Future Perspective Millennials in Crisis 2011 PDF

Future Perspectives
Millennials in Crisis:
What the Team

Dynamic and the Crisis of
Chrysalis Mean for Marketers
March 29, 2011
Millennials in Crisis:
What the Team

Dynamic and the Crisis of
Chrysalis Mean for Marketers
Introduction
Team is the most misunderstood
word in the lexicon used to describe
Millennials. It is also the most
common and, by far, the most
important.
Much has been written about how
US Millennials have come of age
immersed in teams, but there is no
consensus about what this means
for the future or how it will play
out in the crisis of chrysalis now
confronting this generation.
Growing up in teams is the
distinguishing trait of US Millennials.
For the generation of approximately
76 million young people born
between the late 1970s/early
1980s and the mid-1990s, now in
their late teens to early thirties,
this is the shared experience
demarcating the lines of difference
with other generations. Whatever
else Millennials have experienced
or have been faced with, the
team dynamic has shaped every
encounter. Whether the teams or
groups of others were family or
2
2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.
friends or virtual friends or teachers

or coaches, or a mix of all of them,
Millennials have always traveled
in numbers, never left alone to
anywhere near the extent to which
their often feral Baby Boomer
parents were packed off at an early
age to do their own thing.
Perhaps the most iconic evidence
of the Millennial team dynamic is an
observation frequently heard from
long-time school administrators.
Boomers' parents, they say, dropped
their kids at the door and said
goodbye. Millennials' parents, on the
other hand, show up with their kids
and stick around in such numbers
for meetings and consultations that
schools often run out of rooms to
handle the crowds.
The implications for US Millennials
of coming of age in teams are
hotly debated. On the one hand,
the immersion of Millennials in a
sheltered environment of structured
group activities is said to have
fostered an outward-looking,
collaborative mentality that is

considerate and tolerant of others
as well as protective and nurturing
of communal and civic welfare.
Raised and educated in teams,
Millennials are said to be coming of
age as a federation of individuals
bound by a tacit esprit de corps and
a commitment to consensus. (See,
for example, Millennials Rising: The
Next Great Generation, Neil Howe and
William Strauss, 2000.)
On the other hand, it is argued that
the experience of growing up in
teams has had the paradoxical effect
of making Millennials even more selfabsorbed and self-seeking than their
self-indulgent Baby Boomer parents.
The argument goes that celebrating
the collective also makes each
member of the team feel individually
praised while, at the same time,
doing so undermines the perceived
legitimacy of authorities and teachers
outside the team. Commitment

to community may be nurtured by
teams but is practiced only when
it doesnt interfere with individual
pursuits. Even worse is the worry
that the uncritical bestowing of praise
has left Millennials with unrealistic
expectations and a perilous sense
of entitlement. (See, for example,
Generation Me: Why Todays Young
Americans Are More Confident,
Assertive, Entitled And More
Miserable Than Ever Before, Jean
Twenge, 2006.)
Nowadays, a new dynamic must be
added to the picture. In the midst of
their chrysalis from teens to adults,
the severe economic downturn, with
its sluggish recovery and the potential
lessening of long-term growth,
has blunted the prospects for US
Millennials. Millennials will feel direct
effects on employment and income
as well as indirect effects of increased
vulnerability to other generational

risks like greater levels of childhood
obesity and longer times to complete
the transition to adulthood. The
support provided by teams and
groups of others becomes even more
important in this sort of situation,
although there is no certainty that the
team dynamic, no matter how deeply
ingrained, can survive these kinds
of pressures. If hard times persist, a
dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself
mentality may take over.
Millennials will lose a crucial element
of support if the kinds of teams with
which they have grown up wither. For
example, with Millennials marrying
later and living at home longer, key
decisions about life once discussed
with spouses are now discussed with
circles of friends instead. Parents are
part of the team, though, especially
when it comes to education, the
importance of which is more
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pronounced than ever. The biggest

factor differentiating those who
graduate from college from those
who do not is parental involvement.
Helicopter parents are easy to
caricature, but if theyre not buzzing
around, young people are much
less likely to get the education they
need. In short, for Millennials, teams
not only define whats unique about
their generational starting point,
teams are also the secret to success.
(See, for example, Not Quite Adults:
Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing
a Slower Path to Adulthood, and
Why Its Good for Everyone, Richard
Settersten and Barbara Ray, 2010.)
Other handicaps exacerbate the
disadvantages encumbering
Millennials, such as crushing levels of
college debt, mental health problems
from stress and burnout, and
record levels of childhood obesity.
The challenges facing Millennials
require navigating a landscape
never seen before. They are coming
of age in a time of greater ethnic
diversity, shifting gender balances
in education and work, increasing
numbers of multigenerational
households, a growing disconnection
with religion, an overwhelming
amount of data and information
that is increasingly portable and
ubiquitous, a burgeoning presence
of social networks and the ensuing
ascendancy of social influence, and
resource scarcities that could bring
on new conflicts and limits to growth.
This, then, is the Millennial cocktaila
heady brew of the team dynamic
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and the crisis of chrysalis. This

Future Perspective from The Futures
Company is about these factors and
what they mean for the future of
marketing to Millennials.
In particular, this Future Perspective
addresses the key unanswered
question about Millennials in crisis:
How will US Millennials, raised in
teams and challenged by murky
prospects, redefine success?
The answer to this question will
enable marketers to answer the
more practical commercial question
of what products, benefits and
messages will best match what this
generation defines as the good life.
The bottom line is that
accomplishmentaccumulation,
in particularno longer constitutes
the epitome of success. Millennials
are not repudiating it; indeed, they
continue to want it. But Millennials
are reconstructing accomplishment
to better accommodate other goals
in life, and when accomplishment is
closed off or unreachable, Millennials
still see success in coping. These
two broad dimensions of success
coping and reconstructingare
validated by contextual reference
points of unique relevance to
Millennials.
To explore these issues, this report
is organized into five sections that
build sequentially on one another and
add up to a view about Millennials
that provides planning guidance for
marketers.
Section 1: The Team Dynamic

Clarifying the idea of team and
what it means for Millennials.
Section 2: The Crisis of Chrysalis
Cataloguing what is known
quantitatively about the challenges
facing Millennials, both handicap
facts and crossroads facts.
Section 3: Defining Success
Providing a framework for
understanding how consumers
define success.
Section 4: Redefining Success
Identifying the ways in which
Millennials will modernize the
definition of success, both success
by coping and success by
reconstructing.
Section 5: Marketing Guidance
Specifying what marketers
should do and how best to gauge
performance.
The Futures Company has been
studying generations since the
mid-1960s. The US Yankelovich
MONITOR provides an unparalleled
resource for comparing generations,
especially teasing apart true
generational differences from the
usual things that separate young and
old people. Some data are shown
in this report while other data are
alluded to in various observations.
All data are available for follow-up
questions or consultation.
Boomers provide the most
useful and distinctive contrast to
Millennials. This is the generational

comparison utilized in this report.
Boomers are not only well-known,
they are the parents of Millennials.
By comparing these two cohorts, a
lifetime apart, marketers can find the
insights they need.
Many in the chattering class
of generational authorities say
Millennials are a generation in crisis,
shorn of any viable future because
of limited possibilities and shrinking
opportunities. Other pundits hold
them out as the next big thing, full
of promise and poised to redeem
the world from past excesses and
iniquities. There is an element of
truth in each view, but there can
be no reliable plotting of the future
Millennials without bringing these
two views together.
While the future for Millennials is

more uncertain than it has been for
prior generations at a similar age,
Millennials are not hostage to their
situation. Yet neither will they usher
in Shangri-la. Like every generation,
Millennials have distinctive views,
perspectives and circumstances.
But whatever the challenges,
Millennials will move forward, and
they will do so by adapting. This
Future Perspective specifies the
ways in which Millennials will adapt
their goals and expectations in
order to create a future that fulfills
their ambitions and expresses their
talents.
Portraits of Millennials fall at

one extreme or the other. There
is no middle ground. But the
curious thing about these sparring
assessments is that they all start
from the same set of facts. What
experts say about Millennials seems
to be more of an authorial Rorschach
test than a definitive generational
guide. Experts differ less on whats
true about the situation confronting
Millennials and more on their
personal or professional judgments
about whether Millennials will
be able to handle the truth, so
to speak. If they think not, their
conclusions are dire. If they think so,
their conclusions are bubbly.
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Section 1:
The Team Dynamic
The emergence of the team
dynamic among Millennials has
been described by many as a
hopeful abandonment of the hyperindividualism practiced by their Baby
Boomer parents. This is wrong. In
fact, the team dynamic is hyperindividualism on steroids.
To understand the team dynamic of
Millennials today it is necessary to
turn the clock back for a moment.
The turning point of values in
modern American history is the
year 1965. This is the year in which
identification with and trust in big
institutions plummeted, beginning
a decades-long shift of dominant
values from authority to individuality,
from others to self, and, to echo
the words of Daniel Yankelovich
in his 1981 book New Rules, from
self-sacrifice to self-indulgence.
Between 1964 and 1972, the
stirrings of this transformation of
values were felt in every sector of
society, including political parties,
government, religion, community,
business, education and media. By
the end of the 1980s, the annual US
Yankelovich MONITOR study by The
Futures Company showed that these
so-called new values were no longer
new; they had become the prevailing
mainstream values of American
culture.
This value shift did not occur just

in the US. It occurred in every
developed nation over roughly
the same timeframe. There are
many antecedents of this shift
and the exact triggers are still
debated by social scientists. But
one primary factor is clear, and
that is the rapidly quickening pace
of economic growth and ensuing
middle-class prosperity that swept
the developed world following the
end of WW2. Sociologists have
found that, in countries with higher
per-capita GDP, people identify
less with and feel less dependence
on big institutions. In weaning
themselves from institutions and
external authorities, people turn
to themselves instead, with the
result that individuality flourishes
along with its many correlates. In
particular, people begin to focus
more on self-enhancement and
self-expression, just as predicted
by Abraham Maslows hierarchy of
needs. Nothing has interrupted this
climb up Maslows pyramid during
the last four-plus decades, so the
culture of individuality has gathered
ever-greater strength. (A good,
detailed yet accessible discussion
of this shift in values can be found in
chapter 4 of The Big Sort: Why the
Clustering of Like-Minded America
Is Tearing Us Apart, 2008, by Bill
Bishop.)
Baby Boomers were the generation

that came of age with the prosperity
that transformed America from an
other-directed, outwardly-focused
culture to a self-directed, inwardlyfocused culture. The individualism
of Baby Boomers has not waned and
Baby Boomers have not raised their
Millennial children to be any less
individualistic either.
Boomers have always pursued a
self-validating brand of individual
achievement, and they want their
children to be stand-out successes
as well. There is no subordination
of the individual to the team in
the ambitions Boomers have for
their Millennial children. The team
dynamic was embraced by Boomers
to intensify individuality, not to dilute
it or replace it. The team dynamic is
not a reversal of individualism but the
contemporary manifestation of it.
Baby Boomers welcomed and
provided things for their children like
group teaching, extracurricular team
activities and structured pastimes
to boost individual achievement, not
to blunt it. Boomers pushed their
children into these things which they
thought would make them more
successful individuals. The team
dynamic within which Boomers
raised their children was about
giving their children a competitive
edge. It was about furthering
individualism and enabling their
children to push the limits of
individuality even more than they
themselves were able to. It was
certainly not about holding their

children back from expressing and
cultivating their individuality. To put
it another way, it was team for the
purpose of self. There may be no
I in team, as the saying goes, but
Boomers will surely point out that
you can definitely fashion the word
me from it (or, indeed, the phrase
at me, almost as if me is what
team is aiming at).
The team dynamic

is not a reversal of
individualism but
the contemporary
manifestation of it.
This recognition of the team

dynamic as an instrument of
individuality has three implications
for an understanding of the future of
Millennials.
First, the team dynamic is the central
characteristic of the generational
starting point for Millennials.
Generations are distinguished from
one another in terms of starting
points. The operative environment
within which a generation comes of
age defines the point at which that
generation begins its trek through
life. While older generations also
experience the same circumstances,
only younger people experience
these circumstances during their
formative years. People grow, learn
and change over time, but they do so
from a baseline of experience that
is laid down as they come of age.
The experiences shared with others
coming of age at roughly the same
time define a generation.
Many things constitute shared
experiences for Millennials. But
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Individual values
are strong among
Millennials, but not to the
exclusion of team values.
the lens through which these

experiences have been shared is
unique. It is the lens of the team.
Baby Boomers were encouraged
to look at things through a lens of
individuality, unconstrained by any
team-related prerequisites. Not
so Millennials. For them, every
experience has been modulated
by their immersion in teams.
Everything they have experienced
has been channeled by the team
dynamic. What Millennials have
experienced is important in
understanding them, but it is the
team dynamic that accounts for the
ways in which these experiences
have been formative.
It can be hard sometimes to tease
out the team dynamic because of
its paradoxical purpose of abetting
individualism. Individual values
are strong among Millennials, but
not to the exclusion of team values.
Indeed, the word team is just a
shorthand used by generational
authorities for the dense, structured
social and support networks within
which Millennials thrive. Such
networks put a premium on social
norms and role-playing, which make
up key parts of the team dynamic
that is the cornerstone generational
characteristic of Millennials.
Baby Boomers came of age as
individuality was roiling society. The
new-found pre-eminence of self
was unique to Boomers. Millennials
grew up taking individuality for
granted. It had been pioneered
and then mainstreamed decades

earlier by their Boomer parents.
Millennials have always been free to
indulge their individuality; indeed,
they have been encouraged to do
so. What is unique to Millennials
is the scaffolding within which
their individual pursuits could be
indulged. Individuality is not unique
to Millennials. Whats different
from prior generations is the team
dynamic that funnels and validates
their achievements in unique ways.
The team dynamic is more than
a descriptive characteristic of
Millennials. As mentioned, all
experts mention the word team in
their descriptions of Millennials,
putting it alongside other
characteristics as one of many
differentiating generational attitudes
or experiences. This is not entirely
off-base. It just fails to do justice to
the more fundamental nature of the
team dynamic for Millennials.
The team dynamic is not simply
a characteristic of Millennials. It
is the generational keystone. The
easiest way to appreciate this is
simply to recognize that Millennials
have experienced everything else
through the mediating influence of
their immersion in teams. Just as
individuality and its close correlates
of youthfulness and self-expression
defined how Baby Boomers
navigated their futures, so, too, will
the team dynamic have an enduring
impact on the ways in which
Millennials make their way forward.
Table 1:
Millennials vs. Boomers on Values of Community and
Individuality
Millennials
Second, individuality and community

are not mutually exclusive for
Millennials, one trading off against
the other.
Boomers
Community
Importance in your personal life today: Being part
of a close community
45%
36%
I am enthusiastic about new technology that can

enable me to find and interact with like-minded
people
63%
41%
I am concerned about what others think of the

choices I make
52%
23%
I like to keep people up to date about whats going

on in my life
63%
41%
While there are many things Id like to own, I prefer

to spend my money on experiences that I can
share with others
71%
66%
56%
41%
Individuality
I feel I have to take whatever I can get in this world
because no one is going to give me anything
Nowadays, we are free to shape our identities and
transform ourselves in whatever way we want
67%
53%
Being team-oriented will better increase my

chances of succeeding in todays world
66%
85%
I work hard at coming out on top in every situation,

from the least to the most important
78%
58%
I have a very unique sense of style
59%
44%
Important to the way seen by others: Someone

who is willing to defy convention
49%
33%
Self-descriptor: Need to figure it out on my own

