Getting From College To Career

As part of our research for Career OnDemand, my colleagues spoke to Lindsey Pollak, an expert on Generation Y or the millennial generation. She is an author, speaker and consultant. Lindsey's insight into the millennial generation helped shape our thinking on Career OnDemand.

Last week Lindsey was kind enough to send me her book "Getting from College to Career". In the book she talks about 90 things to do before a college student joins the real world. A very good guide for college students and young professionals. Even though the book is aimed at college students, there are many simple tips that are useful for any professional. I enjoyed reading the book.

Here is a short video where she talks about the millennial generation.

Millennials Prefer Native Mobile Apps To Browsers

Research of mobile usage suggests that people under 35 prefer using native mobile phones to get their personal things done. The research found that Mobile apps are already the dominant medium for access to internet radio maps, social networks, navigation and games.

My conclusion based on my research and personal discussions with tens of millennial students and young professionals is that they have a strong preference for using native apps from mobile devices and tablets. They consider browsers as tools used by an older generation.

Based on my conversation with a utilities customers, I found out that native mobile apps are also a big hit with blue collar workers, not just knowledge workers who do cognitive work.

This is another reason why every business applications designer might want to think-mobile-first for product design.

Enterprise 2.0 Books For General Managers and Human Capital Management Researchers

For the past couple of years I have been focusing on the next generation workplace. My goal was to find out on how the new generation of employees, new technologies that make connecting and sharing easy, will change enterprise software and people behavior in the workplace. I found these books valuable and decide to share the wealth.  The authors are a blend of seminal thinkers, radical practitioners and consultants. Did I miss anything?

Reading for general managers
Andrew McAfee - Researcher, Academic
Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges

Charlene Li - Analyst, Consultant

Book: Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

My takeaway: This was the first book I read that covered the Web 2.0 topic in a comprehensive manner.

Josh Bernoff
Empowered : Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

My Take Away: Consumers are empowered. The only way you can meet their needs is to empower your employees using Enterprise 2.0 tools. A good guide for business and people leaders.

Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead
My takeaway: The way an organizations leadership behaves needs to change to adapt to the new generation of people and tools.


Morten Hansen's book, "Collaboration"
Recommended by @movito
My takeaway: The book focuses on the economic value of collaboration. 


Reading for designers and users of people management systems
Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein - Academics
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
My takeway: I understood how choice architecture by designers of systems can influence people.


Nicholas A Christakis and James H. Fowler  - Academics
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
My takeway: I understood the power of connections and how they affect our lives. The strength of weak links was a good lesson.


Clay Shirky - Academic
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
My takeaway: I understood why there is a sudden surge in people's urge to creating rather than just consume.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations


Seth Godin - Thinker, Marketer
Tribes: We need you to lead us
Linchpin : Are You Indispensable?
My takeaway : In todays world, the factory needs the worker more than how much the worker needs the factory.


Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson - Entrepreneurs, Radical Thinkers
Rework
My takeaway: A small number of companies are disrupting traditional thinking about hiring, managing and retaining workers. 37 Signals is a company to watch. 


Dennis Shiffman
The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today's Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture


Don Tapscott - Researcher, Consultant
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything


Learning, Performance Management and Succession
Jay Cross - Thinker, Researcher, ConsultantInformal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance 
My takeaway : Conversation is the best learning technology. Learning systems should enable conversation.


Ram Charan - Thinker, Academic, Consultant
Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis
My takeaway : Apprenticeship is the key to succession planning and dialog among leaders is the key to talent management. Not a system that tries to automate talent management.


Daniel Pink
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
My takeaway: Higher financial incentives do not improve performance in 'cognitive' tasks.


Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations
Network Challenge : Strategy Profit And Risk In An Interlinked World

Demographics and Millennial Generation

• Keeping The Millennials: Why Companies Are Losing Billions in Turnover to This Generation- and What to Do About It
• The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm
• Growing Up Digital : The Rise of the Net Generation
• Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World

Marketing and Customer Relationship Management
These book are not directly related to people management. But they are a good read to understand trends in the consumer world.

• Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
• The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today's Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture
• Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business

Keeping the Millennials

I am reading the book "Keeping the Millennials"

It is a good book on the topic by two experienced organizational development consultants. The language in the book will be familiar for human resources and training professionals. I particularly liked the chapter on the topic "preparing the millennials to lead".