Sep 25, 2017 The next generation gives us data points into what's next. Understanding who is Generation Z provides the necessary data to influence how. Apr 18, 2017 Moved by these and other events, adult Baby Boomers challenged and rejected the very institutions and values that provided security for them while growing up. Generation X: As its name reflects, Generation X (born 1965 to 1976) members lacked a sense of connection with the world around them as they came of age. They grew up in the midst of.
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While 2008 has turned out to be quite an eventful year in tech, there were 20 key events that stood out and got people talking for days if not weeks after the moment had passed.
From the rise of major products and services to history making events, take a walk with us down memory lane as we revisit the moments, some better than others, that got all of us talking throughout the year.
Have more to add? Tell us in the comments!
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Presidential Election - The Internet played a large part in the 2008 US Presidential election. From President Elect Barack Obama's fund raising to his decision to post his weekly address on YouTube, you can easily call this the first election that the Internet played more than a passing roll in.
Data Portability - Users of social networks have been in a minor war with their social overlords over who really owns their data. Slowly the users are winning; MySpace Data Availability came about in May, and one day later we learned about Facebook Connect. Not to be outdone, Google came out a few days after that with Friend Connect, which works with any website via just a couple lines of code. We went from lots of walled gardens to suddenly everyone sharing the love.
Application Platforms - Applications, applications, applications. Just about everywhere you turned this year there was some new 'application platform' launching or growing. Though Facebook got the jump by launching its platform in May of 2007, it was almost like they set off a whole new frenzy with 'application' as the new buzz word. MySpace Applications came about in March, the Apple App Store was in July, and who knows what else will be coming down the pike in 2009.
Key Events That Shaped Each Generation 10
Apple App Store - Apple launched the App Store in July for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the race was on as everyone tried to port their sites and services onto the popular gadgets. Just five months later and they have served millions of applications and have surpassed over 10,000 available applications, it looks like there is no sign of them slowing down.
Citizen Journalism - While citizen journalism has been around for a while now, it really took off with the introduction of services such as CNN's iReport and CBS EyeMobile showing up on the iPhone. Even Twitter turned into a bit of an ad hoc citizen journalism network as users broke stories the second they happened.
Android - Google was all over the board this year, and launching their own mobile phone OS was no different. The T-Mobile G1 was the first phone out of the gate to feature the new system, and an Android app store wasn't far behind. It may not be as exciting as the Apple App Store, but it is sure to grow with time.
Facebook Redesign - On July 20th of this year, Facebook launched their user profile redesign that had been rumored for ages, in limited release. In September they went wide with the new design, and within five minutes the first user group to demand a reversal to the old design was started. It seems to be settling in with people that this new design is here to stay, but you do still see the occasional rekindling of the redesign hatred.
Economic Downturn - While it's difficult to pin down when everything went wrong, there is no denying the affect the economic downturn has had on the Internet and the companies that inhabit it. We are sure to be feeling this throughout 2009 as venture capitalists pull back on their funding to companies, and everyone looks for ways to survive the economic downturn.
Streaming Television Shows - Hulu had a lot of awesome shows to watch in 2007, but really took off in 2008, and a lot of it was thanks to Saturday Night Live Presidential election sketches. Throughout the rest of the year, online viewership of television shows continued to grow to the point that the BBC extended how long shows would be on iPlayer, and they even recently said that shows would stream at the same time the show aired on regular television.
Rick Rolling - Every time someone declared Rick Rolling to be dead, it seemed to rise up like the mythical Phoenix. No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't kill off this Internet meme, and when Rick Astley ended up in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on the Cartoon Network float to Rick Roll the entire country, you had to wonder if that was truly the end of it. Something seems to be saying that, no, it's still here for a while yet.
Google Chrome - Coming somewhat out of the blue, Google launched the Chrome browser via a comic book announcement. Despite the German security office warning their citizens away from using the browser, Google has still been able to get some people to switch full-time to their program, and it seems to be going nowhere but up.
Video - With services like Qik becoming more readily available, everyone is turning into a video producer. Whether it be video for budding citizen journalists, posting endless streams of videos to YouTube, or streaming video because you're stuck in an airport, it feels like everyone has hopped on board.
Twitter - Twitter felt like it came into its own in 2008. Despite being around for a few years, this year showed explosive growth. More celebrities joined Twitter, members of Motrinmoms got a company to change their advertising and on the flip side, members started advertising with Twittad and the like. In short, what started as a niche way to pass time turned into a major social media tool for just about everyone.
Convergence - Online video is all well and good, but users no longer want to be tied to watching their favorite videos on just the computer itself. Netflix brought their streaming video to devices like the Roku box and the Xbox 360. DivX made it possible to stream files in their codec to your TV via a media streamer, and Joost released an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to watch any of their 46,000+ videos anywhere you have access to Wi-Fi. Online videos crave to be free, and convergence with other devices is how it is happening.
Podcasting - More and more people are getting into podcasting as services like Talkshoe make it as easy as picking up your phone to make one. Companies such as Wizzard Media are showing continued growth each quarter, and seeing as their life blood is podcast distribution, it means it must be growing in some way.