(vs. willing to ask for help)
45%
33%
I like the idea of buying things that not many other

people have
74%
45%
I am very competitive when it comes to my career

(among employed)
76%
57%
The decline of community that

paralleled the rise of Baby Boomer
individualism has been welldocumented. (See, for example,
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and
Revival of American Community,
2000, by Robert Putnam, who
estimated that roughly half of the
decline in community, or social
capital, during the latter half of the
20th century was due to generation.)
In contrast, Millennials embrace
both, as can be seen in Table 1,
which shows a contrast between
Millennials and Baby Boomers on
a number of questions related to
community and individuality asked
in several MONITOR studies.
Two things can be seen in Table 1.
First, Millennials are, as advertised,
disproportionately interested
in things related to community,
connection and others. Whether
this interest will sustain itself
is a different question (see the
recent Futures Perspective report,
Unmasking Millennials: The Truth
Behind a Misunderstood Generation).
But it is an interest today that is
consistent with the team dynamic
characteristic of Millennials.
Source: US Yankelovich MONITOR 2009 and 2010 & Global MONITOR 2010
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Second, Millennials are no less

interested in things reflective of a
strong, assertive individualism. In
many ways, in fact, they show much
greater interest than Baby Boomers,
as shown by the questions in Table 1.
This simultaneous interest in
community and individuality
pushes back against both ends of
the assessment of Millennials. It
is evidence that Millennials are not
likely to become the shock troops
of a new collectivism, whether as
consumers, voters or activists.
Certainly, there will be some who
embrace this idea, just as always.
But as a generation, Millennials will
continue to be very self-focused in
their ambitions and behaviors.
However, this is not to say that
they will fall prey to an utterly selfdestructive narcissism either. The
broader social phenomenon of a
self-important narcissistic outlook
is a reflection of the continuing
amplification of the individual
values that burst into bloom during
the 1960s. But it is not unique to
Millennials and, indeed, Millennials
have grown up in a team dynamic
that, over time, is likely to moderate
some of the worst excesses of
narcissistic vanity and conceit.
Admittedly, there are many readily
available examples of extreme
egoism among Millennials. But as
Millennials mature, their grounding
in the team dynamic will become
more evident and will be more
influential in their lifestyles.
Going forward, it is this combination

of individuality and community, not
one instead of the other, that will be
important.
Third, the team dynamic is the
primary determinant of success for
Millennials, which makes it the most
valuable resource available to this
generation.
Nowadays, success requires the
team dynamic. Perhaps this is
nowhere more clear than in the area
of education. A college degree has
become a necessary requirement
for economic security and success.
Research shows that parents make
the biggest difference in whether
or not a young person graduates
college. Highly involved parents
provide Millennials with needed
resources and support that are both
motivating and rsum building.
Once in college, parental involvement
keeps Millennials on track to
graduate. Young people without
this kind of team support from
their parents are harder-pressed to
complete a degree, putting them at
higher risk for a lifetime of economic
struggle and financial turmoil.
Each year, researchers at the Higher
Education Research Institute
interview thousands of college
freshmen as part of an ongoing,
long-term tracking study. When
Baby Boomer college freshmen were
asked in the early 1970s (1971-1974)
why they were going to college, 23
percent said it was because their
10 2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.
parents wanted them to go. In 2009,

42.7 percent of Millennial college
freshmen said this.
In a related vein, much has been
made of the fact that Millennials are
marrying and starting families at
later ages. Instead, Millennials are
living at home in greater proportions
than prior generations. Even with a
college degree, many Millennials do
not find jobs right away or prefer to
continue with school. Some just need
extra time to settle down. Millennials
without higher education may not
earn enough to live on their own,
particularly single moms in their
twenties.
The extended transition to
adulthood means that Millennials are
contemplating options and making
decisions on their own at an age
when their parents were doing so
in consultation with their spouses.
Millennials still need somebody to
talk to, though, so, unable to turn to
a spouse, they turn to their friends,
which is the team dynamic at work
again.
Just as success or failure for Baby
Boomers was determined by how
well Boomers took advantage of
the individuality dynamic, so, too,
does the team dynamic draw the
line between success and failure
for Millennials. This can be seen
in several measures of success
tracked in The Futures Company US
Yankelovich MONITOR. MONITOR
questions about engagement with
family, friends and online social

networks were used to create
a group involvement scale for
older Millennials between the
ages 21 and 31. Table 2 shows the
greater success on a few selected
dimensions for older Millennials with
the most group involvement versus
those with the least.
One criticism of Millennials is that
they have been spoiled by all of the
group support they have received
throughout their lives, leaving them
with an attitude of entitlement and
an unwillingness to work hard or pay
their dues. This criticism is wide of
the mark in three ways. First, it is
the same complaint lodged against
every generation as it is hitting its
stride. Boomers have forgotten
how often this very complaint was
registered against them, and that
they said the same thing about Gen
X just as that generation was logging
in at all hours to launch the dotcom boom that has upended every
industry.
Second, many of the cues that are
taken to be signs of entitlement
are misinterpreted. Millennials
grew up in a team experience in
which constant feedback and
reinforcement were used for
self-regulated calibration and
improvement. They have learned
to use information from team
interaction to enhance their
performance. When Millennials look
for similar feedback at work, they are
not demanding accolades for routine
Table 2:
Success Indicators and Group Involvement
(among Millennials 21-31 years of age)
Low Group
Involvement
High Group
Involvement
High school graduate
28.8%
17.9%
College graduate
21.2%
27.7%
Under $35k
36.2%
21.5%
$50-74.9k
16.2%
20.5%
$75k-plus
35.4%
43.1%
(Selected levels)
Highest level of education
Annual household income
Source: 2010 US Yankelovich MONITOR
performance so much as they are

asking for continuous input to gauge
and improve their performance on
an ongoing basis.
Finally, whether or not the team
dynamic has spoiled Millennials,
it is essential to success. While
Millennials with the most support are
those most apt to feel entitled, they
are also the ones doing the work it
takes to succeed.
and the fundamental requirement

for success. The team dynamic is
less the way in which the future will
shape Millennials and more the way
in which Millennials will take control
of the future.
The team dynamic is the key thing

to know about Millennials. It is
both the defining element of the
Millennial generational experience
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Section 2:
The Crisis of Chrysalis
Heard this before?
Raised in a period of
unprecedented wealth, health
and education, they grew up with
boundless hopes. A fewhave
achieved and even surpassed
their expectations. But many
othershave come face to face
with the Age of Limits. They
are entering the job market at a
time of economic stagnation
They are reaching their peak
childbearing years at a time of
delayed marriages and recordhigh divorce and some have
decided they cannot afford
the time or the cost of having
children. They are so numerous
that they have already depressed
their own wages, and they will
face intense competition for
promotions and top salaries
through their working lives
[T]he growth of jobs typically
held by college graduates
has not kept paceSome are
foregoing opportunities to
attend college, choosing instead
vocational training or work
experienceAware of the harsh
economic realities that await
them, the younger members of
thegeneration seem far more
money conscious and career
oriented than their older siblings
were.
12
This passage has a familiar ring

to it, like that of yet another story
on the dire prospects facing
Millennials. But this doleful view
of a generations prospects comes
from Newsweek magazine, March
30, 1981, in a long, 4,000-word essay
entitled, The Baby Boomers Come
of Age.
Declaring a generation dead on
arrival is popular sport. In the
mid-1990s, Gen X was subjected
to a flurry of living obituaries.
(Debunking these Gen X myths was
the subject of a June 9, 1997, Time
magazine cover story based on
The Futures Company/Yankelovich
research entitled Great Xpectations
of So-Called Slackers.) Millennial
deathwatches mushroomed during
the Great Recession of 2008/2009.
Media and marketers approach
generational challenges in very
different ways. While media stories
portray challenges as problems,
marketers view challenges as
unmet needs in search of solutions.
Media headlines make sweeping
pronouncements, while marketers
probe for niches that cut against the
grain. Media stories stoke worry, but
marketers want to sell products that
ease tensions.
This is not to make light of the very
real challenges facing Millennials. It
is only to remember that no matter

how bad things get, Millennials will
have no choice but to rise to the
challenge. A litany of problems
sets the stage but doesnt tell the
full story about the ways in which
Millennials will measure up. Only by
understanding how Millennials are
likely to cope can the opportunities
for marketers be anticipated.
Media headlines get one thing right,
though. Millennials are facing a
crisis of chrysalis. Just as they are
coming of age, they are burdened
with unprecedented difficulties
and differences. To understand
the future of Millennials, it is not
enough to know that they will put the
lessons of the team dynamic to work
in managing their lives. It is also
necessary to know what their lives
will require of them.
The challenges facing Millennials
can be grouped into two broad
categorieshandicap facts and
crossroads facts. Handicap
facts consist of four areas in which
circumstances have put Millennials
at a decided disadvantage.
Crossroads facts are the distinctive
situations that characterize the
lives of young people coming of age
today.
Handicap Facts
The four handicaps facing
Millennials are unemployment and
underemployment, college debt,
obesity, and mental health. Each has
an economic impact with potential

implications for the long-term buying
power of Millennials as a consumer
generation.
Today, the annual buying power of
Millennials is estimated at $889.3
billion. (See Catching the Millennial
Wave, emailINSIDER, November
1, 2010, by Anna Russell, Account
Director, T3.) Baby Boomers
account for more than $2 trillion, or
more than double that of Millennials.
Of course, some of the buying power
of Millennials comes from their Baby
Boomer parents, so the unduplicated
buying power of Millennials is
somewhat less than $889.3 billion.
Nevertheless, wherever the money
comes from, thats the spending
controlled by Millennials.
The challenges facing

Millennials can be
grouped into two
broad categories
handicap facts and
crossroads facts.
As Millennials mature, the absolute

amount of their buying power
will grow. It will grow in relative
importance, too, as Boomer
spending declines. But the question
raised by the handicaps facing
Millennials is whether their buying
power will grow sufficiently not only
to replace Boomer spending but
also to exceed it by a substantial
proportion. If Millennial spending
doesnt grow to levels that exceed
Boomer spending, the economy will
be stuck in neutral. The ability of
the economy to grow depends upon
the ability of Millennials to sustain
growth in their spending.
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People who graduated during

the recession years earned
$100,000 less in cumulative
net present-value earnings.
Handicap #1: Unemployment and

underemployment
During the Great Recession of
2008/2009, the job market for
everyone tumbled to record lows.
As the recovery began, it became
apparent that much of the high
employment enjoyed during the runup to the financial crisis was excess
capacity paid for by unsustainable
levels of consumer and business
debt combined with over-optimistic
expectations of long-term economic
growth. This is typical of the run-up
to financial crises (as opposed to
the more typical inflation-fighting
recessions of the post-WW2 period),
when unemployment spikes higher
and recoveries take longer. A gap
in jobs will be a nagging, difficult
problem for years to come.
Millennials were punished
particularly hard by the contracting
job market during the Great
Recession. A Pew study released in
February 2010 found that full-time
employment among 18-29 year olds
had fallen 9 percentage points from
2006 to 2010, from 50 percent to 41
percent, compared to no declines
among Gen X or Baby Boomers. The
14 percent unemployment among
18-29 year-olds reported by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
in mid-2010 approached levels not
seen since the Great Depression.
Combined with the 23 percent who
had quit looking for work entirely, 37
percent of Millennials had no job in
mid-2010, the highest level in three
14
decades. The summer employment

rate for 16 to 24 year-olds in 2010
was the lowest ever measured, at
48.9 percent. Summer internships
for college students in 2009 dropped
21 percent from 2008, according to
the National Association of Colleges
and Employers (NACE).
Even for those Millennials able to find
a job, prospects were diminished.
A study by Yale economist Lisa
Kahn on the impact of graduating
in a recession got a lot of publicity
during 2009 and 2010. Peter Orszag
brought it to peoples attention with
an October 2009 blog post about
it. (He was Director of the Office
of Management and Budget at the
time.) Kahn tracked the earnings of
people graduating college between
1979 and 1989, a period that
included recessionary and boom
years with respectively high levels
of unemployment and employment.
Over a 20-year period, she found
that people who graduated
during the recession years earned
$100,000 less in cumulative net
present-value earnings.
A combination of factors accounted
for her results, including lower
starting wages, less job switching,
poorer job matches, fewer
promotions, especially prestige
promotions, and fewer opportunities
for training. While Kahns research
got the most press, it is but one
of several econometric studies
showing this pattern, whether for
MBA graduates, Ph.D. graduates or
Canadian undergraduates. Indeed,

this kind of impact on starting
wages was seen during the Great
Recession, with NACE reporting a
decline in average starting wages for
college graduates of 2.2 percent in
2009 and 1.7 percent in 2010.
Employment difficulties for
Millennials go beyond the impact
of the recession. To begin with, the
job market has been tightening for
years and real wages for middleclass households have been under
pressure for a generation. From
2002 to 2007, government figures
show that among 25-35 year-olds
with a college degree (but no postgraduate degree), wages fell 4.5
percent for men and 4.8 percent
for women. A BLS analysis found
that among men, only those with a
college degree or more were earning
higher real wages in 2009 than their
counterparts in 1979. (Women, on
the other hand, were earning more at
every level of education except for no
high-school diploma.)
Another compounding factor for
the employment difficulties of
Millennials is that large numbers of
Baby Boomers, perhaps more than
half, will be postponing retirement
and staying in the workforce at least
3 to 5 years longer, if not indefinitely.
Boomers didnt have to compete for
jobs in this way, perhaps reflected in
the fact that a bias in the economy in
favor of Boomers has been at work
for years. A special 2007 analysis
of Federal Reserve data by USA
Today found that nearly all of the

wealth created since 1989 has gone
to people 55 years of age and older.
In real terms, the wealth of 35 to
50 year-olds has actually declined.
Notwithstanding the doubling of
average household wealth since
1989 for people 55-plus, Boomers
have not set aside enough for
retirement, a hidden debt burden
that Millennials will be forced to
shoulder.
Good employment opportunities
will be available for Millennials,
but only for those with a college
degree. While a college degree
was important for Boomers, it is an
absolute make-or-break necessity
for Millennials. Encouragingly, BLS
figures show that 70.1 percent of
2009 high school graduates were
enrolled in college, an all-time
record. Yet, discouragingly, only
half of students enrolling in college
nowadays complete a degree in
six years, and at many colleges
graduation rates are far worse than
the national average. The US used
to lead the world in the share of its
population that graduated from
college. Now the US leads the world
in the share of its population that
enrolls in college, but trails many
nations in the share that graduates.
Indeed, employment prospects for

