#30 Mini Series – How to influence Generation C “10″
May 30, 2010 by Jake Pearce
Hi there! Welcome back to the Gen C mini series on influence
In Mini Series “1″ we explored Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” as a way to get a few influencing ‘the many’ with Mavens, Connectors and Sales people.
In Mini Series “2″ I identified that Connectors are only half of the picture when it comes to broadcasting a message – you also need Conductors,which I define in overview.
In Mini Series “3″ I broke down the four types of Conductors briefly to start to understand how they can influence people – naturally including Generation C
In Mini Series “4″ we investigated further the key differences between Connectors and Conductors and their relative regularity and visibility of influence
In Mini Series “5″ we reviewed the 4 types of Conductors (Information, Debate, Social and Club) and what kind of people they are how they influence their networks
In Mini Series “6″ we consider how Conductors and Connectors fit onto a map so we can effectively target particular groups
In Mini Series “7″ we had Christmas (!) and defined the map of human networks as looking like an airport with particular strong hubs of influence that are irregularly placed. Further we noted that the 80/20 rule applies when finding those influencer hubs.
In Mini Series “8″ we confirmed that the good ole airport map is the ‘right’ map for human networks – so it’s about unevenly powerful hubs that we need to find in order influence Generation. Once again the 80/20 rule applies when looking at relative importance of hubs. We also busted 6 degrees of separation as a global myth to help understand how message flow in human networks.
In Mini Series “9″ we looked at the number of links required between social groups to make information travel fast.
This week (video of 3 mins 55 seconds) we are looking at how to use these links to speed the passage of information and what that means for us a marketeers.
How do you think we should engage different social hubs to drive the speed of information movement?
I look forward to your answers
Jake
#15 Quick definitions – Generation Y, X, Z, Boomers & Generation C
July 13, 2009 by Jake Pearce
This video is 4minutes 30 seconds long.
There is a lot of confusion over the the differences between all the different generations and how Generation C fits with them.
To start defining them, I look at the demographic/age based generations briefly, Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z. Unlike Generation C, which is a psychographic generation that is ageless, the following generations are typically defined in generational studies based on common experiences in their late teens/early twenties.
A quick and useful start to check what generation someone belongs to, is to ask them what their formative music format was 
- Boomers – Vinyl was their format 33’s and 45’s
- Gen X – Tapes were dominant format
- Gen Y – CD’s for older Gen Y
- Gen Y – mp3’s/itunes for younger Gen Y
- Gen Z – Work In Progress as they are ‘generationally’ born from 2001 onwards and haven’t hit late teens yet!
- Gen C – like digital online formats and enjoy sharing and comparing for example to Last FM
Generation C is the global, ageless Digital Generation – no accident then that they love Twitter
In short, Generation C is more important than any other generation because it’s not defined by a narrow demographic – do you agree or disagree?
#12 Generation C – who are they and why are they so important?
June 22, 2009 by Jake Pearce
Check out this video and find out more on these 3 reasons why Generation C is so important:
1. They are a psychographic not a demographic generation – this is the first time a generation isn’t bounded by just age
2. It’s a growing generation as people are both born and adopted Generation C – both born and adopted Generation C love communicating digitally
3. They are digital influencers and it’s vital marketeers understand them – in Malcolm Gladwell terms – they are the generation that will make change happen
What are you doing to understand Generation C and how it will affect your organisation?
#7 Generation C steals share from other Generations – but they still talk more than they type…
April 6, 2009 by Jake Pearce
Generation C is a growth Generation stealing share from Generation X, Y, Z and Boomers.
Why?
Well that’s because more and more people use a range of digital media and become ‘adopted GenC’. The Pew research shows that effectively a wide range of demographic generations are ‘converting’ and debunks the myths that Generation C is all about the ‘young’. For example….
• Gen X – are most likely to bank, shop on line
• Boomers are most likely to book travel on line
• Silent Generation (64-72 years old) are up there with Gen Y on e-mail
• The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 is in the 70-75 age group
Check out Pew Research on generations online – it’s great info.
In effect – Generation C started out being those who were really into matters digital and were young but that’s rapidly changing. For example Mitch Olson co-founder of
Small Worlds – told us the average age of those in Second Life is 35. The net result is that those who were the digital influencers are becoming cross generational influencers – and ironically influencers used to be hard to find and now are often openly accessible on digital mediums like twitter.
So what are the implications? Well I feel one will come – a digital backlash because of the demographic blurring inherent in Generation C. One key point that seems to be forgotten is that 80% of all ‘Word-of-Mouth’ comes from the gob not the keyboard.
