Potpourri XCII

More vacation progress! Rick Steves.com has finally sent me a detailed itinerary/list of hotels for my stay, along with a list of the people on my tour. This was accompanied by a letter offering packing reminders (map, hotel list, rain coat, flashlight) and a one-page summary/reminder of the itinerary. My tour consists of 24 people: 6 couples, 10 singles (9 women + Bart. My, my). Twenty-five days and counting.

From Martin, a video recommendation.

New from Hu: Another story on orbital fuel depots.

This is just wrong: some idjit is going on trial for groping the cast member playing Minnie Mouse.

Congress appears to be backing down on their attempt to buy more corporate jets for themselves. Good. Maybe if they spend enough time flying commercial aviation, they might learn to fix the Air Traffic Control system.

Jihadists have attacked Pakistan's nuclear facilities at least three times. Times they are a-changin'. The facilities were originally placed to keep them away from the Indians. Unfortunately for Pakistan (and us), the threat now is terrorists from the Northwest, where the facilities are located.

From Melissa: an article from a group boycotting companies like Amazon or Apple/iTunes, which can take away the digital material people purchase. The Amazon issue I understand because the content that was purchased was, in fact, posted illegally. But this is why throwbacks like me prefer CDs, tapes, and similar physical media because then you have something, not just a purchased right to electrons. But then I'm one of those crusty Gen Xers, so what the heck do I know?

One Gen Xer's View of the Transformation Discussion

I really appreciate being included in the ongoing discussion re: what to do with/about NASA. If I seem to lecture overmuch, I apologize. Part of that is just me, part of it is a habit I picked up from my grandparents, part of it is a sincere desire to see ambitious younger folks not make some of the same mistakes I made at their age. Allow me to ‘splain.

I came to NASA somewhat late in my career. I was 36 when I moved to Huntsville. Before that, I was a proposal writer at a defense contractor in Northern Virginia, and before that I spent 12 years at Walt Disney World, working in a variety of roles, including parks, resorts, IT, HR, and training. Most of the management stuff (e.g. change management) I picked up from reading books from the Disney University library or through writing papers for NASA. Other things, like PowerPoint, I’ve picked up on the job, through my off-duty reading, or in grad school (UCF, M.A. Technical Writing, ’02). I’ve spent my career as an hourly employee or an independent contributor, not as a manager; but I've been supporting managers, from the front line to the executive offices, so I have a pretty good handle on their wants/needs in the field of communication.

I think I learned more about interacting with the public—and management—at Disney than anywhere else. Much of what I learned came about by trying to do things “my way,” which is to say the wrong way, or in a way that usually resulted from arguments with my managers. I was a pain the neck as a 20-something employee and had more than a little impatience and “attitude.” I think it took a second verbal reprimand (guaranteeing that I wouldn’t transfer out of the job I had for at least another year) to realize that my confrontational approach with management was hurting, not helping my career.

If I wanted to stay with the company and improve my circumstances, I had to “play the game,” at least to some extent. That did not mean silencing my beliefs or sucking up to the boss. It did mean not rudely questioning the motives or intelligence of my managers every time decisions didn’t go my way; not demanding changes, but backing up my concerns with facts; and not expecting to advance simply on my own merits. If I wanted to “move up” in the organization, I had to admit (gulp) that my Silent Generation parents and Greatest Generation grandparents were right, and that I needed management coaching and support.

I am not saying Nick and the rest are doing what I did. Quite the contrary: they’ve been a lot more respectful and wise in their approach than I was. I was into my early 30s before I really understood how management thinks. From there, it was easier to know when it was appropriate to speak my mind and try to make changes and when it was better to shut up, wait, or accept things. Again, this was my particular problem, not necessarily others’.

There’s a saying I read recently that sums up my approach to my dispensing of unsolicited advice: “A smart man learns from his mistakes; a wise man learns from others’ mistakes.” So, again, I hope some of this commentary is of benefit, however tactlessly offered. Maybe more folks will learn from me what not to do. In any case, thanks again for reading. As new thoughts or approaches come to me, I’ll be sure to share them.

Transforming NASA, Part III

I have two items as food for thought this evening: change management and PowerPoint etiquette. Again, this is written in the spirit of helping, not keeping Gen Y down. I don't have the power to keep anyone down, nor am I interested in acquiring it.

Change Management
Change is hard, especially as you get older. When you're the new guy and don't have any preconceived notions, it's much easier to identify things that are wrong and to suggest ways to change them. What agents of change often face, however, is institutional resistance. Why? For reasons as old as human nature:

• Changes could lead to job cuts--especially the jobs of people who have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. That isn't always the case when changes come, but it happens often enough that people have a natural fear of it and want to protect their own rice bowls.
• Change takes people out of their comfort zone. Consider my recent complaint about changing from Office 2003 to Office 2007. I've been happy with 2003. I get it, I know how it works, and I can make the application do what I want using commands I know automatically. Why would I want to give that up?
• Change takes work. Continuing the example above, I'm going to have to learn more. I'll probably have to take additional classes and use extra time to do things that I once did automatically. Learning curves take time and work, and who the heck wants to screw that up when you've got deadlines to meet?

On the other hand, change is often necessary. In high-tech companies, this is a given: stay where you are, and eventually you'll get run over. Someone else will come up with a better mousetrap, and your company will be put out of business. Government agencies work somewhat differently, and operate under a different set of constraints than business--including political considerations, institutional inertia, media attention, changes in policy, and shifting budgets.