Millennials are looking up again. The
Michigan State University Recruiting
Trends study expects hiring for
2011 college graduates to grow 10
percent. NACE is forecasting a 13.5
percent bump.
But employment challenges for
Millennials go beyond one small
slice of the cohort. All Millennials
are facing an upended job market
in which the traditional ways of
overcoming impediments are no
longer available. Millennials will be
forced to adopt an altogether new
view of work, as well as a radically
reinvented understanding of
success.
Economists are quick to note

that depressed earnings for one
small slice of workers, like college
graduates during a recession, will
not create a significant long-term
drag on the economy as a whole.
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Handicap #2: College debt

Debate about the value of a college
education spilled over into public
view in 2010 with a number of highprofile articles and blog postings
weighing the pros and cons. Two
things were at issue, first the return
on a college degree, and second the
cost of getting one.
There is no disputing that data show
a strong return on a college degree.
A highly publicized study by the
College Board found that the 2008
median salary for full-time workers
with a college degree was $55,700,
far higher than the $21,900 for those
with just a high-school diploma. This
pay premium has grown over the
last 10 years. Today, it is 74 percent
for men with a college degree and
79 percent for women with a college
degree. A decade ago it was 54
percent and 60 percent, respectively.
On average, after 11 years of work,
college graduates have recouped
their investment of time and money,

after which the advantage of their
degree goes into their pockets.
Not all jobs require a college degree,
though. Today, there are 17 million
college graduates in jobs for which a
college degree is not necessary. The
most cited statistic in this regard
is that 12 percent of mail carriers
have college degrees. There are
nearly 500,000 customer service
representatives, over 300,000
waiters and waitresses, over
300,000 secretaries, nearly 250,000
executive secretaries, 100,000-plus
receptionists,100,000-plus laborers
and 100,000-plus janitors with
college degrees as well. Of the 10
fastest-growing job categories, two
require college degrees.
Financing a college degree adds
to the complexity of this debate.
According to Department of
Education data, the average cost in
2008 for a private, non-profit college
exceeded financial aid by $26,000.

BLS statistics show that the cost of
an undergraduate degree has been
increasing at two to three times
the rate of inflation, faster than the
rising costs of health care. (These
upside-down expenses are no better
for some post-graduate degrees.
At law schools, tuition costs have
been skyrocketing even as legal job
opportunities have been shrinking
dramatically.)
Colleges justify their costs in terms of
their labor-intensive, difficult-to-scale
business model. Teaching requires
teachers, and labor is expensive. This
discussion may soon change, though,
in light of the recent announcement
by Sewanee, a preeminent private
school in Tennessee, that it will
reduce tuition by 10 percent for the
2011-2012 academic year. In making
this announcement, Vice Chancellor
John McCardell said that some
college or university needed to step
up and say, Enough. Apparently,
others agree, because for the past

two academic years, tuition increases
at private colleges are the lowest
since 1972. Many have frozen
tuitions.
Of course, even with a 10 percent
reduction, annual tuition at Sewanee
is still $41,400. No surprise, then,
that two-thirds of 2008 college
graduates had student loan debt,
according to The Project on Student
Debt. The average debt was $23,200.
Ten percent graduated with debt in
excess of $40,000, up from three
percent in 1996 (in constant dollars).
To cover college costs, students
turn to private loans. In the 20072008 academic year, 14 percent of
undergraduates took out private
loans, nearly three times the five
percent who did so in 2003-2004.
Yet 64 percent of these students
failed to take out all the federal loans
available to them first.
Debt burdens are higher for
graduates of private, for-profit
colleges. In 2008, 24 percent of
graduates from for-profit colleges
had more than $40,000 in studentloan debt, compared to just 6 percent
of graduates from public colleges and
15 percent from private, nonprofit
colleges.
Total student-loan debt now exceeds
all revolving credit debt (which
includes credit-card debt). Over
the past couple of years, revolving
credit debt has dropped from
its September 2008 peak, while

student-loan debt has grown.
Research finds that student loans
hurt academic performance. One
in three college students say debt
makes it difficult to concentrate
on their studies. One in four report
physical or mental health problems
related to worries about debt. Many
are forced by debt to reduce course
loads or drop out for a semester or
more.
Pell Grants for lower-income
households have not kept up with
rising college costs. The maximum
grant for a school year is $5,500
and there will be no increase in
the maximum for the 2011-2012
academic year. As a result, Pell
Grant recipients have the highest
levels of student-loan debts.
Some colleges, including Portland
State University, Pacific University,
Odessa College, Bellingham
Technical College, Des Moines
State University and Cornell
University, now actively encourage
their students to apply for food
stamps. Several of these schools
explicitly describe food stamps
to their students as financial
assistance and provide step-by-step
instructions about how to apply.
attended private, for-profit colleges,

even though these schools account
for only 10 percent of enrollments.
While the average debt of a college
graduate is equal only to the cost
of a mid-sized car, an increasing
number of college students are
thinking twice about taking on debt.
A Sallie Mae survey found that in
2009, 53 percent of college students
borrowed money for college, down
from 67 percent the year before.
Vocational schools, community
colleges and online courses are
benefitting as increasing numbers of
students are choosing these options
instead.
Even before they face the daunting
challenges of the job market,
Millennials have to struggle
through the financial burdens and
pecuniary pitfalls of paying for a
college education. The calculus
required to make decisions about
college requires lots of support, and
failing to reap the benefits of that
investment is more consequential
than ever.
Default rates on student loans rose

year over year from 6.7 percent to
7 percent. Default rates for private,
for-profit colleges are even higher,
at 11.6 percent. Forty-three percent
of all defaults are by students who
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Handicap #3: Obesity

The childhood obesity epidemic
in the US directly parallels the
Millennial generational cohort. Data
compiled by the Centers for Disease
Control (CDC) show that obesity
levels among children aged 2 to 19
were relatively unchanged during
the 1960s and 1970s. But in the
early 1980s, the proportion of obese
children began to rise, going from
5.5 percent in 1980 to 10 percent by
1994 to 16.8 percent in 2008. Obesity
levels have been even higher over
this thirty-year period among boys 12
to 19 years of age. Millennials have
the dubious distinction of being the
generation to come of age afflicted by
the childhood obesity epidemic.
The costs of obesity are a drag
on Millennials. Obese children
have medical complications that
can be debilitating and expensive,
diabetes chief among them. One
medical study found that the carotid

arteries of obese children have aged
prematurely by as much as thirty
years, not to mention being filled
with high levels of cholesterol. Obese
children also suffer psychological
problems from teasing, stereotyping,
rejection and even discrimination
within their own families.
A recent econometric analysis
estimates that the obesity-related
combination of limitations on physical
abilities, missed days of work, and
discrimination by employers and
co-workers will depress the aggregate
lifetime earnings of Millennials by
$1 trillion. Obese Millennial men will
account for $43 billion of this loss;
obese Millennial women will account
for $956 billion. Added to lower
wages are obesity-related lifetime
medical expenses that increase
proportionately with weight from
$5,340 to $29,460 per person.
By one calculationalbeit a highly

controversial oneif obesity is not
brought under control, the associated
life-shortening complications could
reduce the average lifespan of
Millennials by two to five years. If
so, this would be the first measured
decline in lifespan since the Federal
government starting tracking life
expectancy in 1900, reversing a
two century-long trend of medical
advances steadily extending average
life expectancy. Millennials could
be the first generation in over a
century to see lifespan level off
and even decline. Not only would
Millennials, on average, live shorter
lives, those suffering from obesity
would suffer years of far less healthy,
much lower quality lives because of
obesity-related complications and
treatments.
Handicap #4: Mental health

One thing said frequently about
Millennials is that they are optimistic
and resilient. However, a detailed
analysis of The Futures Company
Global MONITOR data demonstrates
that this is not completely accurate
(see the recent Futures Perspective
report, Unmasking Millennials:
The Truth Behind a Misunderstood
Generation). Perhaps an even more
definitive rebuttal can be found in
the growing evidence of mental
health problems among Millennials,
especially college students.
The Higher Education Research
Institute at UCLA has conducted a
comprehensive survey of incoming
college freshman each year since
1966 called The Freshman Survey.
In 1985, students were asked for
the first time to rate their emotional
health. In the latest survey of the fall
2010 incoming class, an all-time low
of 52 percent rated their emotional
health as being in the highest 10
percent or above average. Other
research has shown that ratings of
emotional and even physical health
decline over the course of college,
with over three-quarters of juniors
reporting feelings of depression in the
past year. A survey by the American
College Counseling Association
found that 44 percent of college
students in counseling in 2010 have
severe psychological disorders,
compared to just 16 percent in 2000.
Twenty-four percent in 2010 are on
psychiatric medication, up from 17
percent in 2000.
Undoubtedly, some of these

increases are the result of better
diagnoses and reporting. However,
these studies reflect recent, not
long-term, trends. Better reporting
was already being practiced in the
baseline years against which current
years are tracked. These mental
health problems reflect the pressures
of financial worries at home, studentloan debt levels and competition in
studies, but use of medications that
now enable troubled students to
attend college and greater awareness
and diagnosis of disorders that would
have gone unreported in the past are
also factors in the increases.
Perhaps these higher levels of
emotional and mental distress
explain the 40 percent decline since
1979 in empathy among college
students found in a University
of Michigan meta-analysis of 72
different studies conducted between
1979 and 2009. Research among
medical students would seem to
suggest that this is the case. Studies
at several medical schools have found
that half of medical students suffered
from burnout, with 11 percent
reporting suicidal thoughts in the
past year. The greater the burnout
felt by medical students, the lower
the empathy felt toward patients.
The suggestion has even been made
that social networking Web sites
like Facebook exacerbate mental
health problems by reinforcing and
intensifying the natural tendency of
people to believe that their feelings
of loneliness and depression are

not shared by others. People
systematically misperceive the
mental states of others, concluding
that the happy image others present
to the world is a full and unqualified
reflection of their internal mental
well-being. This, of course, is not
true, but the hypothesis about
social networking sites is that most
postings are upbeat not downbeat,
thus adding to the misperceptions
people have of others, which in turn
exacerbates feelings of loneliness
and isolation. (Other research has
shown that while both happiness
and loneliness are contagious and
spread through social connections,
loneliness is more contagious.)
The obvious issue for Millennials is
to watch out for the negative impact
that teams might have on their
mental health. While group support
may be essential for meeting the
challenges of work and education,
these networks come with risks to
mental well-being and thus, in many
cases, may not provide a helpful
boost.
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Crossroads Facts
Millennials are coming of age in a
society with a very different profile
from that of prior generations. While
not necessarily presenting Millennials
with challenges or handicaps, these
societal conditions largely determine
what Millennials perceive as normal
and take for granted, providing
important contextual clues about the
ways in which Millennials will engage
the marketplace in the future.
Crossroads Facts #1: Diversity
A generation ago, the dominant
American culture was white,
Protestant and male. Baby Boomers,
with help from the momentum
behind a few demographic trends,
overturned this cultural hegemony.
The accelerating shift of America
to a minority-majority society, with
Hispanics leading the way, is wellknown and extensively documented.
What is less appreciated is the rapidly
growing presence of multi-ethnic,
multi-racial people, particularly
among Millennials.
A Pew Research Center analysis finds
that one in seven marriages now
involve spouses of different races
or ethnicities. The 2000 Census
allowed people to mark more than
one box for race, reversing the socalled one drop theory of racial
identify that was incorporated into
the Census in 1930. (Before 1930,
mixed-race categories of various
sorts were included in each Census,
although there was little consistency

of measurement from one to the
next.) Preliminary estimates from
the 2010 Census suggest that the
multi-racial, multi-ethnic population
has grown 35 percent since 2000,
mostly among young people. Some
experts believe that Census figures
understate the size of this group.
Whether or not this will transform
the national debate about race,
it is transforming culture and
consumption. Multi-racial, multiethnic student groups are springing
up at colleges. There are now news,
dating and social-networking Web
sites specifically for multi-racial,
multi-ethnic people. There are
mixed-race film festivals, mixed-race
conferences and mixed-race support
groups. Mixed Chicks is a line of hair
care products for mixed-race women
that advertises itself online with a
product story that reads in part, The
world is becoming more and more
diverse, and we celebrate that. For
years, multi-cultural people with hard
to manage hair traveled from store
to store, trying to blend products in a
hopeless attempt to tame their locks.
Wendi Levy and Kim Etheredge, two
mixed chicks, created a product line
because they needed it.
It is a sensibility that Tiger
Woods called Cablinasian when
characterizing his ethnic background
for Oprah Winfrey in his appearance
on her show in April 1997 shortly
after he won his first major golf title
at the Masters. Oprah asked Tiger
if it bothered him to be referred to

as African-American. He said yes,
but not for the reason everyone
expected. Tiger said it was because
he didnt think of himself as Black but
as Cablinasian, a word he invented
as a child by combining Caucasian,
Black, American Indian and Asian.
He explained that it reflected the
fact that his father was half AfricanAmerican, one-quarter Native
American and one-quarter Caucasian
and his mother is half-Thai and
half-Chinese. Tigers comment set
off a firestorm among many AfricanAmericans who insisted that in
America, whether he liked it or not, he
was Black (even Colin Powell weighed
in), a sentiment reiterated when
Tigers infidelities were smeared
across the tabloids in 2009 and 2010.
Though controversial, Tiger was
more perceptive, and more prescient,
than his critics. In recent years,
multi-racial, multi-ethnic people
have been the face of celebrity and
sports in America, including Vin
Diesel, Dwayne The Rock Johnson,
Christina Aguilera, Halle Berry, David
Blaine, Lisa Bonet, Jason Kidd, Derek
Jeter, Hines Ward, Lenny Kravitz,
Greg Louganis, Benjamin Bratt,
Naomi Campbell, Mariah Carey,
Cher, Cameron Diaz, Ben Harper,
Janice Ian, Alicia Keys, Nia Peeples,
Billy Bob Thornton, Prince, Freddie
Prinze, Jr., Sade, Linda Ronstadt,
Charlie Sheen, Slash, Tina Turner,
Philip Michael Thomas, Tyra Banks,
Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp, Grant
Hill, Brett Favre, Walter Mosley and,
of course, President Barack Obama,

who one might say is Americas first
Cablinasian President, so to speak,
not actually Americas first AfricanAmerican President.
Crossroads Facts #2: Gender
The dominance of women in college
degrees earned has been true for
decades. But it was not true for Baby
Boomers. In 1968, just 42 percent
of bachelors and first professional
degrees and 36 percent of masters
degrees were awarded to women.
By contrast, in 2008, 57 percent of
bachelors degrees, 50 percent of
first professional degrees and 61
percent of masters degrees were
awarded to women. Women now
earn the majority of doctoral degrees
as well.
This shift in dominance of degrees
earned between men and women
occurred in the late 1970s and early
1980s. Millennials have never known
a world in which women did not have
more education than men. Gender
differences by field of study remain
significant. Men still dominate fields
like engineering, math and computer
science, while women are dominant
in fields like humanities, art, health
sciences and biological sciences.
Outside of a few male-dominated
classrooms, though, college is
decidedly more female. Women
constitute the majority population
on most campuses, accounting for
57 percent of enrollments each year
since at least 2000, according to the
American Council on Education.

