In the compressed timeframe that is the Internet everything seems to move faster, happen sooner. Every time you turn around some new shiny is poking you for your attention or else discussions are raging ad nauseam about how cool this or that new service is. Press coverage is rampant about what all the cool kids are doing on the Internet while the early adopter crowd pimps out which ever new startup catches their eye that day.
It doesn’t matter where you turn whether it be in old media print or new media blogs and other social media but all you seem to be hearing about is this new and upcoming powerhouse called Generation Y. Forget the Baby Boomers they’re so pre Web 1.0 and don’t worry about those Generation X‘ers they are still trying to figure out what Web 2.0 means. Everyone wants to be best friends with all these new shiny social media upstarts that are promising to do away with the old and forever change the world as we know it - once they can figure out how to pay for their shiny new toys.
As quickly as GenY (isn’t that such a cute name tag for a baby generation) might want to do away with us old farts and our supposedly geriatric mental capabilities this might be a good time to point out a few things to these kiddies.
It might be really cool to see all these new services in all their simplified pastel glory being pumped out as part of an almost daily ritual but even as nice as this youthful coding abandon might be most won’t survive. Those that make it past their first TechCrunch‘ing and end up missing the Deadpool realize that at some point that something has to pay for all that Red Bull, comfy chairs and multi-monitor glory. This is when the great VC (Venture Capitalists) merry-go-round begins and new people get added to create the dreaded Board of Directors (BoD) because as cool as being those twenty-something Co-Founders no one will take you seriously without a BoD.
Guess who ends up on those BoD’s?
That’s right - it’s us old farts. It’s those people who have been around the barnyard a few times. It’s those people who know how those boardroom games are played. It’s those people who have made their millions (billions) while GenY was still in their Pampers. When it comes to money whether it be providing it or finding ways to make it it’s us old fogies that get turned to because we have the experience both in real life and in the real business world. It is experience that doesn’t come overnight. It is experience that comes only with having been there and having done that many times. You don’t get to be someone like Fred Wilson or a player like Kliener, Perkins, Caufield and Buyers overnight my young buckeroo’s.
Even in the much ballyhooed tech blogging and social media sectors where everyone seems to think that it’s the young bucks that are making all the waves. Well I hate to destroy all these illusions that these next media moguls might have but have you seen the age of some of the early adopters and bloggers. Sure the majority of these might be young stuff stretching their literary wings but when you look at who is behind some of these power blogs or trend makers you can see that youth isn’t the advantage here.
People like Stowe Boyd, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer and even Michael Arrington didn’t become who they are in the tech and social media field overnight. People like Mathew Ingram, Robert Cringely, Alexander van Elsas and Guy Kawasaki opine the way they do because the have been down this road before. They got where they are because they have a lifetime of experience to draw on which helps them understand things in the full picture sense of the world.
So it’s okay if you young bucks what to play around in the sandbox of the Internet coming up with all the cool and neat ideas - because that is what you are good at. It’s okay if you want to grab all the attention and glory in the spotlight of your 15 seconds of fame (remember time gets compressed on the web) because in the end us old farts now that you will end up coming to us.
Why?
Because we have lifetimes of experience and that my young friend will trump cool when it comes time to pay the bills.
Listening to: Crystal Method - Vegas - Jaded
[tags]social media, blogging, blogs, old media, venture capital
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Your comments seem to be directed at Gen Y when, in reality, the Boomers are helping to create this marketing utopia. Much of Gen Y doesn't have the history or experience to appreciate how trends and fads work; the Boomers know better.
Of course "older" folks are invaluable - you guys have all the passwords, the secret handshakes, and the keys to the corridors of power. ;-)
Differences between generations aren't new, it's only the context that changes.
Written by a disgruntled Gen Xer,
Mark
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