One change process NASA has embraced--at least within the Ares Projects--is Lean Six Sigma. There are plenty of sites out there, like the one I just linked to, so I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. However, I would encourage Gen-Y folks to participate in Lean Six Sigma events if they come up in your area. While LSS is meant to reduce waste and increase quality, it also has the added advantage of gaining wider acceptance of change, as it requires input from all interested parties. LSS events are an excellent opportunity to make some impact on the work going on around you. I've had to do some writing on LSS and have been through one of the events, and I found it very educational and useful. I have left some things out from the list below, but I wanted to provide a rough background on what goes on:

Step 1: Describe the current state. You start with an existing process. Let's say, hypothetically, you've been brought into a LSS event for how engineering change requests (CRs) are handled in your area. Step 1 is pretty straightforward: you map out how the process steps are handled, and by whom, and draw a lot of lines to show how things flow (or don't, as is often the case).
Step 2: Identify "value-added" and "non-value-added" steps. This is where a group consisting of members from each constituency involved in the process identifies all those steps that contribute directly to producing the end result. The advantage of this process is that it also allows the group to identify legal and regulatory constraints, "do loops," delays, extra steps, unnecessary signature approvals, and activities that are there simply because "we've always done it that way."
[By the way, along the way, you're quantifying what's being done--how long a process takes, how much time is spent waiting on others, how much the process costs, etc.--to provide hard data to back up any decisions.]
Step 3: Define your ideal future state. After you've sorted out the current state, you start laying out how you want the process to go, using only the value-added and legally mandated steps. And you wrap it up with a bow by calculating the amount of time and money saved and presenting this data to the upper-level manager who has decision-making authority.
Again, this is an existing NASA-supported process that can be used to bring about change.

*

PowerPoint Etiquette
I've been developing PowerPoint presentations in corporate, military, and government settings for over 10 years. That doesn't mean I'm an expert on PowerPoint; it does mean I'm something of an expert on what managers want in their PowerPoint presentations. Which comes to my primary concerns with the "Gen Y presentations": your format doesn't work with many managers.
I realize I'm about to put on my old-fogie, business-as-usual hat here, but bear with me for a minute.
When I saw Nick's original presentation, I must confess, I groaned. "One hundred and three slides, is he kidding?" It felt like one of those "inspiration" presentations that hits my inbox occasionally. That doesn't mean I couldn't use a little inspiration now and then, but there's a time and place for the one-sentence-per-slide thing, and it's not in a decisional briefing. Imagine, for instance, if I had posted this entire blog as a series of blogs, one sentence or one Tweet at a time. You'd switch off after awhile, wouldn't you? Now you have some notion of how others might react to the one-sentence-at-a-time thing.
Now I realize that the text-heavy, non-dynamic PPT itself can induce groans (a Gen-Y friend of mine dropped by to complain recently about the font size on a recent management presentation, and I couldn't argue with her about it--she was right). However, the long-form PPT, with one sentence per slide, just doesn't work if you are trying to develop presentations that will prompt senior managers to make decisions. Here are some basic PPT guidelines I've absorbed and followed over the years:

• Keep the presentation short. One chart for every 1-2 minutes of presentation time. Keep additional stuff in the backup charts if you need it.
• Keep the bullets short. Your audience can read what's on the screen. You're there to provide the color commentary.
• Keep your briefing focused. Include only statements or data or images that contribute to your main point.
• Minimize the "cute." This includes wacky "fly-in" effects, flashing anything, cutesy animations, and, yes, using one sentence per slide, unless it's a heading. (I'll get to the exceptions to this later.)
• Be realistic about your claims and objectives and focus on concrete quantifiable issues and results, if possible. "Revolutionizing the agency" will fall on deaf ears. "Increasing technological expertise, reducing cost and schedule, or improving hardware/software performance by [X number]" will get their attention.
• The following format / flow for a presentation continues to work:
  --Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. (Intro/agenda)
  --Tell 'em. (Main body)
  --Tell 'em what you told 'em. (Summary)

Now there are times when I think the long-form (one sentence per slide) format or other creative effects work well. These include:

• Informal, "fun," or (yes) "inspirational/team building" settings where there are no serious time constraints.
• When you're trying to get people to think creatively or philosophically in a relaxed way.
• Non-decisional environments.
• Parts of a more serious or formal briefing, where it can be used for dramatic or comic effect.

I don't want to crush creativity here. In fact, I'd like to incorporate some of the long-form format into the outreach PPTs I develop. And by all means, if you're a NextGen person and you ARE the boss, you can make your PPTs any way you darn well please. However, I am trying to explain how most managers communicate (and expect to be communicated to) in environments where they have a decision to make. I think part of the reason that they don't take some of these collaboration or intergenerational PPTs seriously is that they are receiving data in a form they're not accustomed to--it's simply too "fun" to be taken seriously. The presentations work for other NextGen people, not time-constrained Boomer (or Xer) managers.

Okay, I've ranted long enough for this evening. Feel free to pick up the pitchforks and torches if you feel the need.

Gen Y and NASA, Continued.

I've gotten many more good comments in the last couple days, and a huge spike in my hits thanks to NASAWatch. Who'da thunk it? Anyhow, many of the comments were variations on a theme. I wrote some of this in response to a response from my buddy Doc, but I'll repost here and elaborate a bit.

*

Some folks are uncomfortable with the idea of labels, generational or otherwise. However, this discussion has been going on for a long, long time. You can probably find the ancient Greeks bemoaning the degradation of the youths of their day. Others dislike the premise of "paying one's dues." I honestly don't know how long is a reasonable amount of time to "learn a system." However, for the sake of argument, let's say someone should be able to talk as though they belonged there after they've been on the job a year.

