DECODE BLOG

Here’s an interesting example of where the a variety of social media tools are being used to help readers tackle of of the most difficult (and celebrated) novels of recent memory, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. This online book club connects regularly through a blog, a face book page and a Twitter account, allowing readers to share their thoughts in short bursts, or more long-form reflections.

Over 4,000 people have joined the Facebook group devoted to tackling the 1,000-plus page opus. On the Infinite Summer blog home page, readers are encouraged to share their thoughts (both positive and negative).

It sounds extremely nerdy. But the social aspect of reading is helping demystify Wallace’s endless (and imaginative) prose. Might this be a template for readers interested in tackling other weighty tomes?

Samir Khan Uncategorized

H1N1 might save pork producers, but swine flu is a better label for protecting young people. In a recent Globe and Mail Article “Flu disproportionately targets young and healthy” it appears this flu is targeting a non-traditional group - youth. Part of the essential communication about this virus will be the use of comedy. For all the right reasons -from a health promotion standpoint anyway- swine flu has a lot more comic potential than H1N1. First the duel label for the pandemic virus has now served to confuse the general public. Second we might be losing a powerful communication weapon by switching to a benign alphanumeric label.

That comedy works for communicating to young people is common knowledge. In DECODE’s international study of young people’s general interests, comedy was only topped by music and film. Young people love to laugh, even about serious things. Its the way they get the story across. Its the way they learn about events. Political strategy 101 seems to state that lead candidates (or the candidates in the US case) should strive to appear on all late night shows at least once to get the youth vote.

Some of the best case studies in communicating information about Sexually Transmitted Infections to young people use comedy at the core to make sure the message has sustaining conversational power.

The World Health Organization contemplates closing schools in September to slow the spread of swine flu, they and governments around the world must supplement drastic measure with effective communication. A crucial part of good communication is good memorable branding. Swine flu is simply a better brand.

The next step is creating ways to inject the right amount of comedy into swine flu to help quell the anti-viral injections that loom large.

Robert Barnard Health, Strategy, Uncategorized, Youth Trends comedy, H1N1 virus, Health, politics, Swine flu

This article captures the rightful cynicism for those who pass themselves off as generational consultants without any strong understanding or commitment to the generations they are apparently expert on.

“All of which has led, as you’d expect, to a whole new industry — or epidemic — of consultants, experts they allege, in how to motivate, train and, yes, sometimes nanny the extraterrestrials who’ve taken over the workplace.”

Also check out the map further down the  page that shows what the impact of 18-29 year olds was on the past US election

Eric Meerkamper Attracting Young Talent, Generation X, Generation Y, Voting

Robert’s response published in The Mark.

Nexus Attitudes, Generation Y, Youth Trends media, Technology

(note: this is in response to Morgan Stanley intern Matthew Robson’s article on teenagers and media usage)

Dear Matthew,

For the last few months I’ve been working as an intern at DECODE and have spent a lot of time looking at the media habits of young people in the UK. When I came across your report I was very impressed by how well you had managed to capture and explain some of the key areas that I have recently become familiar with. I am pleased that you got the opportunity to be published as your observations have opened up the discussion on youth media habits.

When I first started at DECODE I was surprised that so many of the assumptions I held were not represented when looking at a broader view of the population. After reading your report I was interested to explore how inline our data was with your observations. I am also a few years older so wanted to see what we could discover if we added my experience to your insights to build up a more developed picture.

The idea that young people, particularly teens, don’t read newspapers is one that has been inscribed in folklore. That 39% of 15-18 year olds report reading a paid for newspaper at least once a week is something of a shock.

Your observation that most teens are heavily active on social networking is also one that is also shared by many. I was surprised when the data revealed that almost 40% of teens use social networking sites less than once a week.

I was interested to discover that radio is more popular than we both assumed, as 54% of teens report listening to the radio at least once a week. I was also surprised to find that brands such as the BBC had a higher approval rating than other channels specifically targeted at teens, with 53% of teens having particularly positive feelings about the BBC.

You were definitely right that music is popular amongst young people. Our data shows that 78% of teenagers say that music is a particular interest to them. The data regarding music downloading seems to refute common assumptions that paying for music is a thing of the past. We are apparently a more honest bunch than is often made out. Our data shows that a majority of teenagers report paying for music most of the time.