This gender dominance by women
now extends to the workforce as well,
largely due to the Great Recession of
2008/2009. Some commentators
referred to the recession as the mancession because men suffered the
largest number and proportion of job
losses. In early 2010, this culminated
in a workforce comprised of more
women than men. (Interestingly, over
the past two decades, almost all of
the gains that women have enjoyed
in the job market have come during
recessions.)
Crossroads Facts #3:
Multigenerational housholds
Much has been made of young
people returning home to live with
their parents because of difficulties
finding work, and of families with
middle-aged heads of house moving
in with relatives because of job losses
or home foreclosures.
From 2007 to 2008, as the economy
was slowing, the number of people
living in a multigenerational
household grew by 2.6 million, a
number equal to 0.8 percent of the
US population. A 2009 survey by
the AFL-CIO found that one in three
young workers were living at home
with their parents, largely due to
financial reasons. A 2009 Pew survey
found that 13 percent of parents with
adult children said at least one of
their adult children had moved back
home in the prior year.
Similarly, Census data show that the

percentage of 18 to 29 year-olds living
alone dropped from 7.9 percent in
2007 to 7.3 percent in 2009. Such
drops were also seen during the
recessions of 1982 and 2001.
But multigenerational households,
while spiked by the Great Recession
of 2008/2009, represent a longerterm trend. There was a decline in
both the number and the percentage
of such households from 1940
to 1960. After bottoming out in
the 1960s and 1970s, the trend
reversed. Beginning in 1980, which,
coincidentally, is roughly the start
of the Millennial birth cohort, the
percentage of multigenerational
households began to rise, increasing
33 percent from 1980 to 2008. In
2008, 16 percent of Americans,
or about 49 million people, lived
in multigenerational households.
Whereas the Boomer experience
coming of age was of a declining
presence of multigenerational
households, the opposite has been
true for Millennials.
Much of this shift in household
structure has been tied to Millennials
taking longer to make the transition
to adulthood. On average, Millennials
take longer to get married, set up
households and have children. The
long-term impact of this on their
financial position is not completely
understood, but, in general,
retirement security is easier to
achieve when careers, marriage and
children come along at earlier ages.
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The magic of compound interest

is strongest with larger amounts
of money, which most people can
accumulate only after children
are raised and careers are in full
swing. Unless they are setting aside
the rent they are saving by living
at home longerwhich those in
school or unemployed arent really
able to doMillennials are getting
started later, thus pushing back the
timing on building their nest eggs,
thus reducing their discretionary
spending, diminishing their
retirement prospects, or extending
their working years, any of which will
affect their buying power.
in which religious identification for

many people weakens rather than
strengthens over time. In the Pew
survey, 16 percent of respondents
of all ages reported no religious
identification, double the percentage
who said they had no religious
identification growing up. Instead of
people with no religious identification
developing one as they age, a higher
percentage of people who had
a religious identification as they
grew up are losing it as they age.
At the very least, Millennials have
more religious options and more
permission to make non-traditional
religious choices than generations
before them.
Crossroads Facts #4: Religion

A 2007 Pew survey on religion in
America found a growing diversity
of religious identification and belief.
Protestant denominations barely
constituted a majority, a significant
shift from prior years, in which more
than six people in 10 identified
themselves as Protestants.
About one in four Millennials in
the Pew study cited no religious
identification. The same rough
percentage was found in a 2005
survey conducted by the nonprofit
think tank Reboot. This was twice
the percentage of Baby Boomers,
which raises the question of whether
Millennials will follow the traditional
pattern of becoming more religious
as they age.
The context for Millennials is one
Crossroads Facts #5: Information

and Technology
Researchers at the University of
California at San Diego calculated
the change from 1980 to 2008 in
the amount of information that the
average person in the US is exposed
to each day. In terms of hours
spent processing data, it was 7.4
hours in 1980 and 11.8 in 2008. The
equivalent in terms of data gigabytes
was 9.8 gigabytes in 1980 and 33.8 in
2008, not to mention that half of the
information people are exposed to
these days is interactive.
Obviously, people are overwhelmed
with information nowadays, but they
were in 1980, too. The experience
for Millennials is the same feeling of
being overwhelmed that was true for
Baby Boomers thirty years ago. Only
nowadays, this experience is much

more acute.
The need to find ways to organize
and process the deluge of data is
one reason why social networks have
become so widespread. Friends
are a trusted way of sorting through
options and information. But social
networks are driven primarily by the
inherent need people have to connect
and engage with others.
There has been an explosive growth
in social networks, Facebook in
particular. But it is not about
Facebook per se. Before Facebook,
there were other social network
sites that enjoyed brief spurts of
popularity. Blogging, YouTube, Flickr,
instant messaging and even email
went through rapid growth phases
as the next most efficient and novel
way of putting people in touch with
one another. Twitter has become
the latest technology fad for social
connection. Others will follow,
particularly those that untether users
from computers and laptops by being
more closely tied to hand-held mobile
devices and GPS-enabled locator
services.
The underlying dynamic at work
is one that economists refer to as
liquidity. This is simply to say that
as technology makes an activity
more efficient and less costly, more
and more people will engage in it.
In effect, the activity will acquire
its own momentum because it has
suddenly become easy and cheap to
do. It might even appear to be selfpropelling, but whats really driving it

is the high liquidity that characterizes
the experience people have with it
and their ability to use it.
Technologies have opened the
floodgates to social connection.
Millennials have come of age in a time
when social connection was not only
a priority with the team dynamic but
was also the easiest possible thing
to do. It is access to connection, not
access to information, that is driving
technology usage with Millennials.
In the Yankelovich US MONITOR,
41 percent of Millennials agree that
technology is essential for their
social lives; only 12 percent of Baby
Boomers agree.
Of course, Millennials are no less
technologically oriented when it
comes to information. A 2009 Pew
study found that nearly as many
Millennials turn to the Internet for
news as turn to TV. Among Boomers
there was a wide gap between TV
and the Internet. Not only did more
Boomers turn to TV, far fewer turned
to the Internet.
The liquidity effect is at work with
information, too. There has been
a lot of discussion and research
about the fragmentation of media
by technology and the self-echoing
media cocoons into which people
are isolating themselves with
technology. Many observers rightly
note that people have always sought
information that fits with their
preconceived opinions. But the

ability to do so in years past was not
as liquid as it is today. It was harder
and costlier. As with connection,
new technologies have not created
a new need; they have simply made
it easier to slake an existing thirst,
and in doing so have enabled media
cocooning to generate its own
momentum.
When asked in a Pew survey to
describe what makes their generation
unique, the number one answer
given by Millennials, mentioned by
nearly one in four, was technology
use. This is no surprise, given
that technology has ushered in an
uninterrupted flood of data and
unprecedented access to people and
connections.
Crossroads Facts #6: Scarcity
While there is much poverty and
deprivation yet to be addressed in the
world, the average level of prosperity
enjoyed today is the highest in the
history of the world. The central
challenge of the 21st century will
be to find ways to sustain the level
and the growth of well-being despite
resource pressures and shortages.
Millennials will have no choice
but to face up to this challenge,
just as generations in the 20th
century had no choice but to battle
totalitarianism, and generations
in the 19th century were forced to
confront the moral issues associated
with state-sanctioned slavery.
Resource constraints and

environmental limits will determine
whats possible in the years to come.
Climate change has the highest
profile, but equally important are
scarcities of water, fish, timber,
precious metals and habitat.
Ultimately, innovation will be needed
to sustain the advance of material
well-being. But experts are of
mixed opinions in their prognoses
of the potential for breakthrough
innovation in the years to come. A
culture of innovation requires a
number of things working together,
from support for basic research to
strong education in math and science
to capital markets that can fund
innovation to consumer markets
with robust demand for innovative
products. Whether Millennials will
measure up to this challenge is the
$64,000 question of tomorrow. The
largest part of the answer will lie in
whether innovation fulfills the kind of
success that excites the imaginations
and motivates the marketplace
engagement of this generation.
The issue of greatest interest to
marketers is thus the issue of
greatest relevance to prosperity itself,
and the one addressed by this Future
Perspective: How will US Millennials,
raised in teams and challenged by
murky prospects, redefine success?
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Section 3:
Defining Success
Satisfaction is elusive. Social
psychologists have found that no
matter how much people have,
satisfaction is always just around
the corner. It is a phenomenon of
adaptation and comparison known as
the hedonic treadmill.
As people gain more, they get used
to it. After a while, people take what
they have for granted and it no longer
seems like enough. The novelty and
excitement have faded. What used to
be special and new is now just part of
the everyday scene. People become
familiar with the warts and, however
good what they have might be, they
start wanting something better. Once
people have adapted to their most
recent gains, they want more. It is,
as psychologists say, a treadmill that
keeps going with no end in sight.
This phenomenon is more than just
people acting like spoiled brats.
The process of adaptation is one
of returning to a baseline level of
satisfaction, even happiness. Gains
provide a lift, but over time people
return to baseline. The thrill wears off
and people go back to wanting more.
The hedonic treadmill of returning
to baseline accounts for a variety
of observed results that have been
repeatedly documented over the
years, and that have generated a lot
of publicity from the recent flurry
of interest in and bestsellers about

behavioral economics. Lottery
winners, for example, are no happier
in the long run than they were
before winning, because eventually
they return to baseline. Similarly,
people disabled by accidents are no
unhappier in the long run than they
were before their accidents, because
eventually they return to baseline.
Once the highs or lows wear off, its
back to baseline.
While the hedonic treadmill might
seem like a psychological trap, it is
a fundamental part of how peoples
minds work and thus a core element
of consumer marketing. Marketers
look for needs to satisfy, tensions
to ease, and problems to solve. If
people were easily and everlastingly
satisfied with the first things they
bought, the consumer marketplace
would be a mere shadow of itself.
Prosperity and well-being would be
stunted. Like everything, of course,
this unceasing striving for more can
be damaging if not practiced with
moderation. But done with discipline,
people are rewarded with a lifetime of
satisfying experiences. This dynamic
is an elemental part of consumer
psychology and thus one of the
keys to unlocking the ways in which
consumers in aggregate, such as
generational cohorts, define success.
In addition to adaptation,
comparison also keeps people
on the treadmill. We evaluate our
success and well-being in relative
terms, not in absolutes. We are
always comparing what we have and
how we live to others. Compounding
the enduring level of want and desire
we feel because of adaptation are
the comparisons we make relative
to others. No matter how much we
gain, there is always someone with
more, and that makes what we have
seem like less.
There is a classic story that
aptly illustrates this dynamic of
comparison. Urban legend has it
that after selling Silicon Graphics,
technology entrepreneur Jim Clark
was unhappy that the wealth he
netted didnt afford him the money
he needed to build a bigger yacht
than the one owned by Oracle
founder Larry Ellison. So Clark
went looking for his next venture
and found Marc Andreessen at the
University of Illinois developing
something called Mosaic, from
which came Netscape. After AOL
bought Netscape, Clark was finally
able to build his super-sized yacht.
But then Microsoft co-founder Paul
Allen built one even bigger. Soon
enough, someone will build one even
bigger, or else the worlds billionaires
will leave mega-yachts behind and
start comparing themselves to one
another on some other relative basis.
The bottom line is that as much
as people get, in comparison, its
never enough. When people look

around, there is always someone
with more or better stuff. This can
be maddening, so most people learn
to moderate their expectations and
keep things in perspective. But
some degree of relative discontent is
always present, often characterized
as aspirations or ambitions to
achieve things we see that others
have done or earned (sometimes
mocked as keeping up with the
Joneses). This relative discontent
is the baseline to which we always
return once we have adapted to a
change in our situations.
Reference points are a part of the

broader context within which people
live and shop. Success is not defined
in absolute terms; it is defined in
context. Success is not simply a
matter of badges worn or things
accumulated; it is how those things
compare. What changes over time
is the context within which people
make comparisons about their
lifestyles and their consumption.
What differentiates one generation
from another are the unique
contextual elements that provide a
distinctive set of reference points for
defining success.
The ways in which people define

success are tied to these dynamics
of satisfaction. In particular, people
define success by comparison to the
reference points they use to calibrate
their baseline level of satisfaction.
Success is all about reference
points. Understanding the definition
of success means identifying the
reference points people use for
assessing their relative situations. A
change in the reference points that
people use means a change in the
definition of success. A change in
what these reference points offer or
represent also means a change in
the definition of success.
The context of aspirations is

different for Millennials from what
it was for Baby Boomers. The
reference points that calibrate their
satisfaction are different. Theirs
will be defined by the particular
characteristics of their experience,
which is one of the team dynamic
and the crisis of chrysalis. Figuring
out the reference points that keep
Millennials on the hedonic treadmill
is the way to understand how
Millennials will redefine success.
Success, then, is relative. It depends

on comparisons. If people compare
themselves to those with less, they
feel successful. If people compare
themselves to those with more,
or even just as much, they feel
discontented and unsuccessful.
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Section 4:
Redefining Success
A casual reading of survey data is
often used to buttress the contention
that Millennials will be overwhelmed
by the challenges facing them. In The
Futures Company US Yankelovich
MONITOR data, just 37 percent of
Millennials agreed in 2009 that some
of the dreams I had for myself before
the recession are now probably out
of my reach. A year later, it was 51
percent. Over this same period,
agreement among Baby Boomers
and GenXers did not change at all
(50 and 52 percent and 44 and 46
percent, respectively). Clearly, the
effects of the Great Recession finally
caught up with Millennials, to an
extent that, say many observers, is
utterly obstructing and disillusioning
them before they ever get started.
While Boomers agree with this survey
item as much as Millennials, its
Millennials who are at the starting
point of their lives and careers.
But note what this MONITOR
question did not ask, namely if
Millennials were forsaking hopes
and dreams altogether. Indeed, this
survey item begs the question of
what Millennials are doing instead.
The ultimate answer turns out to
be that Millennials are finding new
dreams to replace those they have
been forced to give up because of the
economic downturn. Millennials are
not abandoning success; they are
redefining it.
Millennials really have no choice

but to do so, as the marketplace
is leaving them behind. Changes
in economic opportunities and
traditional identities and roles are
ejecting Millennials from established
trajectories, something that survey
results show growing numbers of
Millennials recognize and admit. But
are they in freefall? No, because they
are looking to different reference
points to gauge their progress and to
sketch out their future.
In fact, despite its many hardships,
the downturn may give Millennials
an advantage in years to come.
Graduating in a booming economy
often leads to expectations and
commitments that are hard to
give up and unhelpful when the
going gets tough. Graduating in a
sagging economy, on the other hand,
provides a more realistic view of
whats possible, instilling an outlook
of modesty and pragmatism that will
serve Millennials well in the future.
Finding their place is not easy.
Millennials just starting out must
jostle for jobs with Boomers still
hanging on. One or more aspects
of their individual identitiesethnic,
racial, gender, religious, family, etc.
fall outside existing categories and
classifications. Many role models
and paths to success have been
discredited by the taint of recent
events. Millennials have watched

lots of Boomers grab the brass ring
only to lose it all, either because of
overreaching financially or because
of trade-offs that took a terrible toll.
Millennials are not rebelling against
the system, like Baby Boomers at a
similar age. If Millennials find a place
for themselves in the system, they
are glad to have it and are anxious to
make it work. But many Millennials
are finding themselves shut out of
these opportunities.
For many Millennials, ambiguities
about position and fit present them
with ample and welcome freedom
to blaze new trails. But many others
are paralyzed by a world with no

clear boundaries or fixed tracks. All
Millennials would like to succeed,
but in the murky waters in which
they swim, success will take many
different directions, depending upon
the reference points Millennials use
to orient themselves.
Reference points are more than just
people and things, such as family
and home or celebrities and luxuries.
They are ideas and concepts, too.
They are everything that provides a
point of comparison for defining a
baseline of expectations. In terms
of generations, the guiding reference
points are found in the context of
their unique situations.
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Figure 1: Map of Millennials Success