Some people manage to graduate and go right into some high-paying job. Some drop out of high school and start their own companies. Some get all the way through a doctorate and still have no idea what they're going to be when they grow up. The points here are that individuals all develop differently, but large organizations are all pretty much the same. If you are interested in establishing a career in a large, bureaucratic organization, then you're going to have to play by that organization's rules. And that sort of organization is going to have more and more gray hairs and seniority the higher up the food chain you go. If you're not interested in working in a large, bureaucratic organization, you go find a job somewhere else or you go start your own business.

The fact is that NASA IS a large, bureaucratic organization when others would like it to be something different. If Nick, Doc, and the rest of Gen Y (or, God help us, some members of Gen X) want to change NASA into something other than it is now, well...that'll require another blog. Keep those thoughts coming. I'd also like to thank Dave for his link to the Gen X Files.

And in the meantime, I'll open it this up for discussion here: how do you transform a traditional, seniority-based organization into one where younger folks with bright ideas to contribute can move up the food chain without having to wait 10-20 years for "their turn" or to "pay their dues?"

/b

Missing Pieces: What NASA’s Gen Y Keeps Missing

I invite you to visit this web site, and read where Nick Skytland, a Gen-Y civil servant at Johnson Space Center (JSC), posted a presentation from the PM Challenge conference entitled “Participatory Exploration: The Role of the User Contribution System.” Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay, now that you’ve read that, I’ll make some obligatory grumpy comments. These are being written in the spirit of constructive criticism, not "Siddown, kid, and wait your turn!" I'm looking at specifics in the presentations and so am asking/commenting about specifics.

I’ve met Nick once or twice at space-related events, and he’s a friend in Facebook. I'm not sure he reads this blog, but I might direct him to it just to provide him with food for thought for his next presentation. Nick is one of many under-30 contributors at the agency who’s trying to get NASA to think more like a dot-com (e.g. Google) and less like a command-and-control military organization. I wish him and his compadres well. Gosh knows all government agencies could think more quickly on their feet. However, being a Gen-Xer who’s spent most of my career in large, command-and-control organizations, I suspect that Nick has bigger challenges ahead than he realizes.

One of the gripes I’ve had about these types of presentations is that they are very brain-heavy. Here’s what I mean: despite the fact that, until the recent recession, America has continued to break records in the amount of manufactured stuff we export, media pundits and younger folks focused remain captivated by the "service economy" and the “information age."

Now admittedly a lot of our mass-produced products can be assembled, packaged, or shipped robotically, and that trend will no doubt continue. However, one of the largest contributors to America’s exports has been The Boeing Company, which depends on a large, skilled workforce capable of bending metal, installing wiring, turning wrenches, welding structures, and all the rest. All of this is still too complex for robots and likely will be for some time to come. These activities involve people doing physical labor, not just sitting in front of a laptop at Starbucks, sipping lattés. I don’t know what the specific percentages are, but I think I’m safe in assuming that not all of the people producing or building stuff—from farm goods to airplanes and spacecraft—went to college. Skytland is “privileging” (a favorite phrase of one of my grad school profs) intellect and symbol manipulation over physical labor. This is a mistake because not everyone can contribute this way, nor do they necessarily want to. Any future educational system—and any future space program—must find ways for individuals with mental and physical skill sets to contribute, because we will need both educated minds and skilled hands if we want to get to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Another issue I have with these Gen Y presentations—and I apologize now if Nick covered this, all I have to go by are the PPT slides—is how they emphasize collaborative technological tools but do not specify how these tools will enable people to make fundamentally better contributions than they might make through, say, face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or memos. I would also be interested to see what specific engineering or scientific contributions have been made in the aerospace industry using Skytland’s proposed new work environment. One example I can think of off the top of my head is the "virtual collaboration" Boeing has been doing to design and build the 787 Dreamliner at multiple locations around the globe. However, that plane is now likely to start deliveries more than a year late. Was that the result of--or despite--worldwide, international collaboration? That question should be answered.

Next on my nitpicking list: the global marketplace. It is one thing to have global “participation” in a robotic exploration mission (the standard example I’ve heard is allowing people to vote on “where to plant the flag”). It is another to have people from other countries reviewing and building the rockets--see the 787 example above. Since the dawn of the space age, rockets have been a critical national and strategic technology because of their ability to carry weapons. As noted above, if America has had one distinctive competitive advantage over the past 50 years, it has been in aerospace technology. This includes everything from materials to aerodynamic shapes or computer codes for analyzing flight paths to the guidance systems that allow a rocket to travel 25,000 miles per hour and reach a target millions of miles away with a margin of error measured in inches. These are all technologies that require United States citizens to produce them—at least if the United States wants to remain a spacefaring nation. There are some jobs that NASA and its primary contractors simply will not and cannot outsource to other countries because it’s the law.

We have a truly unique and challenging future ahead of us. I look forward to future contributions by Nick and others like him. I’d just like a little more organizational, cultural, and operational realism brought into the discussion.

Blasts from the Past

I've picked up a new electronic habit: YouTube.com. Nearly any music video I watched during MTV's Golden Age can be found there (for those of you under 30, that'd be back when MTV = "Music Television," and the network actually played music videos). They've also got extended clips from operas and symphonies and soundtracks I happen to like. For fun, I thought I'd share my "Favorites" list from the '80s pop music genre. It interested me that some artists, like Prince, have done their level best to stop fans from posting their videos on YouTube to protect their copyrights. What did he do when VCRs came out? Send a posse to people's homes when they taped his videos? I'm beginning to go along with my friend Jason's take on digital rights: if I am downloading stuff off the internet, but STILL going out and buying the original products (books, CDs, etc.), the artist isn't missing out on my money.

