Congrats Tigers. Amazing play on 4th and 10 and amazing game against the Georgia Bulldogs. Holy Cow! Enjoy…it’s just college football…and it is college football. Congrats.
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I remember a great story of a university whose future more than a hundred years ago looked very bleak. Enrollment was down, the economic outlook wasn’t promising, and support was waning. However the school president wouldn’t accept such a fate. He envisioned a day when thousands and thousands of students, with manuals and notebooks in hand, would literally pour over the hillside and flood campus walkways and hallways. Today that university is nationally recognized for its strong undergraduate and graduate programs with more than 30,000 students enrolled annually.
What does that story have to do with marcom? Well, some have said and continue to say that PR is dead, or you could substitute marcom, or you could substitute mainstream media. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Haven’t you seen it or sensed it? Something is happening. That’s actually a popular phrase on the streets of Silicon Valley these days. But it’s not a left coast, right coast thing.
You are, we are, involved in a transformation of Epic proportion (you’ve seen this so a slight pun is intended, and works given the context of this post).
In the midst of generations labeled Baby Boom, X, and Y, there has emerged a niche of individuals that is changing and reviving the “business� in the concept of “business as usual,� as we know it.
They represent a hope tied to an ever-growing buzz around what’s possible. A new workforce is being programmed and re-programmed—a workforce that has been transformed by innovation; a workforce that will transform industries as we know them (business, media, PR).
They will not be labeled with a letter, but rather a version number. Like the cycle of product development in the world of technology (sorry, I’m a tech PR guy), they reflect a transition from the first version to the next generation—version 2.0. Not Gen-X, not Gen-Y, but Generation 2.0.
Off the cuff and by no means comprehensive, let’s consider the 2.0 big picture. Web 2.0 development (technology) fuels the Business 2.0 environment (business), which in turn empowers new media producers (from the likes of A-listers like Scoble and Battelle to even the most obscure zz-listers like myself or better yet my sister in-law and her army of MySpace friends). As consumers begin to collect more information from new media producers, marketing and advertising begin to stand at attention. Mainstream media is challenged and counters by complementing their information distribution with new media channels like blogs, video, and podcasts. Grassroots advertising emerges within the new media channels (i.e. Firefox). PR recognizes the possibilities and ramifications, so hence you have the rise of PR bloggers (favorites like Rubel, Pepper, and Murphy, and not to mention my contributor cohorts) and rumblings that blogs may solve everything—we see some successes and lots of failures. Advertising services are developed to target new media (i.e. Blogads, etc.). New Web 2.0 developments are advanced that are leveraged by PR, marketing, and advertising. PR services emerge that are devoted solely to new media strategies, such as the MWW Group’s DialogueMedia (PR 2.0). Faced with an identity crisis of sorts, mainstream media now incorporates more new media techniques signaling a pending transition to interactive multimedia organizations (Media 2.0). Conferences are developed, promoted, and filled to the gills with attendees who are trying to wrap their arms around this transformation—what it means to them and what they must do. Even universities are beginning to integrate studies of new media techniques and direct participation (ala Robert’s efforts) into their curriculum.
Never has a generational workforce been so well positioned to change business and operations as we know them. Envision the flood of individuals, only this time rather than manuals and notebooks, they carry laptops and smartphones as they walk the streets and hallways of corporate America. They are media producers and believe in the power of collaboration and collective intelligence. Theirs is a culture of participation and interaction. They engage in the business of connections, which is governed by transparency, advocacy, and evangelism.
Will you, will we, answer the call? A call to step up and deliver on such limitless potential. Will the current workforce—old school and traditional—hear the call? A wake-up call to recognize this transformation and respond by embracing and adapting to its principles, or face the music.
Call it what you may…a paradigm shift, the transition from old school to new school, natural evolution, or much ado about nothing. The fact remains that these industries are changing and a new generation of professionals is emerging pre-installed, or re-programmed, with a 2.0 mindset. I think Generation 2.0 is befitting. What do you think?
