I received this book  by Rebecca Ryan  yesterday and “power read” it last night. I’ll read more carefully on the train this morning, but I had a few observations I wanted to share before making too many conclusions or truly reviewing the book…

1) I’m amazed that people (older managers, I guess) need to be told this stuff about how not to drive younger workers crazy. I’m 40 and I am the archetype Gen-Xer, I think. But much of what Ryan describes about Millennials is/was true for people in other generations. Maybe we were just renegades or something. And there are plenty of Millennials who have a mindset closer to Boomers, etc….and there are millions who are living the life described by Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed. I guess my questions are whether the research indicates that the new ethos is 1) really new or just reaching a critical mass now, and 2) so broadly shared by this next generation as to be truly revolutionary.

I’d like to get a better feel for how much of this is generational and how much is occupational. If you are a 24-year old working as a mechanic at Midas, does any of this apply to you? If you are a 40-year old in a web startup company, don’t you have the same perspective on work and life as the Millennials? I’m not looking for an “ivory tower” statistical study, but I question what the cross-generational disparity in opportunity/experience means for community engagement…

2) Like the 45-year old who asked you “How can I be more cool?,” I too want to know what I can do. I go to community organizations in my town and my wife and I are the youngest people in the room. Like it’s always been! I thought, as I aged, I would get past that, but it has not happened. If I, as a middle-aged man who wants to get involved in my community, can’t figure out how to do that, what hope is there for Millennials here?

I believe there are solutions in social media tools like Facebook and LinkedIn. And if there is a Young Professionals Organization around here, fine, young people can join that. But we need structures that bridge groups, not simply aggregate the frustrated and disaffected. It seems kind of silly to choose to live in a cool place, then find yourself surfing facebook to connect with other cool people. We need to connect with the people we don’t know are cool yet.

3) Kids change things a lot. But in terms of “joining” and community, it cuts both ways. When we finally decided to have kids at age 37/34, I found that there’s no way I can be going to young professionals group meetings on weeknights in the city. On the other hand, we are meeting so many other people because of the need to find friends and do stuff with the kids. We even joined a church. But we’re the youngest people in the church!

We also made a choice with the kids that is sort of radical/part of a trend these days—we decided to go 1-income/stay at home mom. My wife saw utter futility in trying to continue her tax attorney/consultant career at a company, by the way, that spews things like “The Memo” on a daily basis just to make enough money to pay someone else to raise our kids. Most of the Gen-Xers I work with, while not necessarily pursing that route, are definitely prioritizing family over work.

So, I think when Millennials have kids, it’s going to create an even more interesting dynamic. Some might think it would make them more conservative, but I think the opposite is going to happen: you will see a trend where Millennials have kids a little younger, creating a new generational cohort, an urban baby boom, that is comprised of the children of Millennials and Gen-Xers, born at the same time.

4) As a sort of random aside…I was suprised by Ryan’s labeling of the pre-Boomer generation as “The Silent Generation.” Maybe because the other books I’m reading are written by Boomers or something, I’ve always seen that generation called “The Greatest Generation,” because they survived/conquered the great depression and won WWII. And they certainly were not silent in terms of community—as described by Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone—he thinks they are pretty much the only thing holding society together anymore because their high levels of civic participation continue to carry the load for the absent Boomers and sparse Gen-Xers. Maybe Millennials will be the next Greatest Generation…but actually, I think where we are really going, long term, is that Gen-Xers and Millennials are going to work together to create a world in which our children can truly amaze us.