And yes, this would be the point where my friend Martin can take my crack about the '70s being a low point for fashion and music and chuck it into an oubliette. There are very few sane outfits or hair styles in this group. So it goes.

• Alan Parsons Project, Don't Answer Me
• Tasmin Archer, Sleeping Satellite
• Pat Benatar, Invincible, Love is a Battlefield
• David Bowie, Let's Dance
• John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, On the Dark Side
• Irene Cara, What a Feeling / Flashdance Theme
• The Cars, Drive
• Phil Collins, Don't Lose My Number
• Devo, Whip It
• Dexy's Midnight Runners, Come On Eileen
• Dire Straits, Money for Nothing
• Thomas Dolby, She Blinded Me With Science
• Duran Duran, New Moon on Monday, Wild Boys
• Melissa Etheridge, I'm the Only One
• Eurythmics, Here Comes the Rain Again, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
• The Fixx, One Thing Leads to Another
• Peter Gabriel, Sledgehammer
• Genesis, Land of Confusion, That's All
• Golden Earring, Twilight Zone
• Guns 'n' Roses, Knocking on Heaven's Door, November Rain
• Dan Hartman, I Can Dream About You
• The Jump in the Saddle Band, The Curly Shuffle
• Greg Kihn Band, Our Love's in Jeopardy
• The Kinks, Come Dancing
• Laid Back, White Horse
• K. D. Lang, Constant Craving
• Cyndi Lauper, Time After Time
• Huey Lewis and the News, If This is It, I Want a New Drug
• Kenny Loggins, Danger Zone, Footloose
• Madonna, Into the Groove, Material Girl, Papa Don't Preach, Vogue
• Manfred Mann, Runner
• Men at Work, Land Down Under
• Men Without Hats, The Safety Dance
• The Motels, Only the Lonely
• Naked Eyes, Promises, Promises
• Nena, 99 Luftballoons, 99 Red Balloons
• Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall
• The Police, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, King of Pain, Wrapped Around Your Finger
• Power Station, Some Like It Hot
• Queen, Radio Ga-Ga
• Rockwell, Somebody's Watching Me
• Romeo Void, Never Say Never
• David Lee Roth, Just a Giggolo, Yankee Rose
• Peter Schilling, Major Tom
• Scorpions, No One Like You
• Rick Springfield, Bob 'Til You Drop
• Styx, Mr. Roboto, Music Time
• Donna Summer, She Works Hard for the Money
• Talking Heads, Burning Down the House
• 'Til Tuesday, Hush, Hush
• The Tubes, She's a Beauty
• Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero / Thunderdome, What's Love Got to Do with it
• Twisted Sister, I Wanna Rock, We're Not Gonna Take It
• Bonnie Tyler, Holding Out for a Hero
• Van Halen, Hot for Teacher
• Deniece Williams, Let's Hear it for the Boy
• Weird Al Yankovic, Eat It
• Yes, Owner of a Lonely Heart

Generation X readers, feel free to add your own favorites to the list...

More Gasoline on the Gen Wire Fire

It looks like our friends in Generation Y have made yet another pitch to NASA. My thoughts are below.

Slide 3: As I've complained in a couple of places, Gen Y continues to harp on strategic communication. Yes, it needs to be addressed. But, again, they should be prepared for the cranky old dinosaurs to come back and say, "Fine, we'll work on our communication efforts. What are you going to do to contribute to the aerospace engineering NASA is doing?" Whenever this question is asked, Gen Y circles back to the communication thing: "How are we going to get interested in the engineering if you don't communicate better? Talk to us! Pay attention to us! We're important! It's all about me, Me, ME!" Okay, I exaggerate slightly. But my attempts to focus on Gen Y's potential engineering contributions have led to several of conversations like this. The young folks want to be listened to, the older folks want to know what the younger folks are going to do for them. There is little sense of reciprocity from these Gen Y presentations, and that is the biggest stumbling block to improving the dialogue.

As I predicted my generation has disappeared from their calculations entirely. Slide 6 differs from slide 30 of their previous pitch by eliminating Generation X. Instead of Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y, they now have only Baby Boomers and "Next Gen." Let's try this one more time, kids: despite Wikipedia's attempt to subdivide the generations, the Baby Boom Generation was born 1946 to 1961. Generation X was born 1961 to 1977. Gen X really IS different from Gen Y simply because we grew up without ubiquitous computing, nearly uninterrupted economic expansion, and electronic media until we were in our teens. Okay, the old guy needed his "ten miles to and from school in three feet of snow" rant. I'm good now. Moving on...

Slide 8 raised the following questions, which I will answer as I go along:

• What is the value of Gen Y in creating a "sustainable" space program? Theoretically, they should have a better command of computerized productivity tools, which should enable them to improve not just communication but also functionality.
• Is there a disconnect between NASA and NextGen? Obviously, or the conversation wouldn't have taken on such intensity.
• What does the hiring and retention data tell us? That NASA is losing people, through budget cuts, retirement attrition, lack of interest, and lack of qualified applicants. The best and brightest aren't attracted to NASA, because they don't perceive NASA as being "cutting edge" enough, other businesses pay better, or the path to working on actual hardware is too slow for impatient youths.
• Does Gen Y expect NASA to cater to them? In some ways, yes. I've beaten this horse enough that I should just let it lie there. However, I'll take another shot at it: insisting that NASA hire/promote you faster just because there are 70 million of you or because you can use MySpace better than the dinosaurs is not realistic.
• Do better communication tools exist? Naturally. And Gen Y is much better poised to exploit them. These tools might even change the nature of communication at NASA to become more open and transparent. However, some of the young'uns still need a few lessons in national security, ITAR, and proprietary laws.
• Why should NASA care? The reasons are already well known, but are worth repeating: Gen X and Gen Y will be the ones paying for, building, flying, and benefitting from the next generation of exploration vehicles and technologies. Or not. If these generations decide that the effort and rewards aren't worth the expense, then space exploration in America will die, and the Chinese, Indians, Russians, Japanese, and Europeans will inherit the solar system.

