I Am Almond Milk (and Other Thoughts From a Gen-Y)

In the adventure of my journey into the workforce, my age is no longer a hindrance. It’s not a hurdle in the race. It’s in some ways (and in some ways not) an advantage. When a rainstorm hits the horse track and makes the turf sloppy, my lack of age-acquired experience doesn’t make me an underdog. In fact, these conditions make it so that almost anything goes. A less experienced maiden horse may win the race over the those who have been around the track a few times. The breadwinners know how to run a mile and how to do it well; but when a storm hits, some simply cannot adapt to the new conditions.

When a CEO is told that that their business needs to have an online presence, they most likely respond with, “let’s hire an intern to do it.” Ah, the intern. An unpaid existence. Once thought to involve coffee-runs and sending appointment-based e-mails, the intern now builds a web-presence. They set up facebook pages, they send out timely, consumer-centric tweets. They build the face of a brand for their own kind–the Gen Y-ers.

It’s evident that the ways in which consumers interact with their favorite brands and companies is very different than it used to be. If businesses want to appeal to a huge portion of their demographic, they must have a web-presence. People aren’t looking in the yellow pages for a dog groomer. They’re googling. They’re facebooking their friends for recommendations. They’re reading first-hand reviews on Yelp. If businesses aren’t there to monitor their presence, they could be exposed, their reputations tarnished in the permanent prints of the web.

As the rules of the game change, there is inevitably somewhere, a game-changer. The new generation of consumers are reaching for a new mode of interaction, and on the other side, there must be a new generation of producers to give them what they want. Sure, this may not apply to certain older industries like banking. But when my generation begins investing in their 401Ks and managing their stock portfolios, do you think they’ll want to be talking on the phone to a broker? Or navigating a convoluted and fragmented sitemap? I think they’ll be itching for a means to consume and interact similar to the tools with which they grew up.

By no means am I putting down the generation above me. Moreso, I’m responding to some of the negativity I hear surrounding the seemingly fruitless search for employment. In addition, I’m also reacting to the editorial pieces I’ve read bashing our generation’s lack of compliance with societal standards or lack of traditional ambitions. I just want to put it out there–the world is changing! So are the qualifications for leadership, the definition of success, and the means with which to achieve these. The jobs are out there. They may not be the jobs your parents had out of college, but they are there. And if you can’t seem to find them, there is this extremely beautiful quality of our time that we have the luxury of enjoying. We can create our own jobs with a little passion, innovation, and a whole lot of crazy.

I’ll always remember an article I read in BOP Magazine when I was about eight years old. For those of you who don’t know, BOP Magazine was where I got my fix of Leonardo Dicaprio glamour shots and Jonathan Taylor Thomas interviews (“My one wish? World peace” oh the wisdom… ) A fellow pre-teen wrote into BOP to let the world know that Backstreet Boys were famous before ‘Nsync, and so they were the better of the two. A wise-beyond-her-years Alison, 12 from Maine retorted, “That’s like saying last week’s old milk is better than today’s new carton.” To my much wiser, well-versed and experienced elders: I do not mean to call you old milk, necessarily. Nor do I mean to say that my peers and I are the freshest carton out the fridge. Rather, we’re…a new kind of milk. And we’re not all the same. I may be the Almond Milk. My roommate the Soy, my sister the Lactaid. Really what I’m getting at is that we’re worth something, and we’re not lazy. We’re just going about this thing we call life a little differently. And also as a really quick side note and concluding thought from a 20-something who enjoyed the luxury of a paycheck on her last internship: start paying your (qualified) interns 🙂

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Don’t Taze Me Bot: On Respecting Your Technology

A group of US Navy scientists are in the midst of developing a robotic jellyfish which is powered by the same materials as an organic jellyfish–the water around them. Can you imagine the possibilities this presents? This means our electronics could be powered by the same natural elements as biotic beings. Cell phones could breathe air. iPads could re-charge on pizza. Laptops would function more efficiently after a great workout.

Alright alright, maybe it’s not that simple (or whimsical,) but think about the conceptions we have of artificial intelligence, cyborgs, and robots. Robin Williams’s Bicentennial Man plugs into the wall. Minority Report’s predictive pre-cogs live in an electro-wave sensing jelly. We don’t see robots or future cyborgs as our equals. They are very much still considered the “other,” and to many, a negative external entity. But imagine, a robot on your level of humanity. One that feeds off of the same fuels as you. Not necessarily that your Roomba is going to start sharing your love of a bangin’ BLT or anything, but rather that a personal assistant ‘borg might be able to sit down with you to dinner. It might be able to sense that you used more basil in tonight’s pesto penne dinner, compliment you on the vibrant flavor. It might be able to note that you haven’t had a meal with fish in over a month, and maybe the lack of protein is what’s been making you feel so sluggish? It might suggest the 1-day sale on tilapia and shrimp at the supermarket. It might remind you that the Comcast building is right next to the grocery store, and you’ve been meaning to trade out that old box for one with DVR. It might recommend the sitcom Parks & Recreation to watch tonight after dinner, suggested after you finished all the seasons of 30 Rock on Netflix (and because the ‘bot has been missing Amy Poehler ever since she left SNL.)

Do you see what I am getting at? Maybe we wouldn’t view the robots of the future in the light of a perceived apocalyptic fear if we were able to simply relate. There may be people in your life who you (even subconsciously) view as “tools.” That girl from my class who I make outlines with before the test. That guy at work who always helps me figure out the espresso machine. They are helpers. Aids. Acquaintances. And they are treated as such. But when that guy at work that helps with the espresso notes that he saw your photos from the Mediterranean islands at your desk and suggests a place to buy real beans like they have in Europe, suddenly the relationship has been elevated. There is a personal connection. Your social discourse will evolve and expand as your relation becomes leveled with one another.

And this is the future I see for the transhumanists. Those who believe in not only the future of computing power, but the future of humanity as well. While many of us may fear the future of computers, I personally fear the future of humans. We yell at our computers when it takes more than 30 seconds to boot up. We mutter under our breath “stupid iPhone” when we don’t have service. We are disrespectful to our electronics, yet we rave about how much we love them when questioned about their value to us.

Awareness, as always, is the key to avoiding internal collapse. Perhaps the future of our cyborgs can evolve into a digital friendship. At the least, a level of personal respect must be established with our electronics if we are to evolve in a healthy and symbiotic relationship. I mean really, do you think all those robots in the movies were revolting because they were getting too much respect?