Microhoo - At the end of 2007 we heard the first mutterings of the proposed purchase of Yahoo by Microsoft, and those mutterings quickly turned into a thunderous roar that continued throughout the year. Even when Microsoft said they were officially done with the idea of this purchase, people have continued to bring up rumors of the possibility.
Justin.tv suicide - 19-year-old Abraham K. Biggs committed suicide live on Justin.tv. Though not enough time has passed for us to be able to tell its lasting effects yet, it is almost impossible to think that we won't someday look back at this as a turning point of some kind for the Internet culture.
Old Media/Death of Print Media - Just about everyone and their horse is saying that old media is in its death throes. Mashable contributor Alana Taylor dared to take on NYU's journalism program and ended up becoming part of a larger story on the web. Add in stories like the Christian Science Monitor going online only, and there's no doubt that old media and new media are most certainly on a collision course, and it isn't looking good for the old printed format.
Firefox 3 - After what seemed like an endless wait, on June 17th Mozilla released Firefox 3 final on the world. They were so determined to break the record for the number of downloads in one day that there were multiple tools to track the progress of the Firefox downloads. They did meet their goal despite having site problems throughout the day due to traffic.
Sarah Lacy - Sarah Lacy was mainly known for her work at Businessweek until that fateful day at SXSW where her interview of Mark Zuckerberg turned into a revolt. Twitter turned into a virtual lynch mob, and Ms. Lacy was quick to blame a lack of innovation at SXSW for the attitudes. Whatever the cause was, it was fascinating to watch the sea of hate on Twitter grow into a virtual tsunami in a matter of moments.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Rellas
Geography significantly influences the formation of generational beliefs and behavior. Each country’s unique social, political, and economic events shape specific views and attitudes among today’s adults. Western generational models cannot be applied broadly to a global workforce.
My latest research builds on an approach of understanding the generations by looking at the shared formative events that shaped their early years. We did in-depth research into the events occurring in each country during the time each generational cohort would have been in their teens and pre-teens. Understanding these events is critical because many of our most powerful and lasting beliefs are formed when we are teenagers. What we see and hear — and the conclusions we draw — influence for our lifetimes what we value, how we measure success, whom we trust, and the priorities we set for our own lives, including the role work will play within them.
This research, confirmed through personal interviews, highlights the logic of each generation’s response to work and life today, encouraging acceptance and appreciation of the different lenses through which individuals view events. We focused on the generations in eight countries, including the four BRIC nations, some of the most important markets for talent over the next decade, as well as one country from the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). We also examined two European countries, the U.K. and Germany, representing the two opposing sides in World War II; the generations shaped by events after the war in these two countries have significantly different characteristics. In each country, we studied four age cohorts. To allow comparisons across the geographies, we held consistent age spans and generational names.
Highlights from this research
National circumstances heavily influenced the development of Traditionalists (born from 1928 to 1945) and Boomers (born from 1946 to 1960).
Key Events That Shaped Each Generation Lyrics
Traditionalists around much of the world shared the experience of becoming teens in the midst of major, in some cases cataclysmic, changes in their local environment. For many, the defining event was World War II. The conditions of the post-war world encouraged the abandonment of colonial policies and the emergence of new states, among them India. China ended its long civil war, and transformed into the Communist People’s Republic of China. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was in its infancy, having just been formed through the consolidation of the local tribes in the Arabian Peninsula. Brazil was ruled by a dictator.
Perhaps the factor shared most widely by Boomers around the world is simply the sheer size of the cohort. In many parts of the world, birth rates increased during the 1940s and 1950s, producing a large “boom” in the number of adolescents of the 1960s and 1970s. However, within this large cohort, the formative experiences of Boomers differed substantially around the globe.
Both Generation X (born from 1961 to 1979) and Generation Y (born from 1980 to 1995) tend to have more shared characteristics in common than do older generations, but for different reasons. For Generation X, the state of the local economy during their formative years had major implications for their outlook on life today.
Members of Generation Y around the world had the greatest number of shared experiences of any of the generations profiled. Technology, of course, is at the core: in most countries, Y’s have had almost lifelong access to digital technology and, because of that technology, they have developed a shared awareness of many events and a unique always-on connection with one another.
Each country’s unique social, political, and economic events shaped specific views and attitudes among today’s adults. Understanding these country-to-country differences is critical to creating employment deals that attract and retain the best employees in each geographic area.
Understanding individuals’ backgrounds and resultant perspectives or mental models both within generations and across geographies helps leaders grapple with the diversity, challenges, and potential of a global workforce. Better understanding leads to greater empathy for the “other guy’s” point of view and, ultimately, provides the foundation for more effective and efficient talent management practices.
Over the next decade, engaging talent from multiple generations and geographies will be vitally important for business success. As businesses expand, the availability of talent to match this growth will be limited in many areas and skill sets. Almost every company will find it challenging to attract and retain top talent unless they are able to engage individuals of all ages and across multiple geographies.
Key Events That Shaped Each Generation 10
A white paper based on this research is available on my website.
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