Slide 14: The following bullets are interesting.

We are asking that the focus on today’s urgent issues be balanced with the needs of tomorrow.
We realize that there is potential for increased risk on those projects but missions today must take the risk of raising young people and not just hiring already experienced people.

No argument with the first point. I am curious how Gen Y folks think NASA should go about hiring more of them when they're in the process of cutting 6,000 jobs in the next three years.

The next point is a little odd, either because they didn't have an English major on hand or because they had multiple purposes in mind: "Missions today must take the risk of raising young people and not just hiring already experienced people." The word raising amused me because it made me wonder if the presenters were looking to NASA as some sort of surrogate parent. But Gen Y also needs to face a simple, painful fact: few organizations are going to let you work on the very cool, cutting-edge, expensive stuff right out of college unless there are other circumstances driving the decision. In the case of the Apollo program, where the average age of folks working on the hardware was 26, the primary extenuating circumstance was John F. Kennedy's "before this decade is out" deadline. Otherwise, everybody starts at the bottom, doing small, thankless jobs first before they are given the opportunity to work on the bigger stuff. It was explained to me this way when I was starting out as a stock clerk at Osco: before I was allowed to be a cashier or work in the liquor department, I had to prove that I could sweep the floors, stock the diapers, and dump the garbage well. "Why should the boss trust you with more responsibility if you don't put in the work to do the small and simple things first?" It's called paying your dues, and everyone does it.

Slide 16 is interesting, and explains a lot about why Gen X doesn't have a large presence at NASA: right around the time a lot of us were graduating (1986 to 1994), NASA underwent a series of hiring freezes. As a result, a lot of us went into the dot-com business instead. Or, in my case, the service/hospitality industry.

Slide 20: Another one that deserves to be answered respectfully, since the presenters are at last offering some suggestions.

We’re asking to create an environment where all NASA employees can leverage their strengths to push the limits of science and space exploration by:

Providing the current NASA workforce with infusion of fresh ideas, methodologies and technologies.

Providing the Next Gen NASA workforce the programs and experience today that it needs to be the leaders in the future.

Enabling enhanced communication and collaboration between NASA centers.

Getting more young people in the door.

Regarding "Providing the current NASA workforce with infusion of fresh ideas, methodologies and technologies," fine. Which ones? And NASA doesn't just want to hear about YouTube and MySpace. What about engineering software? Materials research?

Re: "Providing the Next Gen NASA workforce the programs and experience today that it needs to be the leaders in the future." I'm glad they included this. Maybe it's a sign that they get the "paying your dues" and "starting out small" concepts. Of course programs like this are vanishingly rare, and the NASA budget doesn't show many signs of unlimited growth. These kids need to vote, something people 18 to 30 historically have not done. If they did, Congress might pay more attention to them. I could add that they need to vote for presidential candidates who have an intelligent platform that supports space exploration and need to avoid candidates who just make them feel good; however, then I would deprive Barack Obama of one of his primary voting blocs.

Re: enhanced communication and collaboration between NASA centers. Yes, that would be nice, and it does happen. However, it does not occur at all levels, not at blinding speed, and not always with the same degree of cooperation between all individuals.

Re: getting more young people in the door. Again, NASA is about to cut 6,000 jobs in the next few years. What do the presenters suggest?

Slide 24:

We propose to engage the current workforce in cross-generation discussions at every center, cross-center discussions at the agency, and connections with the American Public.

Great! Looking forward to it.

Slide 29 recaps Slide 20 to show that they did, indeed, have concrete recommendations. Okay, great. And now what? The agency is not going to be changed by a couple of PowerPoint presentations, though I confess it's been awhile since I've seen two presentations have such impact. The old folks need more details and specifics. What kinds of new technologies? What types of programs do you recommend? Whose jobs shall NASA cut in order to make room for you? And if NASA does cut those jobs, how many experienced people are going to be around to give you the mentoring you want and need? These are some of the political realities the agency faces.

My Recommendations

While I've spent most of this posting busting Gen Y's chops, I'm not disregarding what they said. Far from it. I believe NASA needs to respond constructively in some fashion. The presenters, again, have made their concerns known. Great. Now NASA needs to sit down, honestly thank these folks for bringing these concerns to their attention, and then explain a few facts of life to the presenters. Next, NASA needs to engage in that cross-center, agency-wide dialogue consisting of multiple age groups, specialties, hierarchy levels, and technical backgrounds. This dialogue needs to have a concrete deliverable as a goal/output: a plan for integrating both the 21st century workforce and its technologies. Perhaps this will require two different plans:

• A technology improvement and integration plan. This should address both communication technologies (internal and external) and engineering and hardware tools.
• A workforce integration plan. This should address NASA's future workforce needs, by skill type and workforce size, as well as training plans for transferring institutional knowledge to new employees.

Who knows? Someone might even take these ideas seriously. Of course to be taken seriously, NASA would then have to act on the plans. But after that, once the doors are opened, it will be Gen Y's time to stand and deliver.

