There is one subject that has been exercising my mind all this month that is touched on in two stories in this issue (Marketing to millennials and Marketing moving in a changing world ). My thoughts have been about the different attitudes and approaches our new generation of business people have compared with my own. Maybe I am feeling a little left behind.
No, surely not. I’m just a whipper-snapper myself. I can get down with the kids as well as the next deluded 60-something. I think. Or can I?
I upgraded my phone contract the other day (see how I don’t call it a ‘mobile’ anymore because all phones are mobile aren’t they!). As well as being able to make calls and download buckets full of data, I now can send up to 3,000 texts a month. “3,000!,” I exclaimed to the assistant, incredulous that anyone could ever or would ever want to send so many. “Yes,” she said, “but I can upgrade you to ‘unlimited’ if that’s not enough.”
What on earth do people want to send over 100 texts a day for? But, if you look at it with different eyes, it’s quite easy. Imagine you go to a cocktail party. There are 100 people there, most of whom you don’t know. You start to chat. You don’t stay quiet until you have something revolutionary to say, you just shoot the breeze with anyone who’s prepared to listen. People today live their lives in a permanent cocktail party – chatting, joking, confiding and spilling beans wherever they need to be spilt. It’s just the way it is. 100 messages a day, used in that way, is nothing. It’s virtually mute.
As I write, I am waiting for a taxi to take me to the airport to head off to the IMA conference in Bangkok. I’m part of the WhatsApp group so every few seconds my phone beeps because someone is later for dinner, can’t decide what to wear, is a little worse for drink, planning a meeting, lost, bored or any other human condition that is worthy of sharing. At first, I thought I would turn it off; but, it’s quite nice really. I feel as if I am part of a community. I might even join in when I get there.
A full report in the next issue – as long as the technology doesn’t let us down that is.