaller companies with low HR budgets to attract top-flight Gen Y talent.
• Gen Y knows technology. While this is often dismissed as a given, many leaders don’t quite understand the kind of impact this can have on operational effectiveness. My own experience has reflected this — by creating a spreadsheet in Excel using some of the lesser-used functions, I was able to cut the time it took our operational managers to complete payroll from four hours to 30 minutes, while also reducing entry errors. These seemingly small pieces of knowledge can often impact some of the less-visible operational efficiencies.

The challenge for startup leaders is to have a broad understanding of the type of leadership style that best works with this generation. Despite common myths, Gen Y (as a whole) isn’t looking to become a CEO tomorrow — they just want the opportunity to make a difference in their organizations, even in more support-oriented roles. However, Gen Y’s comfort with expressing opinions and taking charge can be unnerving even for the most open-minded leaders. By understanding the strengths (and weaknesses) of this generation — and a continued commitment to developing this talent — a start up executive can accomplish a great deal with fewer resources, a must-have for any company that trying to prove itself in the marketplace.