Marketing Space to Multiple Audiences

A friend sent me an article from Workforce Management on Gen Y. Then I got a PowerPoint and paper by Mary Lynn Dittmar and a story by Leonard David about that generation and their relationship to space. Blah, blah, blah. Can't we get off of this topic for a little while?

I wrote my master's thesis on using targeted marketing, and my target audiences included women, minorities, and environmentalists (mostly because there were plenty of references to be found in the English department). The point being here that Generation Y is not the only audience NASA needs to be concerned about. That's why I've written about Gen X and Baby Boomers. "Generations" are easier and less politically charged than the three groups I chose for my thesis. However, the arguments I posed then (and sharpened in a presentation at the 2007 ISDC) are still worth considering.

The easiest way to explain my approach for each of these target audiences is to break them down by their respective top motivators and issues now. My argument is that space advocates should not start with space first, but with Earth-based issues first, and then work our way up toward space by showing how space-related technologies can offer solutions or alternatives to those problems. If we start with the great, von Braunian Vision of a Grand Future in Space, we will lose at least half our audience because most people just don't give a flup. For each of my audiences, I tried to address both those things that inhibited their resistance to (or disinterest in) space as well as those things that are of keen interest to them. It's a mixed bag, but the emphasis is on meeting our audiences more than halfway by understanding what is motivating them to respond in certain ways.

Marketing Space to Women

Relevance of space - The biggest issue one confronts in researching women's reactions and relations to space is that they fail to see the relevance of space activities to their own lives. To which, I responded, "What about jobs, healthcare, or educational opportunities!?" Notice that I didn't mention rockets once.
Space / science / engineering “boring” - This is a tougher nut to crack for a couple of reasons. First there is the nature argument, which states that every individual has particular interests and enthusiasms, and that no amount of preaching or outreaching is going to like them any better. The problem with this approach is if you observe that more men than women are in the sciences, it could be a function of lack of interest (in which case you're stereotyping) or ability (in which case you're a sexist who's stereotyping). The nurture argument states that women/girls don't care about science or engineering because they aren't encouraged enough when they are younger. If anything, I've been told that girls are getting the bulk of encouragement in schools these days while imaginative or technically minded boys are not. Most of the reports I've read on discrimination one way or the other have been andecdotal, so I will just table the nature vs. nurture issue for now and suggest approaches to overcome the "engineering is boring" perception. We should emphasize the fun, challenge, problem-solving opportunities to be had in the science and engineering fields and to overcome the lack of encouragement issue by making a more concerted effort to reach girls and women.

From here on, I'll deal with issues that do matter to women today. My "scientific" method for determining these issues was to go to a variety of web sites catering to women (Oxygen, etc.) and scan their subject headers.
Health Care - This is an easy win for space advocates, as space-based hardware and activities have resulted and continues to provide medical spinoffs and innovations that benefit everyone.
Children’s Education - Mothers concerned about their children's education should be easily persuaded of the value of space-related studies, as the importance of math / science education becomes ever more important for overcoming our nation's science / engineering gap compared to other competing players.
Environment - This, too, is an easy sell, as more than half the U.S. population describes itself as "environmentalist" in some fashion. This could be everything from conscientious recyclers to zodiac boat drivers for Greenpeace, but the sentiment still deserves to be taken seriously. Space assets are one of the most critical assets our nation has for environmental monitoring today. Space life support systems have also been used for Earth-based applications, such as water purification. And for the future, one can invoke the value of non-polluting, "low carbon footprint" energy sources such as space solar power and helium-3 fusion. We're not there yet, but if these space-based power sources can be tapped, the benefit will be incredible and the investment more than worthwhile.
Taxes - Okay, I went a little into science fiction land here, but I still believe this as a Reagan free marketeer: An expanded economy = more people able to afford taxes, and the expansion of human society into space means an expanded pie. That translates into more opportunities, more jobs, more potential taxpayers, and more people capable of paying for our nation's commitments.
Said space economy would also expand faster through tax incentives ("Zero G, Zero Tax"), which means tax cuts for people willing to invest in space ventures.
Social Security - As I noted above, an expanded economy can better afford social programs.
Jobs / Workplace Issues - The space economy provides more opportunities for more people. However, this demonstrated demand and improved opportunity for women in aerospace, science, and engineering fields must be shown.
Relationships - A spacefaring society will have need for healthy relationships and families, simple as that.

Marketing Space to Minorities

My "scientific" method of vetting my approaches to selling space to minority groups was to ask a couple friends who don't match my WASP complexion or sex. Again: talking to the audience helps.

Mistrust of majority / social distance - There are several ways the mostly WASP-male space advocacy community can overcome these issues, including: outreach, going where the people are, demonstrating care for minority issues / activities through actions, not just employing words or money, and possibly learning a second language. This means, in short, stepping out of our comfort zones and making the effort.
Relevance of space / what’s in it for me now? - After overcoming the initial social distance problem, the old question of relevance comes up, as it did with women. Fortunately, the answers are the same: jobs, healthcare, and educational opportunities!
Jobs / Workplace Issues (e.g. Fear or expectation of discrimination in the science/engineering fields) - Efforts must be undertaken to demonstrate that the space economy provides more opportunities to more people than ever before. As a goofy fallback, we could always talk about the “Star Trek” paradigm (IDIC?) of many different faces on the spacecraft. Trek was pretty revolutionary in the late 1960s. Today, Generation Y expects a diverse crew wherever they work.
Children’s Education - Childhood education is a primary concern of parents in any group, majority or minority. Again, math and science are critical to our nation's future, and the jobs that come with them will keep America strong and its citizens prosperous.

