Interesting video. I heard these same opportunities and concerns shared during my trip to Seattle last week.

Watch video here on Forbes.com Video

Southern Pines, NC: March 29, 2008 — Leadership Consultant and Generation Y Expert, Bea Fields, recently spoke to the Bellevue, Washington, Chamber of Commerce Women in Business Forum on the topic of Leading at the Speed of Y: Attracting, Developing and Leading the Millennial Leader. Along with Scott Wilder, Jim Bunch and Rob Newbold, Fields is the co-author of Millennial Leaders: Success Stories From Today’s Most Brilliant Generation Y Leaders.

The forum was attended by over 150 women business leaders from the Bellevue and Seattle, Washington areas. Bellevue was recently named as the number one place (out of 100) in the nation to live and launch a business for 2008 by Fortune Small Business. FSB chose Bellevue over others in the top 10 including Georgetown, TX; Buford, GA; Marina del Rey, CA; Bethesda, MD; Portland, OR; Denver, CO; Charlotte, NC; Fort Worth, TX, and Franklin, MA.

Fields is the President of Bea Fields Companies, Inc. She is also the Chairman Elect for the Moore County Chamber of Commerce in North Carolina. “As someone who has provided leadership consulting and training services to over 800 leaders worldwide and has also served on the Board of Trustees for my local Chamber of Commerce, I know the challenges small business owners and Chambers are facing in attracting and leading Generation Y,” said Fields.

Fields’ mission with this presentation was to provide the women business leaders of Bellevue the answers to their most pressing questions about this next generation while providing them with strategies on how to best manage, motivate and communicate with them. “Based on the large number of questions and comments, I believe this mission was accomplished,” said Fields. “Gen Y leadership is a very hot topic, and I believe I provided the audience with a fresh perspective on the challenges Generation Y is facing and how we as can lead the charge in working with them to support them in being successful in the future.”

There is a great article in USA Today from this past week:

Boomers’ hope: That the kids are all right

As always when these articles appear, I noticed some comments by people calling Generation Y lazy (my hunch is this is a Boomer or a Gen X calling Gen Y’s lazy). I believe that we can emotionally support our children by stopping this name calling. With the Millennial Leaders project, we interviewed multiple Generation Y business leaders who are working very hard and who are giving back to the world through establishing non profits and working for organizations like the Peace Corps and Teach for America (if you want to be inspired, read the chapters in our book on Mari Moss and Nathan Rothstein).

So to call these kids lazy is perpetuating a stereotype that feeds a negative message to these young men and women. As a parent of 3 Gen Y’s, I believe that by instilling a sense of contribution back to society and by teaching them that to spend money, you must be willing to work to earn it (right now, that’s the way our economy works…money is a medium of exchange, and it does not grow on trees). And, along the way, we can help our kids build emotional muscles by teaching them that mistakes and failure (let them be late for work, let them make a bad grade) are a part of maturing into adulthood.

Finally, the invention of cell phones and e-mail are not helping this situation with over-involved parents. As parents, we need to resist the urge to pick up the phone at the drop of a hat. It sends the message that we will always be there to bail our kids out, and to be honest…they don’t want this. They are telling us to stop calling their college campuses and their employers. So, as a boomer to other boomers, we can do something about this, and we can start by taking responsibility for helping create this worry and doubt by always giving our kids a pillow to land softly.

Everyone keeps talking about how Obama has leveraged Web 2.0 Technologies better than his opponents. But there’s something else going on. And that is how do people find these videos, podcasts, and blogs. It is not just by going to YouTube.com. Instead, it is based on online word of mouth. Younger folks are forwarding Web addresses in their emails, or leveraging ‘beacons’ on sites like FaceBook. Beacons basically let your friends know what you are doing, such as ‘listening to Podcast of Obama’s speeches. According to Gen Yers, I speak with, they are subscribing less and less to paper based newspapers and reading more online. And it is there friends and coworkers who are using the Web to let them know what to read online. This also impacts the type of info consumed by Gen Yers. Instead of reading what experts think about an event, users just go to a recording the event (after they receive an email from a friend).

 “Before you go calling the new group of youngsters following in the footsteps of generation X generation “why”, you might want to take a look at their spending habits. There could be some good investment opportunities in a number of listed companies that are starting to take notice of these trendsetters”.

Great article on Generation Y and spending.

From The Big Chair 

Anya Kamenetz has a great post today on Yahoo Finance about the issues facing young voters. A big concern? The economy.

Several more senior leaders have been telling me that Gen Y does not seem concerned about the economy, but this is not what I am hearing, and Kamenetz’s opinion is more in line with what I am hearing.

Why us old folks sometimes hate Gen Yers?

Disclaimer: I don’t really hate Gen Y. I love working and learning from them.

BUT, there are folks who come straight out and say, ‘Gen Y is spoiled.’ I recently met with a company where a senior manager said, ‘those kids are spoiled… they think they can just take off an afternoon.’

When I challenged this manager and asked him how many Gen Yers were on his staff, he said ‘1′.

When I asked him how many Gen Yers he interacts with a week, he said ‘1 or 2.’

