Millennial, Metrics and the New Media – John Della Volpe (@dellavolpe)

Millenials are a Big Deal

• Millenials = 13 to 30 year olds, they are the largest generation in human history and they have a significant impact on the economy
• This generation has trust issues – especially with traditional media and old institutions and they are not afraid to let you know it.
• They trust a recommendation from a friend 4x as much as TV and email.
• Connecting online was not a fluke, millennial’ brains are wired differently.
• Gen X (latch key kids) – first generation where both parents are working. TV was the primary entertainer
• Millennial (also latch key kids) – now the internet is the primary entertainer and they interact socially on the web
• if not for Millennials, Hilary Clinton would be the president of the USA and not Barak Obama (e.g. Millenials voted for Obama 57% to 11% in Iowa) – Obama campaign targeted Millenials, Clinton did not

What are Millenials Thinking about today

• Politics and Government (latest Harvard IOP Survey)
  • Obama’s job performance stable
  • Republicans eyeing midterm elections
  • US Military most trusted institutions surveyed
• Economy
  • economic anxiety is palpable
  • majority concerned about keeping head above water
  • half of students concerned about staying in college
• Service
  • millennials remain committed to community service

Stats on concern about keeping head above water 45% stay in college, 46% ability to live in the city they want, 56% afford health care, 58% affort a place to liver, 60% ability to pay bills

“The Facebook” and Social Media

• Facebook is the 3rd largest country by population, China, India, Facebook, USA …
• by next Jan 2011, there will be more people 50+ yo on facebook than <30 yo
• http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/facebook.com for stats
• Facebook is mainstream while Twitter skews younger

Mapping Your SocialSphere

• ORBIT Map http://socialsphere.com
• 4 categories of sites on the Internet – General News (traditional), Industry News, Social Frameworks (Networks), Blogs and Communities – target type graphic for College Applicants and their interaction with the 4 types

What has Changed in the Last 18 Months  Read more...

• College Confidential, College Prowler, Zinch – social ranking sites
• YouTube is starting to become more relevant and influential – video is really taking off
• good Facebook site are becoming the ‘state of practice”

I am attending the SunGard HE Summit Conference in Philadelphia, PA this week. I taught a 2 hour EA Intro workshop, that I will blog on later and am on a panel session about our work in redesigning the Student information system using SOA and UX.

I am trying something new at this conference; using Twitter as my notetaker (my Twitter name is leodesousa). I am using my own tag #sghes09 and tweeting on the content of the sessions I attended. I will be using TwitterSearch to pull all of my tweets together and see if I can get a chronological log of my conference experience and learnings. Note SunGard HE is on twitter and are using the #sghesummit tag. Stay tuned …

Here is the Twitter Search to get my timeline of notes (I messed up a couple times with my personal tag):

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=sghe09+OR+sghes09

Our Web Services team delivered some real cool innovative projects in the past 6 months.  In partnership with our Marketing & Communications and Student Recruiting departments, our team has launched two new approaches to communicating about BCIT and recruiting students to come study here.

Leveraging our public web properties as well as blending social media tools like YouTube, Drupal Blog and Twitter, the team built whatwouldyouchange.ca   and 3 BLOG Nights.  The 3 BLOG Nights initiative is running right now and you should check it out. You can search Twitter using #3bn.   Each year BCIT runs a Big Information Session and Program Expo  to “provide a unique opportunity for people interested in attending BCIT to find out more about BCIT’s full-time programs and part-time courses and programs all in one place, at one time”.  This year we are extending Big Info (which usually runs in one evening) into 4 days/3 nights - 67 hour event by leveraging live blogging, twittering and video shoots all about BCIT, our programs, faculty and most importantly our students!

We have a very talented group in our Web Services team and they are really pushing the boundaries to leverage open source tools to create more attention for BCIT and in turn generate new students!   Great job team and will be checking in regularly on Twitter!