Marketing Space to Environmentalists

It is still my contention that environmentalists represent a very important and overlooked set of allies for space advocates. I saw that someone has written a book on this topic recently, so it's not that far out of an idea. However, since I haven't read it yet, I'll simply offer my thoughts on issues where space and environmental advocates share common ground.

Global Warming / Climate Change - Mind you, the pro-space community is just about as divided on this issue as the general public--about what the actual trends are, and what their sources are--but most folks in the pro-space community will agree that space provides excellent platform for collecting hard data. The “Greenhouse effect,” after all, was discovered as a result of Venus lander data (what more might we learn from sending additional probes or people to Mars?). And, as noted earlier, solar power satellites or helium-3 power sources could reduce carbon emissions.
Space hardware (spinoffs) have also made contributions to fuel efficiency and fuel cell development here on Earth.
Alternative Energy - See above.
Green Living & Design / Recycling - Learning to live within human-made limits on other worlds can help us learn how to reduce resource depletion here on Earth.
Biodiversity - Let's assume for a moment that we know particular species are on the verge of extinction. Using the Moon as a place to store DNA samples of Earth’s life forms makes sense. This is a space-based version of the "doomsday vault" they just built in Norway.
Pollution - Again, space-based alternative energies can reduce the amount of pollution caused by mining for and burning fossil fuels. Also, mining for metals on asteroids reduces strip mining and chemical contamination of water supplies here on Earth.

And that's essentially it, folks. We've got a lot of different target markets out there. Much as the nationalist in me wishes that "shared narratives" were still possible, I'm afraid our culture is becoming increasingly Balkanized and fragmented, and one-size-fits all marketing messages are a thing of the past. Perhaps the exploration, development, and settlement of space could become that unifying narrative! It's up to space advocates to at least try. The more people we can get on this bandwagon, the better.

I will add a few caveats, cautions, and warnings here because I think they warrant mention:

• Understand your audience’s viewpoint, but don’t pretend to be something your not (i.e. wear a high school jacket, dress like a rapper, use dialect)
• Don’t insult, pander, or condescend to your audience
• Don’t contradict yourself or your group’s message (e.g. espousing capitalism one week, communism the next)
• Don’t engage in class warfare (i.e. divide and rule)
• Don’t make promises you can’t keep
• Don’t lie

And here are some summary points that I'll throw in from my presentation:

• Space advocacy combines technical communication, politics, and marketing. Space advocates need to learn all three.
• Space advocates need to use audience analysis to meet the needs of their potential audiences.
• Different audiences require different messages.
• Space advocates need to start from existing needs and work up to space rather than attempt to start from an overarching message from above and work down.

The space advocacy community should still operate from some core principles, including freedom, tolerance, capitalism, religious plurality, and scientific progress. If we can't even agree on fundamental ideas (in the American community), then no amount of targeted marketing will help us. But in the meantime, let us begin to reach those new audiences. We have to start somewhere.

Marketing Space to Gen X

Okay, enough with all the fawning over Gen Y. I have no objection to "selling space" to the youths, mind you, but it's like Generation X (born 1963-1977, now aged 32 to 45) has been completely ignored, left behind, and given up on. We've got "the influence list":

• Space: Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Skylab, Shuttle when it was new, Challenger
• OPEC Oil Embargo/gas lines
• Watergate
• Fall of Vietnam
• The beginnings of terrorism: 1972 Olympic Massacre, the 1983 Marine barracks suicide bombing, TWA Flight 847, Achille Lauro hijacking, Iranian hostage crisis, Gulf War I
• “Stagflation”/Misery Index/recession
• The Cold War: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 1980 Olympic Boycott, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Cold War's end
• Reagan shot
• AIDS/HIV
• Movies: Star Wars, Star Trek, Ordinary People, The Godfather, Kramer vs. Kramer, The China Syndrome, and an endless series of horror and disaster films
• Other items: increase in divorces, “latch-key” kids (I was one), and working moms; disco, classic rock, and “hair bands”; micromarketing; “upscale” everything
• New arrivals: Environmental, feminist, homosexual, and multicultural movements, all-volunteer military service, video games, frequent flyer miles, personal computers, cell phones, the internet, women in combat

Anyhow, those are the big influencers. But how do you take these activities/events/influences and translate them into something positive? That's my job, I guess. Anyhow, Gen X has had more than a few hard knocks. The buoyant confidence that put Americans on the Moon two weeks before my birth was spent or lost in disillusionment. The '70s really sucked: the environment was bad, our society was bad, music was bad, fashions were depressingly bad (and have made a comeback now, with slightly better colors), our government officials were bad, crime was bad, our parents' marriages were bad, our international standing was bad. And later, AIDS made sex bad in a totally new way.

On the other hand, we also had the '80s, which featured the great political influence in our childhoods, Ronald Reagan. He introduced supply-side economics to the nation, reduced taxes, increased defense spending, and the heretical idea--after a decade of gloom--that America was a good place to be. Of course Reagan was also portrayed as a gun-toting cowboy by the media and the communist Gorbachev was portrayed as some sort of secular saint. And despite concerns that reduced taxes would hurt government revenue, the economy expanded, along with tax receipts. Our movies became a little more gung-ho as our all-volunteer servicemen (and women) gained renewed respect. Yuppies--Boomers who grew rich in the Reagan era--eventually gave way to dot-com millionaires (yes, us, but obviously not all of us).