Crisis of
Chrysalis
Group
Activities
Handicaps
Unemployment &
Underemployment
Group
Learning
CONTEXT
Structured
Lives
College Debt
Obesity
Mental Health
Crossroads
Greater
Diversity
Parental
Involvement
New Gender
Balance
Individuality &
Community
Multigenerational
Households
Importance of
Group Resources
(and the Divide
in Access)
Religious
Diversity &
Decline
Information &
Technology
Scarce
Resources
Team
Dynamic
Millennial Context
Figure 1 shows a summary of the
core aspects of the team dynamic
and the crisis of chrysalis. Arrayed
in this way, top against bottom,
the space between can be seen as
the area in which Millennials will
redefine success, bounded by the
specific aspects of their generational
situation. But these aspects do
not constitute points of reference.
Rather, they give rise to reference
points of comparison. For Millennials,
these are shown in Figure 2, alongside
the aspects giving rise to each.
The team dynamic yields three key

notions that contribute to the ways
in which Millennials are redefining
success.
The importance of others. The
formative experience of Baby
Boomers was doing your own
thing; for Millennials, it has been
networking and working together.
Group activities, group learning,
team structures and more, all
instilled an appreciation and respect
for others. Even as role players,
everybody got a turn in the spotlight.
Breaking the rules was okay, but
not at the expense of norms or at

the cost of externalities. Even the
experience of difficult situations
brings Millennials together because
it is a shared experience that unifies
rather than isolates.
Supervision. Millennials lived
with high involvement from others,
their parents especially, and from
many other types of authority and
oversight, too. This was exactly
the kind of involvement that Baby
Boomers actively parried. For
Millennials, its been structured
activities, highly scheduled days,
little free play, and watchful

monitoring. Lately, its been safety
nets, too, as Millennials struggle
because of the economy.
Focus on self. The umbrella of
supports and safeguards sheltering
Millennials was intended to create a
sanctuary within which individuals
could safely explore, experiment,
invent and achieve. The social
agenda of youthful Baby Boomers
has been supplanted by the personal
adventures of Millennials. Teams
were never about the group;
they were a means of facilitating
individual excellence. Within limits

and in productive ways, Millennials
were free to take charge.
The crisis of chrysalis also yields
three key notions that contribute
to the ways in which Millennials are
redefining success.
Limits. There is no dearth of things
that Millennials are told they must do
without. There are fewer jobs, and
those available offer lower wages.
Debt limits opportunities, although
for many, qualifying for debt is
harder than ever. Resources are
growing scarcer, limiting prospects

for growth and prosperity. The
future is less certain, the world
less secure. No wonder that many
Millennials feel stressed and covet a
bit more happiness for themselves.
Expansiveness. At the same time as
the world is closing in on Millennials,
it is opening up as well. Many
Millennials are born into new ethnic
identities, creating fresh possibilities
for everyone else. A new range of
styles beckons. New technologies
unlock new connections and create
liquidity that expands access to
Figure 2: Reference Points

Crisis of
Chrysalis
Group
Activities
Group
Learning
Handicaps
Unemployment &
Underemployment
Limits
Importance
of Others
Structured
Lives
Parental
Involvement
College Debt
REFERENCE
POINTS
Obesity
Mental Health
Crossroads
Expansiveness
Supervision
New Gender
Balance
Individuality &
Community
Necessity
of Ingenuity
Importance of
Group Resources
(and the Divide
in Access)
Greater
Diversity
Focus
on Self
Multigenerational
Households
Religious
Diversity &
Decline
Information &
Technology
Scarce
Resources
Team
Dynamic
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everything. A lifetime of political

correctness and team-building has
made Millennials less judgmental
and more respectful of difference
and novelty, thus opening up
opportunities suppressed in years
past.
Ingenuity. With so much up in the
air and so little that can be carried
forward, Millennials have been
thrown back onto their own initiative
and ingenuity. Old roles, identities
and definitions no longer work.
The old solutions and pathways
are bankrupt. Something new is
welcome. Something smarter is
needed. Sometimes, though, this
can lead to shortcuts because, to
succeed, Millennials are willing to
push the edges rather than resign
themselves to failure by doing things
the old-fashioned way.
Shortcuts are also the normative
context within which Millennials
have come of age. For example,
cheating in school is headline news,
but Millennials didnt usher in this
ethos of deceit; it was already there
when they arrived. As measured by
a number of surveys, the run-up in
cheating occurred during the 1980s
and 1990s, long before Millennials
knew anything about crib notes.
Certainly, Millennials havent bucked
this mendacious norm, but what
they have learned from it is more
than just a handful of ploys to boost
their test scores. They have learned
instead that ingenuity is an utter
necessity, even though it often blurs
the lines between a crooked path

and the straight and narrow.
Millennial Success
The reference points that arise from
the situation in which Millennials
have come of age and now find
themselves make it possible to
bring together what is known about
Millennials and plot the ways in which
they will redefine success. Broadly
speaking, there are two ways they
will do this. Each is a rejection of the
kind of success that came to be the
prevailing model for Baby Boomers.
Millennials aspire to many of the
same things as Boomers, but not
the sort of naked ambition to win
that was embodied in the 1980s
Boomer war cry, He who dies with
the most toys wins. For Boomers,
the epitome of success, celebrated in
Boomer pop culture and advertising,
has meant pure, unadulterated,
uncompromising winning. But
this sort of fanatical zealotry for
unadorned, individualistic triumph
doesnt command as much respect
among Millennials. This is not to say
that Millennials are rejecting success,
as many generational authorities
have incorrectly postulated.
Millennials crave success, but
circumstancesboth lessons learned
and the situation at handare
obliging them to rethink its metrics.
One style of success for Millennials
is succeeding without winning, more
specifically, success by coping. In
a sense, this is a workaround that

involves thinking and talking about
success in an entirely different way.
The other style of success for
Millennials is succeeding by winning
in a different way, more specifically,
success by reconstructing. This
involves getting around the current
definition of success without
rejecting it outright, mostly by
adding to it, doing it differently,
or putting a different priority on
aspects of it.
A word of clarification is in order.
The types of success discussed
here do not represent segments of
Millennials. Individual Millennials

will find that several of these types
of success resonate with them.
Certainly, these types of success
could be used as dimensions for
clustering Millennials into segments
that place more or less priority on
different types, but that is not the
purpose here.
The discussion of success
articulated here focuses on
conceptual platforms to use in the
development and brainstorming
of creative messages and product
designs for Millennials. These
dimensions of success constitute
the dictionary of aspiration for
Millennials as well as a framework

of reference points that every
Millennial will understand even
though not all of them will put equal
priority on each element. In effect,
this is the Millennial vocabulary
for talking about success. As with
any argot, different Millennials will
rely on certain concepts more than
on others, but it is a language of
success that all understand and a
perspective on achievement that
underscores what is distinctive
about Millennials. This is the
framework of success that
Millennials bring with them to the
marketplace.
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Figure 3: Map of Millennial Success - Coping

Success by Coping
Already
Won
Group
Activities
Group
Learning
Handicaps
Cooperation
Unemployment &
Underemployment
Limits
Importance
of Others
Plan B
Structured
Lives
Parental
Involvement
Crisis of
Chrysalis
Grit
Not Get
Obesity
Mental Health
Crossroads
Expansiveness
Supervision
Greater
Diversity
New Gender
Balance
Individuality &
Community
Necessity
of Ingenuity
Importance of
Group Resources
(and the Divide
in Access)
College Debt
Focus
on Self
Multigenerational
Households
Religious
Diversity &
Decline
Information &
Technology
Scarce
Resources
Team
Dynamic
Success by Coping
The redefinition of success as
coping is about succeeding by
trying. It is not about succeeding by
accomplishing. It is enough to do
well just getting by and coping.
When accomplishments are
impossible for reasons beyond an
individuals control, failing to reach
those accomplishments doesnt
disqualify anyone from being a
success, nor does it qualify as a
success anyone who reaches them.
Getting them is like divine grace. Its
nice to have, but its not because of
anything done by someone. Instead,

what constitutes success is effort,
perseverance and survival, rather
than fortune.
Figure 3 shows the map of Millennial
success introduced in Figures 1 and
2 with the contours of success-bycoping embedded in the area on
the left. The four peaks of successby-coping are located near the
contextual reference points relevant
to validating each as a success.
Already Won. The late Republican
Senator from Vermont, George
Aiken, counseled Presidents Lyndon
Johnson and Richard Nixon that the

best course of action for the US in
the Vietnam War that dragged on
during both administrations was to
declare victory and leave. Although
Aikens advice lives on today as
shorthand for jaded cynicism, it
was actually very shrewd. However
poorly things are progressing, if
you leave while still in control of the
field of action, any defeat suffered
later cannot be laid at your feet,
even if that defeat would still have
happened with you there or was
due in some way to the mess you
left behind. Aikens insight was
that winning is not always, and
perhaps not ever, just a matter of

competition; it is also a matter of
declaration.
This same principle applies to
Millennials and success. It is not
simply that the idea of succeeding
has changed. More fundamentally,
it is that the idea of losing has
been suspended. Millennials look
at themselves or at members of
their generation who are failures
by traditional criteria and simply
declare them to be successes.
Losers are turned into winners by
declaration. More than abandoning
the traditional idea of success,
Millennials have abandoned the
traditional idea of failure, thus
turning into winners manyif not
allof those who have failed by
traditional criteria.
The clearest sign that this way of
approaching life has reached critical
mass is the angst and ridicule
provoked by Millennials who are
succeeding in this way. The most
recent example was the February
19, 2011 Saturday Essay in the
Wall Street Journal in which Kay
Hymowitz, a Senior Fellow at the
Manhattan Institute, a conservative
think tank, summarized the thesis
of her new book about the extended
adolescence of unmarried men in
their twenties with this question,
Where have all the good men
gone? To be fair, in her book,
Hymowitz explores the societal
implications of a generation of
young, unmarried adults, such as
the new sexual hierarchy (i.e., the

crossroads fact of a new gender
balance). But she is unambiguous
in her depiction of young, unmarried
men in their twenties as losers.
Millennials arent daunted by
these sorts of critiques, though,
because they know their critics are
pining for a bygone era that was
stitched together with markers of
success that have lost credibility
and relevance in the context of
contemporary life.
The relevant contextual reference
points are those of unyielding
limits combined with the expansive
freedom to assume or invent an
identity of choice that brings one
together with others. Nurtured
through a childhood in which the
iconic team dynamic was everyone
getting a trophy just for trying, the
idea of losing was never entertained.
Millennials didnt obliterate losing; it
was never there to begin with.
For Millennials, alternative paths do
not mean one is lost. They know that
the path to adulthood will be slower
and that achieving stability will
mean reaching crucial milestones in
a different order. They realize that
there will be multiple paths and they
are comfortable with the prospect
of multiple outcomes. Millennials
were reared with electronic
entertainments and interactive
games for which multiple endings
and creative inventions are the way
things are supposed to work.
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In taking alternative paths,

