Maybe it's because I'm a living breathing stereotype profile of my narcissistic generation (Gen "Y", aka Gen Me, aka The Millenials), but I can't escape wanting to write about "us". Me. We. If you're anything like me, me, me, you consume media at lightning speed, you're on Google's life support product line, watch the Facespace InstaTube during the day, and sleep-tweet at night.
Back in October 2011, I read "The kids are actually sort of alright" by Noreen Malone in New York Magazine, one of the most cynical and yet hopelessly accurate reflections by a fellow Millenial written for Millenials. Malone writes about the plight of our over-skilled, over-confident, over-indulgent, over-connected and over-distracted generation post-GFC (that's Global Financial Crisis, for the Gen-Xers and Boomers out there). Approximately 2 billion of us grew up as a generation that had everything to gain and the material, technological, and in most cases, emotional support to go with it.
One of the best points that don't come across from the article is the fact that Millenials are growing up. That's fair, and logical, because up until now we were just past puberty and barely in our adolescence. Cue Britney's "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman". In all seriousness, we're in a pretty sweet spot: Millenials are growing up, and for the first time we're learning to articulate ourselves. And (to quote one of our generational heroes, Seth Godin) we have "game-changers" up our sleeve too. Take a look at Millenial poster-boy, Mashable's Pete Cashmore, in Fast Company's, "This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business", by Robert Safian. He's been building a very modern digital media empire for the last few years and he's only 26 years-old. It makes me well up with both optimism and pride (and a dash of self-pity).
Despite competitive career circumstances and inheriting a planet riddled with sustainability issues; we're one of the most open-minded, passionate and optimistic, yet active generations, in a long time. Unlike the Baby Boomers in the 60s, we're not as naive (for the most part). Our over-connectedness has served to educate us of the lessons learnt from history, and enabled us the tools to act on our creativity, limited only by auto-correct on new hastags and our own imagination. Technology has inspired and enabled us to engage in political movements (think #OccupyWallStreet and #Egypt #Jan25), as well as adopt innovative and legitimate new business models that redefine and decentralize many outdated, ineffective or non-transparent economic systems (hello iTunes, Amazon and Paypal).
In my early twenties (hey, its still very recent), I was a politically apethetic Millenial. Today, in my later twenties (only handful of years, yet we may as well count in dog's years for how quickly things change), I'm far more optimistic and capable of effecting change - if only we were all lucky enough to be given a break. Right? What often drives us is something as simple as self-satisfaction, mastery of our own work and the occassional praise (feel free to "Like", "Share" or "Follow" this blog).
I, for one, am very proud of the progress Millenials have made and are still yet to make. It's a breath of fresh air and we can now all sit at the big adults' table to start talking about business the future. Jessie J's right, it's not always about the "money, money, money". "We just wanna make the world dance" - and know that we've succeeded in this thing called "change".
While the photographic community (somewhat guitily) mourns the end of an era at news of Eastman Kodak's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing last January, the media and Kodak's critics have been quick to denounce the company’s decisions, slow progress and lack of innovation since the debut of the digital camera. This is misleading as Kodak has continually poured billions of dollars into their research and development over the last couple of decades: being the first to invent the digital camera; patent several digital optic technologies still found in most smartphones and digital cameras; as well as formulate the basic social media DNA structure in their Easyshare Gallery platform. George Mendes of The Strategy Tank recognized Kodak’s faults as a “continual failure of strategy” and other articles like Mashable's would suggest "an overall reluctance to innovate".
I still have an warm nostalgic relationship with Kodak as a brand. I remember as a child, my mother (a casual hobby photographer) opened a golden Kodak color film box to reveal the Kodak exposure guide diagram (a later version is below). It explained the optimal lighting conditions photograph under and to this day remains one of my friendliest and useful product experiences.
It wasn't necessarily a lack of foresight or innovation by Kodak that it failed to deliver, rather an inability by the company's leaders to understand the greater purpose of their business. Eastman Kodak was never in the business of film or even photography, it's always been an innovator of image production and consumption. This fundamental, yet dispruptive shift in the philosophical perception of their core business would have helped Kodak's leadership to commit to their innovations and gamble on their consumer's newly digitized taste buds.
Now, understanding where they failed, Kodak have the opportunity to redevelop their core business strategy and approach; with that comes a significant cultural change from their people to their operations, new product-service development and rebranding - perhaps through Porter & Kramer's latest business concept of "Creating Shared Value".
I wanted to share my thoughts and recommendations on how one of the world's favourite brands might save itself going forward. The following is a summarized version of a report I wrote for my Globalization class. Kodak still have a great brand and customer loyalty that could emerge if only Kodak would step up too. The fact is, we want to see Eastman Kodak succeed.
Full disclosure: This post was prepped as a response to a recent job application question which suggested weekend work, but posed the questions of: "Which days would you prefer to take off from work?".
Over the last couple of years I have heard many stories about employers, industries and even entire states exploring the idea of non-traditional working weeks. From four day weeks to flexi-hour quotas, employers want a competitve edge for themselves to attract key and loyal talent by creating flexible work environments. Not only that, but in the case of web start-ups and generally smaller organizations it's imperative the business keep running at all sorts of hours to maintain customer and client relationships.