The data supports your observation that young people visit the cinema quite often, as 67% of teens go to the cinema at least once a month.

I hope these insights can add to your understanding of the media and internet habits of young people in the UK. I wanted to show how the data can help develop a greater understanding of teenage behavior. Most importantly, I was inspired to support the precedent you have set that when it comes to understanding young people, who better to ask than the intern.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Doherty.

(These insights are drawn from a report produced by DECODE as a response to Matthew’s observations into teenage media and internet consumption in the UK)

Ben Doherty Generation Y, United Kingdom, Youth Trends Internet, media, Music, Social Networking, Technology, Television

Hats off to Morgan Stanley and Matthew Robson. With more than 90% of all coverage about teenagers and youth negative, it’s refreshing to see a global firm put a very young, smart intern front and centre. Well done. My company was born the same year as Matthew and we have spent the better part of the past fifteen years decoding young people in various parts of the world. We recently completed a study of 1000 British young people attitudes toward media and the Internet. Based on this knowledge I would like to offer these eight additional points of context to Mr. Robson’s excellent report.

1. The concept of understanding ‘teenagers’ from is flawed the start. 13-19 year olds as a group cross over a few levels of schooling and as most 13 and 19 year olds will tell you there is a big gap in life experience. Key transitions like driving, legal drinking, jobs and voting often split this group into at least two realities. Each transition has an impact on media behavior.

2. Don’t underestimate the significance gender plays at this stage of life. Years ago Calvin Klein launched CK1 cologne to meet the growing trend of androgyny among young people. The pendulum has definitely swung back especially in media use.

3. Advertising does work. It just has to be thoughtful, disruptive (usually means funny, but not always) and well positioned. Rarely do advertisers get all three of these right, so the generation born with the remote finds it natural to look for a better option. Young people have always been skeptical towards advertising, because they are the group most often manipulated.

4. Bravo BBC. You are proof that traditional brands can learn new tricks. Public networks worldwide take note. The iPlayer was a brilliant move to bring in the next generation on their terms. It also positioned the BBC second, just behind Google in DECODE’s youth brand rankings in the UK.

5. “Free for all” is certainly a youth rallying cry. To some degree it always has been, but now it’s more the expected norm. Perception and reality are worth noting. Bolt-ons, surprises, access, are a starting point not a value added service. Television and the Internet are rarely free. Someone else pays for it. Even free wi-fi at McDonalds comes with a side of chips.

6. I  don’t believe the DJ is dead. They filter content for the masses and alleviate the tyranny of choice that many young people face.

7. Newspapers aren’t dead yet either, but they should hire more DJs. Last year at a global conference of newspaper execs hosted by the World Association of Newspapers, I revealed that young people feel TV is a more credible news source than newspapers. This was part of a study on youth news media trends called Youth Media DNA. The fact is young people probably consume a lot of newspaper content without knowing it. Newspapers need to create their own version of the BBC iPlayer (I don’t mean a video player specifically) to show young people what value they get from newspaper content. Oh, and they need to provide it free for a while, change editorial to focus on issues that are more interesting to young people, use parents as allies and build relevant relationships with schools. I’m just getting started.

8. The size of youth social networks may be overblown. Most people are surprised at how few online friends young people have. On average teenagers have 90 online friends. But while that seems low to some, it is also a bit misleading. More than half of teenagers have less than 20 online friends - meaning that while a minority have tonnes of friends, most have a few.

All fuller response to the original Morgan Stanley report written by DECODE intern Ben Doherty is available for download here.

Robert Barnard Attitudes, Consumer, Generation Y, Online Engagement, Social Networking, Students, Young Employees, Youth Trends Britain, DJ, media, Newspapers, social networks, teenager, twitter, UK

According to Bram Van Den Burgh at the Rotterdam School of Management, those purchasing green goods derive more personal benefit from image enhancement than the actual result of their purchases.

Samir Khan Attitudes, Consumer, Generation X, Generation Y, Issues Environment

These article pops up every once in a while….the familiar storyline…”hey, youth are pretty smart” .

This one is of particular interest given its media and tech focus. Amazing on one hand that Morgan Stanley would release this with no regard to back-up stats.  On the other its also cool that the kid has a lot of it right simply based on observation. A global media hit that none of their other analysts could dream of. Where will this 15 year old summer student go from here?

