More with Sharalyn: What do YOU define as Millennial? What events had the most impact on our generational identity?

In my chat with Sharalyn Hartwell (The Examiner's national Gen Y columnist), we discussed the various cut-off dates that are established for who is / who is not considered a Millennial. Sharalyn was born in 1980, which, in Mike and Morley's definition, does not technically qualify (though they address the question "When does one generation end and another begin?" here). According to many other definitions, it does.

Sharalyn commented on being on the older end of the spectrum:

There is almost a division within the generation. For example, I never worked with Internet until I was in college, and my sister [a member of the generation as well] grew up with it throughout her life, and she had it in elementary school. This younger group is very, very aware of The Internet."

She went on:

You can get hung up on figuring out who is a Millennial and who is not, and it becomes inconsequential. I scanned through the [Pew report on Millennials]. One of the things they pointed out was that the parameters are not necessarily categorical, and that they're just trying to find a basis [for commonality].

There is the period effect; how do wars, social movements, and so on impact cohorts depending on which life cycle they're in? For us, there was definition in events like the DotCom rise and fall, 9/11, and this recession.

Some questions:

• There are many definitions regarding what is / is not a Millennial. Which do you adhere to and why?
• Which events do you believe have had the most impact on the formation of our generational identity?
• Are you an older or younger Millennial? What are your views of those on the other end of the spectrum?

Sharalyn Hartwell: The Vanna White of Gen Y on giving thanks and generational self-awareness

It was very much my pleasure to have had the opportunity to chat with Sharalyn Hartwell, a freelance writer and a nationally syndicated columnist for The Examiner on millennial culture and issues. As her Twitter profile suggests, she has been dubbed "The Vanna White of Gen Y," and she has been using her column to offer to millennials a constructive voice which serves - in part - to combat some of the persistently hyperbolic, negative stereotypes regarding the generation.

Mike, Morley and I stumbled upon the column back in November when Sharalyn was running her Gen Y Gives Thanks series, a collection of a series of posts from Millennials on what they are most thankful for. This ultimately serves as an illustration of her take on the generation's values, as well as a deconstruction of ill-informed, negative stereotypes. "Conversations in the media [about millennials] can be quite negative, really reactive. There are a lot of fingers pointed at us," she explained. Hartwell says the "Thanks" series was something that she had initially done for exposure, but as she began receiving responses from members of the generation, she realized "what we were grateful for, and it flew in the face of stereotypes." From there, Hartwell began to write for the the audience, and it became a process of getting to know her own generation.

Sharalyn and I also discussed, among other things, millennials' awareness of its own generational categorization. I asked Sharalyn: "Do most millennials even know that there is such a thing a the 'millennial generation' or 'Gen Y'?"

"No," she responded. "There is very little [generational] self-awareness. In observing and interacting with various social media channels, you see that people are extreme in one way or another. Young people are either very in touch with these types of conversations, or they're completely out of touch with them. The dichotomy is pretty stark, too; there are very few people in the middle."

I found this particularly interesting, as this is a conclusion that I came to when I went on the Millennials Changing America tour in late 2008. The genesis of me deciding to go to 35 cities to talk with Millennials about their take on the generation why my thinking, "OK. Here are all of these older people talking about this so-called 'Millennial Generation', but how come I've never heard of it?" And as I traveled around and spoke with members of the generation, I found that far more often than not, members of the generation had not heard of the terms "Millennial" or "Gen Y," and apparently this persists. I might suggest that now that Pew has released its How Millennial Are You quiz, and that since it appears to have proliferated the social media scape, that perhaps more Millennials have become familiar with the term. However, in my experience, all of those that I have seen report their "Millennial" results are early Millennials (late 20s), Gen Xers, or older.

Do find some time to take a look at Sharalyn's column if you have not already, and definitely spend some time with her Gen Y Gives Thanks, series. We look forward to talking with her some more soon. 

17 to 25-year-olds: Take a look at Generation18 Speaks!

From Generation18:

We're inviting young people all across the country (between the ages of 17 and 25) to apply for one of these cameras. Apply on or before April 12, and if you are selected, you'll have a camera for four months to film a series of short video pieces (3-5 minutes) about issues that matter to you, and to film youth taking action from marches to group meetings and from handing out fliers to storming city hall and everything in between.
 
We'll be putting your videos online to let your voices speak to the country about our generation, and in the fall we'll release a documentary that brings all of these stories together.

Click here to apply now for Generation18 Speaks!

You can also follow us on twitter at @generation18

More questions regarding the millennial career-path

We had such a great response to our jobs/careers related question in the Think Tank that we have gone on and asked another:

What does the [millennial's] ideal organization/employer look like?

A few nice bits caught on the Twitter feed.

Some odds and ends we've seen pass by at our @MikeandMorley account:

• [For millennials, p]hysical proximity doesn’t matter as much as it used to."
• Ira Wolfe wonders: Who - exactly - do we mean when we say "entitlement generation"?
• Our friend Alicia Menendez (of NDN) points out the Democrats are still most likely to succeed among millennials.

Speaking of NDN, Mike and Morley have a couple of new pieces up on the web as well:

• "Rewarding Education" can be found at the NDN blog
• "Democrats Rock the Vote" can be found at The Huffington Post