Millennials are not rebelling.
Alternative paths are now the status
quo. Millennials are just working
the system. The breakdown of
the traditional path to adulthood
predates Millennials. A team of
sociologists at the Network on
Transitions to Adulthood at the
University of Pennsylvania analyzed
Census data from 1960 and 2000
to compare the percentages of 30
year-olds who had passed all the
milestones surveys show people
believe you have to pass in order
to reach adulthoodfinancial
independence, not living with
parents, full-time job, completed
education, married with children.
In 1960, it was 65 percent of men
and 77 percent of women. In 2000,
it was 31 percent of men and 46
percent of women. Leading-edge
Millennials were just hitting their late
teens in 2000, so these new paths
to adulthood were pioneered long
before Millennials had to face up to
these challenges.
This is not to suggest that
achievement has become
unimportant or diluted. Millennials
know the difference between more
or less and between better or worse.
They just reject the implication that
not measuring up in a traditional
way automatically makes someone
a loser. Instead, they recognize that
coping with limitations and exploring
new possibilities makes winners out
of everybody, irrespective of the old
markers of advancement. The thing
that matters most nowadays is not

where you are but whether youre
trying.
Grit Not Get. For Millennials in their
current stage in life, success is not
only about end-points; it is about
putting forth the effort. A loser is
not someone who hasnt achieved
something; a loser is someone who
isnt trying. Its more about the grit
put into it than what they get out of
it.
Some Millennials are stuck at go
because they cant get a job or
because they have so much college
debt they cant afford the next
step. Some Millennials have put
off making a start because they
have enough support to get by for
the time being. Some Millennials
are still in school getting additional
education and training, not yet ready
to get started. Limits, demands and
possibilities dictate different paths.
As long as someone is making the
most out of their situation, they
are succeeding. The losers are
Millennials who have given up or who
are slacking off.
One Millennial blogger at
TheSimpleDollar.com (February
15, 2011) recounted a conversation
with a Boomer near retirement who
complained that young people today
lacked the maturity or discipline to
get ahead. The blogger then offers
a detailed seven-paragraph rebuttal
in which he inventories all of the
facts and figures about real wages,
housing prices, education costs, job

opportunities and more that make
it harder for Millennials to succeed
today. The blogger insists that
comparing Millennials to Boomers
is apples and oranges. He rejects as
unfair and unappreciative of current
realities any criticism of Millennials
defining success in terms of effort
rather than results. The blogger
concludes with a well-articulated
summary of success as grit not get:
Rather than focusing on results,

look for signs of progress and
for the status of the journey as a
whole. Its not even remotely fair
to compare resultsthe income
you have, the house you have,
the education youve paid for
between eras, so instead focus
on positive steps in the right
direction.
Measuring success by effort rather

than by accomplishment reflects
the characteristic fluidity of life
nowadays. Millennials expect to
live their lives in constant transition.
They anticipate holding many jobs.
They are tied to technologies that
are always changing, upgrading
and leapfrogging from one to the
next. They have ridden a rollercoaster market of stratospheric
highs and ruinous lows. They have
witnessed overnight overthrows of
long-standing regimes by people
their own age, transforming their
countries in a flash. Success in this
world is a function of mastering

the means, not of achieving certain
ends.
Millennials will fashion more fluid
lives in response to a more protean
world. Success will not be measured
as an end-state. Of necessity,
identities will be in a constant
state of becoming. The most
successful people will be those able
to continually learn, re-learn and
adapt, not those who stop learning
and settle into some end-state.
The world will leave behind those
who quit keeping up by refusing to
change.
One of the Millennial icons of
success, Oscar-winning actress
Natalie Portman, has been said by
critic Nathan Heller in a post on Slate
(February 8, 2011) to be the actress
of her time because her career
zigzags reflect her generations
unsettled aspirations and the
efforts by Millennials not to get
immersed in any one pursuit. While
this sort of fluidity worries many
Boomers, it is exactly what makes
for success among Millennials.
Obviously, Millennials wont succeed
if they use fluidity as an excuse to
extend adolescence endlessly. But
young adulthood now requires a
mutability of mind and action as
well as a plasticity of identity and
disposition that have not been
true before. Success is defined
now by possibility rather than
closure, by engagement rather
than detachment, by developing

rather than finishing. The time has
passed when success was a matter
of achieving end-points. Now, it is
a matter of managing unremitting
transitions.
Fluidity entails more ambiguity. The
value of clarity about end-points is
being lost as the pace of life picks
up and the scene passes by in a blur.
Millennials are more comfortable
with this lack of definition than
older generations and are reshaping
their lifestyles to accommodate
it. Success is no longer found by
settling into an everlasting endpoint. Success is found in the grit
to make the effort whatever the
circumstances.
Cooperation. The one resource
Millennials have always been able
to turn to is the group. It remains
true. This is the essence of the team
dynamic. Success comes from
engaging with the group. Making the
group better is as good as doing so
yourself. The importance of team is
not a new idea, but team victory is
more salient than ever.
Increasingly, group support is the
keystone of individual success.
Group buying power facilitated
by technology is a growing
phenomenon for getting better
deals in the marketplace. Group
support provides a safety net in
hard times. The Futures Company
2010 Global MONITOR data show
that 49 percent of US Millennials
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A smart, well-orchestrated Plan

A no longer guarantees success.
agree with the statement, I wish

I had more people I could turn to
when times get tough, compared
to just 39 percent of Boomers. The
so-called family net was a common
refuge for many Millennials during
the Great Recession of 2008/2009.
Additionally, US Millennials were
given a boost of confidence in the
power of their group by events
in Tunisia and Egypt, where
technology-enabled young people
played a major role in the overthrow
of authoritarian regimes. The power
of the group has a lot of intimate
salience for Millennials.
Navajo culture is often described as
valuing the group over the individual.
Individuals who stand out from the
group with their accomplishments
are reined in and their achievements
moderated to avoid putting more
emphasis and adulation on an
individual than on the group as a
whole. It is the group at the expense
of the individual. Certainly, this
is not the group experience of
Millennials, but Millennials are more
careful than Baby Boomers were
about elevating the individual at the
expense of the group. There is no
success in unreserved, incautious
individual achievements that entail
negative consequences for others.
This is not to suggest that only group
achievements count with Millennials.
Individual triumphs matter as much
as ever. But, to a degree unknown to
Boomers, there is also victory to be
had in cooperation with the group,
and individual accomplishments that

diminish others are remarkable only
in their offensiveness. Hurting the
group hurts oneself. The group is
an essential resource for good times
and bad.
Plan B. Success means expecting
that things will not go according to
plan. Expecting otherwise in a fluid
world of limits and possibilities is
nave. A smart, well-orchestrated
Plan A no longer guarantees
success. Hidden risks and rapid
change put a premium on Plan B.
Successful Millennials are those who
expectand therefore planto fail.
What makes them winners is having
a back-up plan for the inevitable
hiccup. Having no back-up plan is
a failure to grasp reality with both
hands. Millennials who are ready
for downsizing day are successes.
Millennials have come of age seeing
that success is better assured by
expecting the unexpected, not just
unexpected risks but unexpected
consequences, too.
Plan B is a sideline as well as a
disaster recovery plan. Many
Millennials are ensconced in a secure
job yet they keep something going
on the side. Its a diversification
of options and interests as well as
a personal safety net if the need
arises. Millennials inhabit a world
that esteems a multiplicity of
pursuits and activities.
Its always been smart to have a Plan
B to protect against the unexpected.
What distinguishes Millennials

is that Plan B has become more
important than Plan A. Boomers
had the reverse priority, with little
attention to Plan B at all, if their
dearth of retirement savings or
their incautious enthusiasm for
two successive financial bubbles
are any indication. Millennials not
only understand the need for Plan B
relative to future risks, they see how
it would have helped their Boomer
parents in the recent past.
The higher priority that Millennials
put on Plan B can be seen in their
approach to risk. Millennials have
been described as a highly riskaverse generation. The argument
is that lives spent in structured,
carefully monitored activities,
often filled with heavy parental
involvement, could only have
produced a timid generation.

Generation-watcher Neil Howe
points to figures from the CDC
as proof. The annual Youth Risk
Behavior Survey shows large, steady
declines since 1991 in nearly all of
the risky behaviors tracked by the
CDC, from not wearing seat belts to
carrying weapons to smoking and
drinking to drug use to promiscuous
and unprotected sex.
Yankelovich MONITOR health
and wellness data show parallel
results about the risk awareness of
Millennials in attitudes about health
responsibility and accountability.
Table 3 shows selected questions
comparing Millennials and Boomers.
Millennials are much more likely
to agree that incentives and
penalties should be put in place to
make people think ahead and act
responsibly.
Table 3: Millennials vs. Boomers on Questions about

Health Accountability
Millennials
Boomers
Health insurance companies should charge higher rates

to people who dont take care of their health
62%
45%
We would have a healthier society if more laws were put

in place to encourage healthy lifestyles and discourage
unhealthy lifestyles
59%
36%
I support adding a tax on sales of all fattening foods
35%
25%
The government has a responsibility to encourage

healthiness by banning ingredients and cooking methods that may lead to obesity
53%
39%
Source: 2010 US Yankelovich MONITOR
It seems an overstatement to call

Millennials risk-averse. After all,
Millennials do express a typical
youthful interest in risk-taking. In
the 2010 US Yankelovich MONITOR,
58 percent of Millennials agreed that
they like taking the risk of being
one of the first people to try a new
product or service, far higher than
the 31 percent of Boomers who
agreed. However, agreement among
Boomers was much higher in years
past when they were younger. So,
Millennials have the same attitudes
about risk that young people always
express.
But risk is more than just youthful
gusto for Millennials. They have a
distinctive generational view of risk.
After all, they are the generation to
come of age after extreme sports
had been mainstreamed by edgy
Boomers and restless GenXers.
Millennials have always enjoyed peril
as play. Success for Millennials is
not ducking danger, its tempering
threats. Millennials will take chances
as long as they can keep the
consequences caged, which means,
among other things, Plan B.
Plan B is not winning in the same way
that scorched-earth Baby Boomers
acted out their Star Wars fantasies of
the Force versus the Dark Side. For
Millennials, not getting the job done,
for whatever reason, is time for Plan
B. For Boomers, Plan B is failure, no
matter how it works out in the end.
For Boomers, even when things were
fixed, employing Plan B was to admit
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failure. Winning for Boomers was all

about Plan A. Anything else was just
a little less failure.
Mere coping has long been seen as
failure by Boomers. Its just treading
water. Millennials see it differently.
They understand that treading water
is a form of success, if not the best
form. You keep your head above
water. You live to fight (or swim)
another day.
Millennials have fundamentally
overturned the old notion of success,
replacing it with a view that better
reflects their situations and the
reference points that define the
context within which they live. They
refuse to wear the scarlet letter of
loser just because they arent making

the transition to adulthood in the
traditional way. They know that effort
counts more than the ends because,
nowadays, grit is about all thats
under their control. To get more, they
are not going to betray the group
that got them there. They live with
a visceral appreciation of the need
for fluidity, flexibility and dexterity.
Nobody makes it anymore without
Plan B. Thats success by coping.
Success by Reconstructing
The redefinition of success as
reconstructing is about succeeding
by winning in a different way.
This is not about dismissing
accomplishment altogether. Rather,
it is about remaking accomplishment

to leach out what keeps it from
qualifying as success.
While every good thing comes
with bad, too much of the
accomplishment of prior generations
has consisted of compromises, costs
and penalties that Millennials want
to avoid. They want many of the
same things, but without the tradeoffs. What constitutes success is
not accomplishment per se but
accomplishment that accounts
for consequences. Sometimes
this means accomplishment that
minimizes sacrifices. Other times,
this means accomplishment through
an alternative style or with a different
set of priorities.
Figure 4: Map of Millennial Success Coping & Reconstructing

Crisis of
Chrysalis
Success by Coping
Already
Won
Group
Activities
Group
Learning
Cooperation
Unemployment &
Underemployment
Limits
Importance
of Others
Plan B
Structured
Lives
Parental
Involvement
College Debt
Grit
Not Get
Obesity
Mental Health
Crossroads
Friends
Expansiveness
Supervision
Augmented
Accomplishment
Team
Dynamic
Figure 4 shows the map of Millennial

success introduced in Figure 3
with the contours of success-byreconstructing added in the area on
the right. The six peaks of successby-reconstructing are, like the four
peaks for success-by-coping, located
near the contextual reference points
most relevant for validating each as a
form of success.
Accomplishment Augmented.
Curiously, despite the widespread
portrayal by the media of Millennials
as civic-minded, pro-social, and
Necessity
of Ingenuity
Gaming
Focus
on Self
Passions
Multigenerational
Households
Religious
Diversity &
Decline
Information &
Technology
Scarce
Resources
Success by Reconstructing
interested in making a difference

and finding happiness, Millennials
are simultaneously disparaged for
being acquisitive and materialistic.
Probably the most frequently cited
evidence in this regard is the annual
survey of incoming college freshmen
conducted each year since 1966
by the Higher Education Research
Institute at UCLA. These data
are provocative, so its useful to
understand exactly what they show.
One of the questions in this
survey asks respondents to rate
the importance of a variety of
Greater
Diversity
New Gender
Balance
Creativity
Happiness
Individuality &
Community
Importance of
Group Resources
(and the Divide
in Access)
Handicaps
objectives of a college education.

The percentage of freshmen rating
each objective as either essential
or very important is tracked as
one indicator of the priorities and
interests of young people in general
and college freshmen in particular.
In 1967, the top-rated answer by
far was developing a meaningful
philosophy of life, with 85.8 percent
rating it highly (i.e., essential or very
important). In contrast, being very
well-off financially was in the middle
of the pack, with 41.9 percent rating
it highly. In 2009, the respective
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percentages were 48 percent and

78.1 percent. This is a dramatic
shift in generational priorities and
is often cited as proof positive that
Millennials are money-oriented.
The reasons vary. Some say it is
evidence that Millennials are spoiled
and grasping. Others say it is a
manifestation of a deeper dynamic
like entrepreneurship or purpose.
Still others say it is reflective of the
tough economy.
There is no doubt that 2009 ratings
of being very well-off financially
were influenced by the economy.
The 78.1 percent rating it highly
was the highest percentage ever
measured for that objective.
Financial concerns were evident
in the answers to other questions
as well. The cost of attending
college was mentioned by 41.6 as
a very important factor in their
choice of schools, a big jump from
32.2 percent in 2006 before the
downturn. The percentage of
students reporting that their father
was unemployed was the highest
ever, at 4.5 percent. The percentage
of students saying that they picked
a college because its graduates get
good jobs was also the highest ever,
at 56.5 percent.
For all the impact of the tough
economy on Millennial attitudes,
though, the importance of financial
objectives to Millennial college
freshmen is not due to the economy,
nor is it something pioneered by
Millennials. A quick glance at the
longitudinal data for the question on

college objectives makes this clear.
The year with the highest percentage
rating meaningful philosophy of
life as essential or very important
was the very first year that item was
included in the questionnaire. From
that year forward, the percentage
giving it a high rating steadily
declined. The percentage giving a
high rating to well-off financially
sputtered along in the high thirties
and low forties until the mid-1970s,
when it began a steady rise. The
two objectives crossed over in
1979 when, for the first time ever,
the percentage giving a high rating
to meaningful philosophy of life
was lower than that for well-off
financially, 56.3 and 61.1 percent,
respectively. Well-off financially
has been higher every year since
then, and the gap has progressively
widened over time.
In other words, it was the tail
end of the Baby Boomers, not
Millennials (and not Gen Xers) that
put materialism above meaning. In
fact, this was completely consistent
with the turnabout in values that
occurred among Boomers during
the economically insecure decade of
the 1970s. Long before Millennials
were even a twinkle in the eye,
Boomers saw their optimism run
head on into a brick wall of limits, as
the Newsweek article cited earlier
noted at the time. In response,
Boomers abandoned their carefree
hedonism and self-discovery for
hard-nosed competitiveness and
acquisitiveness. (In our MONITOR

work at the time, we called this
The New Realism.) This is where
Boomers and Millennials diverge.
Boomers faced down their
challenges by becoming more
single-minded, even ruthless,
about material achievement; not so
Millennials.
Notwithstanding financial pressures
and worries, fewer Millennial
freshmen in 2009 than in 2008
reported that they were planning on
majoring in business, 14.4 percent
versus 16.8 percent, respectively.
Additionally, the percentage
reporting that they were planning on
having a business career, regardless
of major, dropped from 14.1 percent
in 2008 to 12.1 percent in 2009, tied
with 1976 for the all-time low.
Millennials have come of age in a
time when financial achievement
was taken for granted. They didnt
invent this focus; they inherited it.
It was brought to the fore as a top
priority by their parents decades
ago. It is deeply ingrained in every
aspect of life for Millennials: not
just money or materialism per se,
but all of the intangibles like social
connection and experiences that
are possible only with the financial
wherewithal to afford the material
things that enable them.
What they want is not achievement

