I read an interesting blog post written by the General Manager of Wireless Networking for the Cisco Business Unit. He obviously sees all of the insights and trends on how people like to connect. One of the biggest things he points out is that they love to connect. This is especially true in the Gen x and y. But, here’s the catch it’s not about calling people with these devices. It’s all about staying socially connected. 

Cisco backed this up by surveying 2800 young professionals and college in 14 countries. Not surprising that living without the internet for half of the participants couldn’t be an option, but if forced choose two-thirds would give up their cars to have the internet instead! There is definitely an intense desire to be  around the clock connected.  He says, “This intense desire to be connected leads to a demand for greater flexibility: Two out of five people said they’d accept a lower-paying job if the position offered greater flexibility on access to social media, the ability to work from where they chose, and choice on the mobile devices they could use on the job.”

“Choice on the mobile devices,” this hits home with me and I’m sure to all the digital marketing professionals. With needing to be socially connected in your day to day duties there is no way to efficiently do this without using a smartphone with the most up to date social apps available. Trust me I’ve had to take a break from my iphone and I feel my social world has been crippled. When you’re managing multiple social sites and fan pages you have to have the most sophisticated device to do so.

While on the subject of social media he goes on is his blog about how social media is overtaking phones and email and becoming the dominant form of communication. He says, “Young people are driving this change, with the one-to-one mode of interacting giving way to a one-to-many mind-set.”  This is huge because social can be embraced by organizations, for project updates, feedback, and internal communication period.  These new age thinkers want their voices heard and want to be able to shape a companies vision and strategy.

Everyday more and more companies are realizing that their old gen customers are going away and they have to discover how to engage this younger savvier market that is taking over. But, the important piece that solves this puzzle is how are they accepting this new generation into their company culture. The reality is, the internet has allowed positions to be more virtual and the old school way of needing to be face to face can still happen, but just in a virtual way. In order for companies to attract this new savvy leader that have got start in house changing their culture and embracing social media to help with recruiting.  Old school saying, “fish where the fish are, duh.”

Read more from “the Days of “managers knows best” Is Ending”

~Tanesha White