We have seen the they won’t pay for content and they think advertising is dumb lines before, but I like the nuance around mid range phones and wifi vs 3G. And I love the knock against Twitter…Still it is slated to be the superstar at this year’s Sundance Media conference. How is that second life thing going these days anyway…

Robert Barnard Attitudes, Generation Y, Online Engagement, Social Networking, United Kingdom 3G, media, teenager, twitter, wifi, youth

We are often asked to determine whether the technological environment people are growing up in is helping or hurting. Tyler Cowen has written a new book about this very topic and remains on the optimist side, and his new book Create Your Own Economy continues the trend. Ben Casnocha writes a very interesting review of the book here, making the point that optimism or pessimism (as is the kind voiced by Andrew Keen in The Cult of the Amateur). Casnocha’s point is that whether this is good or bad is irrelevant — it simply is.  Our brains are remarkably plastic, adaptable things, and our cognitive functions have survived many, many years of changes in how we learn, discern and discuss.

Key quote from Casnocha:

We ought to consider the possibility that attention may not be only reflective or reactive, that thinking may not only be deep or shallow, or focus only deployed either on task or off. There might be a synthesis that amounts to what Anderson calls “mindful distraction.” Gen Y, the so-called ADD generation raised on the Internet, might be the ambassadors for mindful distraction. There are still young people accomplishing big things, their IQs are still as high as ever, and innovation continues apace… even as they are tethered to their iPhones. Somehow, they’ve made it work.

Samir Khan Generation Y Brain Development, Technology

There is a great paradigm shift in the midst of happening that is leading us to a very a very decentralized society, where the roles of hierachy and authority are being disolved in the creation of a flatter organizational structure for the society at large.

The economics of information is particularily relevant in helping to explain some of the variables in play.

Where there are two parties (i.e. buyers and sellers) who are attempting to conduct an exchange of some sorts which entials goods or services, there is a natural phenomenon of “assymetric information“.

Essentially what this means is that the two parties are not equally well informed about the characteristics of the product/service in question.

One of the key variables that helps faciliate the transaction is “trust”. For example, in order for you to confide in your doctor about your particular illness you need to place your trust in a variety of things. The expertise of the doctor to know how to properly diagnose you or the trust placed in the confidentiality of the exchange.

It is important to note that some services like that of a doctor or virtually any other professional are dependant on “assymmetric information”. Because the transaction itself is based on the fact that the supplier knows more than a buyer.

Another relevant example might be that the reason an employee respects the authority of a manager is because the manager is more experienced and hense has a great deal of expertise or information if you will regarding the particular area of work.

So let’s look at the trends that seem very overt in today’s workplace and marketplace.

Consumers no longer trust the producers after years of marketing and advertising taking on the effect or eroding the necessary “trust” that facilitates the transactions.

Gen. Y employees no longer feel inferior to their superiors and have little tolerance for an authoritative genstures that suggests the use of position or coersion.  Gen. Y feels they know enough to start their own venture and are willing to put off the corporate world all together for it’s inherent authoritiave heirachal structure.

So, one of the key questions to ask is why are such trends taking place?

The dissemination of information is one variable to requires attention. With the adoption of the Internet, there is a general upsurge in the leveling of the playing field upon which consumer and producer, or employee and employer might once have engaged in.

“Asymmetric Information” is leaning more and more towards “Symmetric Information” where the consumer feels s/he knows just as much as the producer, or the employeer feels s/he knows just as much as the manager.

Be it blogs, video posts, social networking sights, wikipedia, search engines with the calibre of google or yahoo, people have this sense that the world of information is at their finger tips. And with the natural erosion of trust on part of the corporations usage of marketing and advertising tactics, or corporate scandals, the sense of empowerment that exists today for the average layperson is a turning point in the history of humanity.

Whether it is a postive one or a negative one, that is still to be determined. There are apparent pros and cons that have already emerged, and the real test of our time is whether a healthy medium can be found that allows for trust, respect, and acknowledgment in the expertise of the expert minus the maniuplative tactics once employed by those in ositions of authority.

Humayun Khan Attitudes, Civic Participation, Consumer, Employee, Employee Engagement, Entrepreneurship, Generation Y, Job Attributes, Leadership, Young Employees, Youth Trends