When I asked him if he explored FaceBook or some other websites where there are a lot of Gen Yers, he said ‘no’

When I asked him if he read our book, he said ‘no’

Ignorance is not always bliss. Just like any culture, generation or religion, you (Gen X, Boomers, etc.), need to get out of their current mind set and interact with young folks. Besides learning, there is another good reason.

It is scientifically proven that one lives longer if they interact with younger folks. (Please don’t ask me to send you the article that states this because it will take a while to find it)

It is ok for Gen Yers to wear their pants low, wear a baseball cap sideways, have a tattoo or a pierced body part. Who are we to judge? It is natural to have some prejudices, but hopefully they can dissolve over time.

Just know that they will change jobs more than you do, they will dress differently, they will have a different vocabulary, and they might even eat different food.

Be open. Be Y!

If you are reading this blog, we encourage you to vote for Arel and Bert. These guys are amazing (and are featured in Millennial Leaders):

Binghamton University Alumni Arel Moodie (24) and Bert Gervais (23) are founders of The Place Finder LLC. An idea spawned from their personal frustrations, the class project for an off-campus housing website, www.placefinder.com, was catapulted into a full-fledge business by winning Binghamton University’s 2004 Business Plan Competition.

Now the company is in the running to win “best idea” from ideablob.com’s monthly $10,000 grand-prize competition. Moodie and Gervais are calling for a movement to get votes from the public to win by showing the power of a community. Please go to this link to vote!

Moodie and Gervais began their undergraduate careers as Politic Science and History majors, both looking to enter law school after graduation. Then, while having a difficult time finding off-campus housing, the unlikely entrepreneurs came up with a solution they knew would help other students in the same situation. Fueled by entrepreneurial passion, they decided to switch gears and pursue placefinder.com full time after graduation.

Despite being denied loans by banks because of youth, lack of assets, and inexperience, Moodie and Gervais kept the company afloat through a 4-year winning streak of entrepreneurial contests since 2004. They have used the winnings from these contest to help them fund the growth of placefinder.com.

Why this is relevant:

Now at a critical juncture in their startup where they must sink or win, they are tasked with trying to win a “best idea” competition from www.ideablob.com. Moodie and Gervais plan to use the prize to enhance the website with new features such as a “neighborhood rating system” for college towns and increase marketing. With so many people interested in starting businesses, this is a great story to show creative ways for startups to get funding. To win the competition the duo needs to get the most possible votes between now and March 31^st, 2008 voters can to go to placefinder.com and click the vote link on the home page.

Quote:

“Who ever thinks that you can’t fund a business because of lack of opportunity has not explored all of the options out there. If you can generate genuine exitement about your business idea, then you are well on your way. ”
-Bert Gervais (23) , Male, BU Alumni

NEWS

Contact:
Lee B. Salz
Business Expert Webinars
Chief Executive Officer
9784 Troy Lane, Minneapolis, MN 55311
763.416.4321
lsalz@businessexpertwebinars.com

A Cutting Edge Way to Increase Your Business Knowledge, Easily and Affordably!

April 21, 2008, Minneapolis, MN - Business Expert Webinars (BEW), an international community of business experts, comprising best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus, announced its launch today with more than 100 speakers and 700 live business education webinars that begin airing in May 2008.

“We are using webinar technology to deliver business eLearning,” said Lee B. Salz, President and CEO of Business Expert Webinars. Topics include all genres of business -sales, networking, public relations, marketing, real estate, human resources, entrepreneurship, management and many others. Visitors interested in participating can view the extensive schedule and sign up for webinars at BusinessExpertWebinars.com. Each webinar is taught by a live presenter on the phone and is supported by a presentation delivered over the Internet.

“People are frustrated with the free webinar offerings where the price of admission is a sales and marketing pitch. Either the entire webinar is an infomercial or the content is delivered at a high-level in the session and concludes with, ‘if you really want to know how to do this, buy my CD, DVD, book, etc.’ Thus, they aren’t really free,” said Salz.

Leadership expert and co-author of Millennial Leaders, and EDGE: A Leadership Story, Bea Fields is one of the experts who will be featured through Business Expert Webinars. “It is an honor to be partnering with Business Expert Webinars, Lee Salz and over 100 top professionals to bring a few cutting edge leadership classes which are relevant to today’s business world,” said Fields. “This webinar platform is first in class and will offer business leaders the opportunity for ongoing learning and development from the comfort of their own office at a very affordable price. I have viewed the list of upcoming classes, and the business community is in store for a real treat.”

About Business Expert Webinars

Business Expert Webinars is an international community of business experts that comprises best-selling authors, award-winning speakers, and business gurus. For more information, visit BusinessExpertWebinars.com.

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Check this out: Storming the Campuses  article in the New York Times

“Eleven thousand Ivy League students and alumni have played out these scenarios as part of an online computer game called GoCrossCampus, or GXC. The game, a riff on classic territorial-conquest board games like Risk, may be the next Internet phenomenon to emerge from the computers of college students”.

I think this is really great. If it is indeed along the lines of RISK (which it looks like it is), this could be a great game for exercising the brain and strengthening strategic thinking.

Millennial Leaders