got geoint?

Welcome to the Friday’s Food for Thought post from got geoint? We hope everyone had a productive week and are gearing up for back to school time – man, how fast summer flies by. This week’s FFT theme is all about the next generation of GEOINTers and what makes them tick. By better understanding this new generation — many who are enrolling as freshmen in college — we will be better suited to create the next leaders of our community. And, we end this post with the anthem for how to deal with the upcoming generation – treat them right. Happy Friday!

Mindset List for the Class of 2014
Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall’s entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom the digital world is routine and technology is just too slow. Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since “digital” has always been in the cultural DNA, they’ve never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat. Read the full Mindset List here.

Who is Gen Y – or Otherwise Known as Millennials?
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, Generation Next or Net Generation, describes the demographic cohort following Generation X. Its members are often referred to as Millennials or Echo Boomers. As there are no precise dates for when the Millennial generation starts and ends, commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s. This generation generally represents an increase in births from the 1980s and 90s, not because of a significant increase in birthrates, but because the large cohort of baby boomers began to have children. The 20th century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued, however, so the relative impact of the “baby boom echo” was generally less pronounced than the original boom. Read the full WIkipedia entry here.

Managing Millennials: Eleven Tips for Managing Millennials
The millennials joining your workforce now are employees born between 1980 and 2000, or 1981 and 1999, depending on the author. Unlike the Gen-Xers and the Boomers, the Millennials have developed work characteristics and tendencies from doting parents, structured lives, and contact with diverse people. Millennials are used to working in teams and want to make friends with people at work. Millennials work well with diverse coworkers. Millennials have a “can-do” attitude about tasks at work and look for feedback about how they are doing frequently – even daily. Millennials want a variety of tasks and expect that they will accomplish every one of them. Positive and confident, millennials are ready to take on the world. Read the full About.com post here.

What Makes Millennials Tick (a Dad’s Perspective)?
A few young people are finding jobs now. As they enter the workforce I am hearing a lot of confusion about what to make of the millennials. Why do they act this way? My son is a millennial. To understand him it helps to remember his life experiences as the context that forms his worldview. This is a brief look at my son that may help remind you what the world looks like to a millennial…click here to see a Dad’s perspective on what makes his milennial son tick. Very enlightening.

Treat The Youths Right – Jimmy Cliff
This is our theme song for grooming the next generation of GEOINTers. Enjoy.

Tags: Friday's Food for Thought, GEOINT, got geoint?, Jimmy Cliff, Next Generation GEOINT, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, USGIF, Young GEOINT, Young GEOINTers