In short the importance of ‘matters digital’ for marketing people is growing but right now may be overhyped. Generation C talk more than they type and that’s a fact that has been lost on many people.
Watch this space for video footage exploring this fascinating ‘non-demographic’ generation.
#3 Battle with Wikipedia – Gen Z is not Gen C
November 8, 2008 by Jake Pearce
Hi there!
Firstly let me declare my undying love for Wikipedia – but even deep lovers have big tiffs and Wikipedia have got it wrong. Leading academics and commentators have stated Gen C is a state of mind rather than a demographic. Right now Gen Z is presented as a demographic on Wikipedia and lumped in with Gen C. This is like saying all Harley Davidson (state of mind) lovers are Boomers.
I know Wikipedia has often been criticised for being ‘inaccurate’ yet, as I learned at a business convention the other day, Wikipedia has less inaccuracies than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Why? Well, Wikipedia’s mistakes can be changed quickly – in a keystroke – while with the encyclopaedia Britannica, you are waiting for the next print run.
Simon Young and myself first posted a Gen C Wikipedia entry about 2 years ago – which summarised all the newspapers, educators and sources who had used the term. At that time there was no consensus on what the term Gen C stood for and so numerous “Cs” were all contenders e.g.
Content, communicate, creativity, channel, community, competition, compost, “children of the 1930’s”, celebrity, co-creators and cusper generation!
In the Wiki post, we quite clearly stated that all the data pointed to Gen C or digital natives being people of different ages who actively had an affiliation for the digital world – this was based on our data trawl of the ‘deep web’ (99% that can’t be seen by Google) on Generation C courtesy of Bridge Ellis http://www.bridgeellis.com
Add to this, the Consultaglobal data – which was published in Business week from a Forrester Report June 2007 – showed a strong use of different digital mediums across age groups with a skew towards younger people, as you’d expect:
http://consultaglobal.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/businessweek-web-strategies-that-cater-to-customers/
Wikipedia, quite rightly wants enough evidence from ‘established’ media/academics that something exists. The ‘meme’ Generation C is very much out there used by everyone from the Wall Street Journal, to established academics, to leading social media gurus (Ahonen and Moore) who are teaching about it at Oxford University in December this year:
http://www.sociallyminded.co.uk/2008/10/alan-moore-tomi-ahonen-and-me-at-oxford-university-dec-3-4/
Currently Gen C is cited under Gen Z which is defined on Wiki as:
“Generation Z is the generation of people living in Western or First World cultures that follows Generation Y. According to Strauss and Howe the generation cohort begins in 2001.“
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Z
In order to get this one changed – I am going to stir things up a bit on Wiki. Please join me in the discussion to get this Wiki entry right – we need to have a Gen C page separate from Gen Z.
Please go to and let Wiki know it’s time to re-route the Gen C specific page back to. I will be going to war tomorrow, I invite you to join me.
So Wikipedia – are you ready to play?
#1 Welcome to my dedicated Generation C blog
October 7, 2008 by Jake Pearce
Hi!
Please allow me to introduce myself. You can then assess whether this blog is for you! My name is Jake Pearce. Since I was a kid I’ve been obsessed by the future and figuring it out. It drove my mother nuts and I’ve been lucky enough to turn this obsession into a a career. I love it. I am a breakthrough strategist and people come to me for lateral marketing solutions, innovation and trend knowledge.
My full credentials are here (be careful what you read 
) – http://www.jakepearce.com/who/
I think we are on the edge of a revolution in how human society works in many ways – and a key one is how people are grouped in generations. Most people are clear about Boomers and Generation X. Beyond that – it starts getting fuzzy .
GenC (digital natives) is the first generation in history that is actively growing – and doesn’t rely on birth/having stuff in common but attitude. It is a psychographic not a demographic generation; it’s a choice. In the future people will have multiple generational identities – like immigrants in a new country.
In my opinion this will create a revolution in marketing because the notion of national and generational identity will have changed forever. This issue, it seems to me, is going largely unnoticed. Marketing works because we use age as a means to access common marketing needs and experience. Yet generation dual, triple and quadruple identity is about to happen – making targeting in marketing harder than ever. (And much more interesting).
The issue is as big as ‘new marketing’. We need to understand GenC better – this blog is an attempt to gather debate and opionion on this to help us all make sense of the world. GenC is an attitude and crosses over into existing demographic Generations. There is Boomer/C , Silent/C, X/C (me), Y/C , Z/C and C/C. We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s going to be contentious, challenging and good fun. Let’s C.
Watch out for the next posting which will be a response to Jaffe Juice #111 ‘talking about my generation’ http://www.acrossthesound.net/