for its own sake, like their parents,
but achievement that feels good and
makes sense. They are evincing a
preference for accomplishment that
is augmented by the ingredients
they believe are missing from
accomplishment for its own sake.
Again, results from the annual survey
of incoming college freshmen offer
some evidence of this generational
shift in views of success. In 1990,
only 16.9 percent agreed that there
was a very good chance they would
participate in community service
while in college. In 2009, it was 32.1
percent. Even as they worry more
about financial success, Millennials
are committing themselves in ever
greater numbers to things beyond
finances.
Millennials continued to be focused
on a reference point of self. They
want to do well. But they are also
guided by a reference point of
ingenuity that gives them permission
to remake success in their own ways.
They see that any success they
pursue will have to take cognizance

of limits, but they see, too, that they
need not follow the main channel
if they see an alternative one that
looks better. There is no penalty for
diverging from the mainstream.
There are several ways in
which Millennials augment
accomplishment. First and
foremost, they want no trade-offs.
Success (or products) at the cost
of sustainability is the most obvious
example. This is not because
Millennials are out to save the world.
(The reality is that the interest of
Millennials in pro-social products
and activities is declining as they
mature, as shown in detail in the
recent Futures Perspective report,
Unmasking Millennials: The Truth
Behind a Misunderstood Generation.)
It is because Millennials grew up
taking sustainability for granted.
Sustainability is not something
special that earns brands extra
credit. It is a given that earns
brands demerits if they fall short,
thus disassociating such brands
Millennials are not rejecting

accomplishment in material ways.
They are rejecting accomplishment
when it comes with compromises.
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from success. Other trade-offs

include loss of control, diminished
happiness, lack of humor and fun,
lack of energy and vibrancy, loss of
community and social connection,
taking away family time, and
technologically inept or outmoded.
Many of these the things that
Millennials value too much to trade
off are also things they use to fill
in success. As certain kinds of
accomplishment become harder,
even impossible, to reach, Millennials
make up for it by filling in the gaps
with something else. They can
achieve success by augmenting what
is unavailable or not there for them
with something else that is available
to them. For example, they may
put less in a 401(k) plan because
the market is trending against them
and spend more on their homes,
or they may make up for not being
able to afford the home they want by
spending what money they have on
travel, or they may not see enough
financial benefit to justify college
so they hold out for a job with a
schedule they like. In every case,
they fill in the gap with something
that makes them a success. If limits
continue to work against them,
more Millennials will be forced to
compromise on traditional, material
elements of the American Dream,
but instead of settling for failure in
that way, they will augment what
they cant have with something else
to make them successful.
Millennials will also be the first
generation able to enjoy many
elements of the traditional American

Dream without having to own any of
it. In prior US Yankelovich MONITOR
work, this has been referred to as
dis-ownership. (This concept
was first introduced in the 2005
MONITOR as the concept of No
Strings and later elaborated on
the 2006 Year-End LIVE as disownership. This idea has been
popularized as a business model
of sharing by Lisa Gansky in her
recent book, The Mesh.) A culture
of dis-owning has arisen from
leasing to fractional ownership to
auctions to swapping to digitization
to downright piracy. What people
really want is not the product but the
benefits provided by it. Ownership
has no relevance if benefits can
be enjoyed without it. The way to
augment success that cant be
owned is to lease it or swap for it
or to experience it in a different
way. Whats threatened by limits is
ownership. Sharing with others not
only finesses limits, it taps directly
into the importance of others and
the kind of structured interaction
that has always been a part of
Millennial lifestyles.
A marketplace of dis-ownership
puts a greater premium on brands
than on products. It makes prosocial elements like provenance
and principles more salient
considerations in the transaction.
Value must delivered in ways that go
beyond ownership, such as the act
of sharing or the social connections
involved or the pleasures of design,
service and indulgence. All of these

things augment accomplishment to
make up for things that are missing
from the traditional form of success.
Ultimately, what Millennials want
from accomplishment is not a
replacement of material achievement
but an enlargement of it. They want
accomplishment that is materialismplus. The plus is what counts.
Several plusses in particular stand
out these days.
Happiness. Happiness has become
a fad. But even when the fad
fades, it will remain an important
priority for Millennials. A plethora
of bestsellers have been published
on this subject, including one by
Oprah in 2008. Psychologists are
cashing in on decades of social
science research on this topic
with books and TV appearances.
Some economists have taken their
academic inquiries about measures
of well-being that go beyond GDP to
the mainstream. Brands have made
happiness a platform for messaging
and product innovation. Politicians
and policy-makers have made it a
matter of public discussion. (The
UK government has even made
happiness an explicit part of its policy
agenda.)
If you are happy, you are considered
a success. Whatever you have,
if you feel good, then you have
succeeded. Happiness is one
thing for which there are no limits
and it is something people can
achieve for themselves, the hedonic

treadmill notwithstanding. It does
not necessarily depend on material
things, and for Millennials it is a
badge that can be worn as a smile.
Millennials want less of the market
and more of meaning, more of
happiness. The traditional path to
success is not a victory if it comes
without happiness. Happiness is a
triumph that can stand on its own.
Passions. Millennials want to be
engaged in things that inspire and
excite them. They seek to indulge
their passions, not their pocketbooks.
They seek experiences that fascinate
them and put them into the flow
(in the sense in which Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi described it in his
1990 book as being the psychology
of optimal experience).
Success is reconstructed as fervent
engagement with something of
eagerif not obsessiveallure and
magnetism. It is about the process
of dealing with things, not things
themselves.
The metric for success as passions
is, in the words of one Millennial
consultant at The Futures Company,
a high level of interesting-ness. Its
not status or flash or bling or badge.
Its about being absorbing and
enthralling and intense.
Passions could also be the path
to riches. The Millennial dream of
instant wealth is that it is but a single
click away. If one just put some time
into monetizing ones passions, one

can be a success. Anyone is but
a click away from doing this. This
is one reason why coping is not
necessarily unsuccessful; coping
could actually be potential success in
waiting. Its not smarts thats needed,
just passions. Many Millennials
just getting by, it is believed, have
passions that, if they ever get around
to it, could easily make them the next
Mark Zuckerberg.
Creativity. The combined reference
points of a focus on self and an
expansive canvas for ones handiwork
put a premium on being creative.
There is a sense among Millennials
and academics alike that originality
is harder than ever because so much
of what is possible to do has been
done already. This is not a new idea,
of course. The belief that everything
original has been done before is
the essence of early to mid-20th
century post-modernism. But it is
felt much more keenly nowadays
as late 20th century culture and
science have wrapped up most of
the remaining strands of originality
that put the lie to post-modernism
for many decades. With originality in
scarce supply, a new sort of creativity
becomes even more valuable as
a way to win and thus a marker of
success.
Pop music is a good illustration.
Many critics argue that the last
original style in pop music was hip
hop in the early 1980s. Original
music today is not a new style
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but a fresh, new and creative

reinterpretation of something old.
Sampling is one example. The rise of
DJ mixes is another. Styles or genres
such as acid jazz or alt-country or
reggaetn that are created from
combinations of older styles or
genres are yet another.
Creativity from the reinvention,
recombination or mashups of prior
creations affects more than music.
Millennials are heir to instantaneous
fingertip access to everything ever
written, recorded, filmed, published
or produced, and they have the
tools to do whatever they want with
it. Consumer-generated content
and ads come from this. But the

scope of this sort of access is, for all
practical purposes, unlimited. There
is no premium anymore in curating
content because access is a click
away for everyone. The premium
is in recreating content and doing
something with it that is more than
just consuming it.
Consumption was the old standard
of successgoing to museums
or collecting obscure records or
traveling to faraway lands. None of
that means as much as it did once
because of digital access. Todays
success is creating something
original from whats at hand.
Boomers were the last consumption

generation. Millennials are the first
creative generation.
Boomers grew up in a hacker
culture that was about breaking into
corporate bastions and inventing
something more individualistic and
self-fulfilling. Apples 1984 Super
Bowl ad was the iconic statement of
this sensibility. Millennials have come
of age in a culture of choreography
that is all about directing the
network of resources, people and
content to create a performance
that is transcendent in the way in
which it combines old forms into
new uses. Facebook is perhaps
the iconic illustration of this. Mark
Zuckerberg mashed together several
existing databases and elements to
create Facemash, a me-too version
of an earlier Web site that was the
immediate precursor to Facebook.
As a footnote, its worth considering
whether this kind of creativity is the
way in which Millennials will unlock
the innovation needed to power the
next boom of economic growth.
Many economists are concerned that
innovation is petering out. George
Mason University economist Tyler
Cowen set off a firestorm of debate
about this topic with his sobering
new e-book, The Great Stagnation:
How America Ate All of the LowHanging Fruit of Modern History,
Got Sick And Will (Eventually) Feel
Better. In particular, Cowen points
to a 2005 analysis by physicist
Jonathan Huebner showing that,
worldwide, the number of noteworthy

innovations per capita peaked in
1873 and has been declining ever
since. Cowen argues that innovation
in the US tapered off after the 1970s,
which accounts for the economic
stagnationmedian wages, in
particularof the past few decades.
Others are less doleful. In his 2010
e-book, The Rational Optimist,
science journalist Matt Ridley offers
a much more upbeat view of the
potential yet to be unleashed by the
free exchange of ideas. In Ridleys
view, the current downturn is a
temporary blip and not particularly
significant in the bigger picture.
Ridley foresees a century of
enormous advances, as long as we
continue to embrace a culture of
change.
City College physicist, co-founder
of string theory, and bestselling
author Michio Kaku noted in his
1997 book, Visions: How Science Will
Revolutionize the 21st Century, that,
with the discovery of the atom and
the gene along with the invention
of the computer, the centurieslong era of scientific discovery was
over. But unlike many who have
proclaimed that this marks an end
to science, Kaku notes that the
future will be filled with a new sort of
science in which we become active
choreographers of nature. This is the
creative future for Millennials, one in
which they can sustain innovation in
ways that go far beyond what prior
generations have ever known.
Whether glum or hopeful, one

imperative runs through all views
about the future. The next generation
will have to step up to the plate,
just as prior generations rose to the
challenges facing them. Millennials
can succeed by creatively solving
the problems now enfeebling
innovation. The education system
needs overhaul. The stature
of science needs refurbishing.
The infrastructure for nurturing
innovation needs fine-tuning, in
capital markets especially. In effect,
this is the Millennial to-do list.
Even Cowen and others believe that,
in time, breakthrough innovations
will put rocket fuel in the American
economy once again. Growth and
prosperity of other countries like
China will carry the US along as well.
Millennials will benefit from these
long-term forces, but in the meantime
they will have to do their part. It is a
creative challenge for Millennials, but
it is a prospect they will pursue as a
route to success.
Gaming. If life is not about work,
then its got to be about play.
For Millennials locked out of the
workforce by the economy or by the
need for an unaffordable college
degree, life is not about work. For
Millennials in the workforce, tedium
is a trade-off of success that they
would like to augment, perhaps with
elements of gaming and play. This
is a natural fit for all Millennials who
were raised in a world suffused with
games. Unsurprisingly, this, too, is
controversial.
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The trend involving the

so-called gamification
of business is about
applying video game
principles to business
functions.
Emory University English professor

Mark Bauerlein sees Millennials
in his classes every day. His
experience and research have led
him to the conclusion that the
immersion of Millennials in digital
media has mortally numbed their
minds. Hence, the unsurprising title
of his 2008 book is The Dumbest
Generation: How the Digital Age
Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Dont
Trust Anyone Under 30).
Technology and science writer
Steven Johnson takes the opposite
view. He believes that immersion in
contemporary pop culture is good
because it trains the mind in skills
essential to success in todays world.
So he penned a 2005 bestseller
entitled, Everything Bad is Good for
You: How Todays Popular Culture
is Actually Making Us Smarter,
Millennials included.
Good or bad, gaming is a fact of
life for Millennials and they want
to see gaming elements reflected
in the things with which they are
engaged. The trend involving the
so-called gamification of business
is about applying video game
principles to business functions
like loyalty programs or customer
service. Much of the focus of this
trend is on building awareness and
goodwill among younger consumers
whose patronage will be crucial
over the long run. Embedding
gaming into material offerings and
service relationships is a big step
in that direction. The next step will
be embedding the principles of

multi-player games, the most highprofile games Millennials enjoy that
combine the element of gaming with
the element of others. Friends make
everything better.
Friends. For Millennials, everything
begins and ends with social
connections. The team dynamic is
the defining characteristic of their
generational experience. It is also
the common aspect of everything
else that characterizes the Millennial
experience. Thus, friends are a
central element of success.
Early status competition on
Facebook revolved around the size
of ones Friends list. Irrespective
of anything else in ones life, a big
Friends list was a sign of success.
While this Facebook fervor has
cooled, eventually this will migrate
in other ways in other areas. The
status of a car, for example, may not
be any of the traditional cues, but
rather the number of friends who
own the same make and model.
The reputation of something as
commonplace as a carton of milk
might be enhanced by seeing
pictures of friends on the carton
or on the Web site or mentioned in
a company blog. The appeal of a
product has already become tied to
the number of friends who like it or
recommend it. The street view of a
house may soon be less important
than the friends view of a house.
And so forth. Boomers valued
exclusiveness; for Millennials, it is all
about inclusiveness.
The value that Millennials place

on friends and inclusiveness is
leading to a counter-trend of pulling
back rather than reaching out. A
Facebook-expat and the founder
of Napster have joined together to
create the anti-Facebook called Path.
com. It is like Facebook except that
the total number of friends any one
person can have is capped at fifty.
If a person wanted to add a fiftyfirst friend, he or she would have
to un-friend one of the fifty other
friends first. Similarly, a Google beta
called Diaspora is like Flickr except
that account holders can limit the
sharing of their photos to friends.
The importance of friends is such
that status is evolving from having
lots of friends to being tightly linked
to ones closest friends.
Just as they look to groups for

support, Millennials will look to
groups as a sign of success as well,
not only by being part of a large or
intimate group, but by contributing
to it in ways that help and enhance it.
Millennials will demand attention to
the group in addition to themselves.
Yet marketing models are built to
influence individuals. The individual,
not the group, is the focus of
marketing tactics, even those being
used (or misused) with new social
media. The old models must be
rethought for group-immersed, groupfocused Millennials. (For a detailed
discussion of marketing models that
better reflect social influence, see
The Futures Company US Yankelovich
MONITOR LIVE, May 20, 2010, Better
Than Persuasion.)
No matter how this focus on friends

evolves, whether in the direction
of more friends or fewer, it is
reflective of the fact that success is
associated with friends. The norms
of association become important
considerations. Boomers have
been willing to defy those norms;
Millennials are more likely to feel
bound by them. The contagion of
network effects, something that is
the focus of much research in the
new science of network analysis, is
likely to be more pronounced with
Millennials than it was with Boomers.
The validation of success will
depend more on the good opinion of
friends for Millennials than it has for
Boomers.
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Section 5:
Marketing Guidance
Over the past decade, a lot has been
said about Millennials. Most of it is
off-target, mostly because too little
of it is fact-based. A good analysis
showing this was performed in
2008 by a research associate with
the Diversity Initiative Evaluation
Project at Claremont (CA) Graduate
University. Data from The Freshman
Survey were used to test the seven
characteristics of Millennials
identified by Neil Howe and William
Strauss in their bestseller Millennials
Rising. The attitudes of incoming
college freshmen in 2006 were
compared with those of incoming
college freshmen in the early 1970s
(1971-1974). Only three of the seven
characteristics claimed by Howe and
Straus found any support in the data,
and nothing definitive for two of those
three.
The Futures Company has just
released a similar debunking of
Millennial myths as part of its Future
Perspectives series in a report
called Unmasking Millennials: The
Truth Behind a Misunderstood
Generation. Global MONITOR data
from 20 countries around the world
were used for in-depth generational
assessments. Several popular claims
about Millennials are firmly disproven
or shown to be overly simplistic, a
shortcoming that also plagues most
of the assessments now being made
of the crisis facing Millennials.
In particular, almost every take

on what the Great Recession of
2008/2009 means for Millennials
assumes the worst. The daunting
job prospects facing Millennials are
extrapolated to doomsday scenarios.
The college debt crushing many
Millennials is automatically assumed
to be another financial meltdown in
waiting. Outcomes equally severe
are thought to be in store on the
health front for Millennials. There
is no Hoosiers-like ending in any
of this. Its more like a Millennial
retelling of The Road.
For marketers, the question to ask
about the crisis facing Millennials is
whether they will be a strong, robust
consumer group going forward. The
answer to that question is yes.
Clearly, Millennials are off to a slow
start. But they have the time and
opportunity for a strong finish.
Remember, Boomers got off to a
slow start, too, as illustrated by
the Newsweek article cited earlier.
Simple extrapolations of current
conditions arent promising. But
these sorts of extrapolations are
almost always wrong; their value is
not in predicting the future, but in
establishing a baseline from which
potential future scenarios can be
used for resource planning and
capabilities development.
Three things are crucial in assessing

the long-term potential of Millennials
as a target group. First is sheer
numbers. Like Boomers, they are
a huge cohort. They are not a big
group because of a surge in fertility
rates, like the one that created
the Baby Boom. (See chapter 1
of Generation Ageless, 2007, by J.
Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, for
a detailed explanation.) Instead,
Millennials are big because there
have been so many Boomers having
children. Even with their own
families smaller than those in which
they grew up, Boomer numbers
have created the next big flood
of consumers. Gen X, the group
between Boomers and Millennials,
was a demographic baby bust.
The Millennials who came after
Gen X are now crashing the gates
of the marketplace in enormous
numbers that will create massive
opportunities in aggregate, even

if individual Millennials are not as
valuable as individual Boomers have
been in years past.
There is a demographic belief about
the future population structure
of the US that has become urban
legend. The belief is that the topheavy population distribution seen
in the mid-1990s was going to create
a future US marketplace with too
few young people and too many
old people. In fact, this is not the
future population distribution now
forecast by Census demographers.
(See http://www.census.gov/ipc/
www/idb/informationGateway.php.)
Instead, the shape of the forecasted
US population distribution
resembles that forecasted for Brazil
and India. (China, on the other hand,
is, indeed, an aging population with
a forecasted top-heavy population
distribution that will resemble

Japan.) The US marketplace will
benefit from yet another Boomer
gifta large young population of
shoppers and buyers, a group eager
to consume. Or at least, to shop and
buy on their terms.
Despite many challenges,
Millennials believe in themselves.
The comparison of Boomers and
Millennials in The Freshman Survey
cited earlier showed definitive
differences between Boomers
and Millennials on one thing
confidence. While the marketplace
has not made it easy for Millennials,
they remain confident in their
abilities to a much greater degree
than Boomers were at the same age.
From academics to artistic creativity
to achievement to leadership to
popularity to public speaking to
writing to intellect to sociability,
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Millennials think they are the bees

knees. They see a difficult road
ahead, but they remain convinced
theyll succeed. It will not be success
in the old-fashioned way, but it will
be a triumph over the odds against
them.
This is not complete self-delusion.
Millennials stand at the cusp
of several innovation booms,
biology chief among them.
Green technologies are another.
Nano-technologies and artificial
intelligence are others. There is even
the potential to drive innovation
by focusing on the needs of aging
Baby Boomers, a large, spendthrift
generation that will be hungry for
breakthroughs to combat the ills
that come with getting older.
These innovation trajectories will
not come as easily as in decades
past. More work, investment and
infrastructure will be required.
But possibilities are not closed to
Millennials. There is a curve that
can leapfrog them past current
roadblocks and land them in a
dynamic marketplace. Betting
against Millennials is no different
from betting against the future of
the American economy. If America
stays great, so will Millennials. Its
not going to be easy, but then no
generation has ever had a cakewalk.
Whether the odds are long or
short, Millennials will have to put
forth the effort required in order to
succeed. They will become heir to

an agenda of things that must be
done in order to sustain innovation
and progress. In facing up to their
future, Millennials will have, at the
very least, the same advantage
as every generation before them,
namely the example and inspiration
of those who have overcome tough
situations before. In fact, Millennials
understand this tradition better than
Boomers did at the same age. In The
Freshman Survey, 41.6 percent of
Boomers in the early 1970s agreed
that realistically, an individual can
do little to bring about changes
in our society. In 2009, only 27.6
percent of Millennials agreed.
Of course, it is dangerous to
generalize about Millennials. One of
the other myths about Millennials
debunked in The Futures Company
report Unmasking Millennials is that
all Millennials can be treated alike.
Certain segments of Millennials
will represent strong market
opportunities even if other segments
offer little potential. The report
Unmasking Millennials explores
ways to brainstorm segmentspecific implications of the broader
generational principles. This report
articulates these broader principles,
five of which are important to keep
in mind.
Its all about connection.
Marketing to Millennials should
push connection, not information.
Millennials are a social generation
and they value connection more

than information per se. They want
to interact and engage.
Connection is the history of the
Internet. It is has long been
supposed that the Internet is
about access to information, but
information has grown only as
connection has facilitated it. Bulletin
boards ruled the earliest days of
the Internet, followed soon by email
and instant messaging. Then came
a flurry of blogs, shared video,
picture sharing, peer reviews, social
networks and Web cams. Nowadays
its Facebook and Twitter, with new
things coming along like Diaspora
and Path. The entire history of the
Internet can be plotted as a quest for
connectionsmarter, faster, closer
and more intimate.
Millennials came of age with an
interconnected Internet. They have
always taken connection for granted.
Technology that works in any way
other than a form of connection is
alien. The social-media revolution is
not about social networks but about
connection. It is about the arc of the
Internet closing in on ever-closer, evertighter connectedness. Social media
will evolve in this direction, changing
shape and character better to deliver
against this underlying desire for
engagement. Whats important to
understand is not social media, but
the social imperative. Marketers must
deliver and employ connection to be
successful with Millennials.
The biggest weakness of current

marketing approaches is that they
presume that messages are received
and processed by individuals. These
models overlook the fact that all
information nowadays is received
and processed in a connected
environment. Marketing now
reaches conversations, not individual
consumers. Even ads for the most
mundane categories are subject to
interactive scrutiny and comparison.
Every promotion is blogged about.
Every ad is subject to praise or ridicule.
Every store location gets reviewed by
people who visit. Nothing marketers
do anymore is confined to individuals.
Everything is shared. Everything is
part of the conversation.
As part of a conversation, marketing is
affected by context to a greater extent
than in years past. Marketing itself
used to provide a reference point but
now is mostly evaluated in terms of
other reference points. Consumers
look to reference points to help them
figure out what to make of marketing.
The central job of marketers is no
longer managing message and
positioning; it is managing context.
Marketers must direct people to
certain reference points while carefully
monitoring the valence of each.
Marketing used to be about being
heard. Now it is about getting
talked about. The relevant metric
of success used to be share of
voice. Could you out-shout the
competition? The new metric is
share of conversation. How many
people can you get to talk about

you, and say nice things? This
shift entails an entirely different
sort of marketing. Unfortunately,
most social-media campaigns are
share-of-voice strategies, and that
is not about using technology for
connection. Millennials will respond
to share-of-conversation strategies,
and will have unflattering things to
say about anything else.
Make it a feedback engagement.
Marketers have to listen and respond
to Millennials, who have things to
say. One marker of success among
Millennials is speaking up. Boomers
never had the technology to talk
back, so it wasnt an option for them.
Millennials are experts at getting
in the last word, so engaging in
feedback is a requirement.
But marketers cant just barge into
the conversation. Think of a cocktail
party. You see a group across the
room laughing and talking. You walk
over and crash the group. What
happens next? The conversation
dies. Peoples eyes wander. One
or two make excuses to walk away.
Youve barged in and killed the
conversation. The same thing is true
with new media. When marketers
barge in, people make an exit, and
generally not a polite one. It is
important to be invited in.
Marketers have to create content
and products that will open up the
group to them, and then, once in the
circle, marketers have to be willing
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to allow give and take. Much of this

will not be positive, but marketers
must bear with it. Millennials are
wordsmiths extraordinaire. They
will flatter marketers by mocking
them. Marketers who take this
ridicule literally are ignoring the body
language of play and inside jokes.
Above all, marketers must listen. This
is todays buzzword in marketing
research. Its particularly important
for Millennials. They want to be
heard. They broadcast to connect, so
marketers must make the connection
and give them an ear. Marketers
dont have to ask Millennials so much
as give them a forum. Millennials will
say whats on their mind as long as
the engagement facilitates feedback.
Reward the effort. Millennials
dont want to be held accountable
for things they cant control or for
results that are beyond their capacity
to produce. For many Millennials,
those end-points are suspect anyway.
Millennials want to be appreciated
for what they are trying to do, not for
results that are closed off to them to
begin with.
From a coping standpoint, effort is all
that matters. From a reconstruction
standpoint, effort is a crucial part
of the game. For neither coping nor
reconstruction is the end-point the
whole story. Marketers who only
celebrate results are talking past
most Millennials. It is the effort
for which Millennials want to be
recognized.
Down the line, effort will pay off.

If marketers ignore Millennials
until they score, they will have no
relationship to build from when
Millennials are finally able to be more
valuable consumers. Marketers
should applaud every effort made by
Millennials. When Millennials break
through current difficulties, they will
stick with marketers who stuck with
them.
Make it intriguing. For Millennials,
there is more to engagement than
connection. They also want their
passions and creativity excited and
stimulated. They want marketing
that is intriguing. They want a puzzle
to solve.
Millennials are a gaming generation.
The content most familiar to them
involves something to solve. This is
not just about fun or entertainment.
Everybody values fun and
entertainment. Millennials want fun
and entertainment that is intriguing.
They want something that captivates
them and takes them on a journey.
They want a mission to complete,
a treasure to find, a battle to win, a
riddle to solve.
Marketing that comes with
predetermined answers offers no
intrigue. Millennials are coming of
age in a time of murky prospects,
so celebrating ambiguity resonates
directly with their life experiences.
They foresee the possibility of
multiple endings, so open-ended
marketing makes sense to them.
Millennials want the opportunity

to solve whatever is presented to
them, not simply the opportunity to
consume it.
Millennials arent looking for
preset answers. They want the
chance to bring their own smarts
to bear. Transactions offer
fewer opportunities to engage,
so marketing campaigns for
Millennials have double duty.
They must inform and intrigue
Millennials at the same time.
Informing consumers is the
traditional marketing paradigm.
Adding intrigue is what it will take
in the future.
Think about intrigue in offbeat
ways, too. Millennials are too savvy
for celebrities, even though many
follow their larks and antics. But
Millennials identify more with the
characters they play as well as
characters in general. They relate
to cartoon characters to some
extent, but characters from ads
even more and characters from
small screens like YouTube the
most. As seen in something like

characters, the element of intrigue
is central to new media.
Point to reference points of
validation. One difference often
mentioned in connection with Baby
Boomers and Millennials is that
Boomers are externally focused
and Millennials are internally
focused. For Boomers its all about
outward displays of success while
for Millennials its all about inward
feelings of accomplishment. This
view of Boomers and Millennials is
true as far as it goes, but it doesnt
go far enough.
No matter where consumers find
their interests and purpose, whether
externally or internally, they need
them to be validated. Both Boomers
and Millennials look externally for
validation. They turn to reference
points for reassurance about their
decisions and accomplishments.
Millennials are still developing a
sense of where they should look for
validation that what they have done
is successful. Marketers will not be

able to dictate terms to Millennials,
but they have the opportunity right
now to offer guidance. Marketing
that suggests where to look will find
resonance with Millennials.
Ultimately, Millennials want
validation of their holistic view of
success. Even before the Great
Recession of 2008/2009, Millennials
were augmenting the big money
definition of the American Dream
with a big life view. Values beyond
materialism are important to
Millennials, not at the expense of
materialism, but as the form of
materialism that works in an age
of limits, expansiveness and the
team dynamic. It is a view grounded
less in financial success and more
in personal success. Becoming
wealthy is no less important, but it
is no longer a driver of marketplace
ambitions and aspirations.
Millennials are looking for these
reference points, and marketers
that provide them will offer the
most compelling proposition for
Millennials in crisis.
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Future Perspectives

What the Team

What the Team

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

friends or virtual friends or teachers

collaborative mentality that is

outside the team. Commitment

vulnerability to other generational

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

pronounced than ever. The biggest

and the crisis of chrysalis. This

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

Section 1: The Team Dynamic

Millennials. This is the generational

While the future for Millennials is

Portraits of Millennials fall at

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

This value shift did not occur just

Baby Boomers were the generation

certainly not about holding their

The team dynamic

This recognition of the team

the lens through which these

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

and then mainstreamed decades

Second, individuality and community

I am enthusiastic about new technology that can

I am concerned about what others think of the

I like to keep people up to date about whats going

While there are many things Id like to own, I prefer

Being team-oriented will better increase my

I work hard at coming out on top in every situation,

I have a very unique sense of style

Important to the way seen by others: Someone

Self-descriptor: Need to figure it out on my own

I like the idea of buying things that not many other

I am very competitive when it comes to my career

The decline of community that

Second, Millennials are no less

Going forward, it is this combination

10 2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

parents wanted them to go. In 2009,

family, friends and online social

High school graduate

Highest level of education

Annual household income

Source: 2010 US Yankelovich MONITOR

performance so much as they are

and the fundamental requirement

The team dynamic is the key thing

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

This passage has a familiar ring

is only to remember that no matter

an economic impact with potential

The challenges facing

As Millennials mature, the absolute

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

People who graduated during

Handicap #1: Unemployment and

2011 The Futures Company. All rights reserved.

decades. The summer employment