I'd venture to say that this has made us mistrustful of idealistic, big-government solutions to anything. Note for example the flat, small, "lean and mean" organizations of the dot-com age. We're quite entrepreneurial and so not shy about working hard for a good wage if it's to be had. I'm not sure how many of my peers are only children, but those who are/were have a strong independent streak to them. So any "campaign" would need to show how space can empower the individual to do more, be better/stronger/faster, make more money, etc. I think Gen X individualism is a little different from Boomer or Millennial individualism in that Xers are more loner individualists rather than individuals-in-a-group. Mind you, we still had Scouting, Sunday School, little league baseball, and soccer. However, it's been my perception--and I could be wrong about this--that we haven't been big "joiners" of things like the Jaycees, Chamber of Commerce, Elks, Moose, or Masons, let alone actual churches.

So the trick here is to work on personalization--find ways for Gen X to access space-related materials/information in such a way that it would be part of their individual lifestyle. It's more of a scatter-shot approach, but it forces you to think creatively about how to place content. This is where I get my notion that if you want to get people interested in space, you need to start with the individual's interests first, and then work your way up to space. If the other person(s) don't give a fig about space, then you've lost them before you ever get to the "relevance" section of your spiel. But, again, that means taking time to "engage in dialogue," to use the current argot, and find out what the other person's interests are first. It's more work up front, and it circumvents the whole idea of a canned speech, but then that's the point. Canned speeches are inherently institutional and will quickly be mistrusted: "What's your angle?" is a likely response. Another is, "That's fine for your organization, what's in it for me (WIIFM)?"

And it's in the WIIFM world that Gen X is almost shameless. Appeals to country, cohort, or creed might work with some (serving and retired military, for instance), but any big-picture pitch is going to have to get to the WIIFM pretty damn quickly or the interest window will close. Even something as wacky as settling the solar system isn't that far out to us if we see that we can make a buck off of it. In the end, the WIIFM for us will boil down to money or an increase in personal options.

Of course we're not all loners or Ayn Rand-ish capitalists. We too wish to belong and to do good works, even if those works are on our terms. To overcome our hard-learned mistrust of organizations, managers need to demonstrate commitment to some sort of principle, even if the principle is making money. Consistency and "walking the talk" matter to us. Hypocrisy might be the biggest crime among Gen Xers. Say one thing, do another, and you've lost the respect of your Gen X employees. Overpromising is another variation of this problem. Don't bull$h!t us. Tell us honestly the whys of a particular activity along with its potential downsides, and we'll accept it more readily than if you try to oversell its upsides and minimize its downsides.

Okay, great. I've got my approach. Now I just need to find a way to apply it. Or better, a way for the Boomers above me to accept it. Interesting line of work I'm in.

Useful Travel Links and Marketing to Generation X

If you yourself have an interest in traveling to Europe, here are some fabulous links I've gotten from friends and family:

• http://www.avantidestinations.com/
• http://www.bovec.si/
• http://www.bxwinex.com/wine_day_trips.htm#stemilion
• http://www.europe.org/lowcostairlines.html
• http://www.kanpai-tourisme.com/Beaujolais-wine-tours-france.htm
• http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
• http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/index.php.
• http://www.railpass.com/
• http://www.ricksteves.com/
• http://www.royalcaribbean.com/gohome.do
• http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/
• http://www.tripadvisor.com/
• http://www.travlang.com/
• http://www.ustoa.com/personalityquiz.cfm

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I've also been giving some thought to marketing to my own generation, Gen X (born 1963-1977 or thereabouts). Gen Y is the hot topic for marketers, given their size and potential future influence. However, not nearly as much attention has been given to Gen X because we're smaller, even though we're soon to be taking over the reins of power and money. Here's a list of primary cultural influences I came up with off the top of my head:

• Space: Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Skylab, Shuttle when it was new
• OPEC Oil Embargo/gas lines
• Environmental movement born (“Earth Day,” energy conservation, 55 mph speed limit, etc.)
• Watergate
• Fall of Vietnam
• “Stagflation”/Misery Index
• Iranian hostage crisis
• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan/1980 Olympic Boycott
• Reagan shot
• Challenger
• Gulf War I
• Network TV shows: Norman Lear, M*A*S*H, Happy Days, Three’s Company, Cheers, Cosby, Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Cable TV: HBO, MTV, CNN
• Movies: Star Wars, Star Trek, Ordinary People, The Godfather, Kramer vs. Kramer, The China Syndrome, and an endless series of horror and disaster films
• Other items: increase in divorces, “latch-key” kids (I was one), and working moms; disco, classic rock, and “hair bands”; micromarketing; “upscale” everything

I invited friends and family members to suggest other trends or influences. Responses have ranged from the cogent (video games, personal computers, the 1972 Olympic Massacre, the Cold War and its end) to the silly (Dorothy Hamill haircuts). I look forward to others. These influences and mindsets need to be understood as clearly as Gen Y, since once the Boomers retire--if some of them ever do--the next generational clash will occur between those two groups.

My own personal take on the Gen X experience runs something like this. I believe my peers inherited the radical individualism of the '60s, but have overlaid do-your-own-thingism with a cynical mistrust of mass protests, radicalism, and government action. The golden age of hippiedom was essentially over by the time we were able to understand what was going on in the news. Our first awareness of government was probably Watergate, which was an example of executive malpractice. Our next examples of government action (or inaction, more to the point) were the energy shocks of the '70s, the joys of stagflation and the "misery index" of the last serious recession, and even the inability of the U.S. military to rescue 52 American hostages.

Divorce was on the rise, as was distrust of established institutions, ranging from the church to the Boy Scouts. Cops were on the take. Priests were manhandling young boys. Scout masters and teachers weren't doing much better. The environment, we were told, was going to hell and we would all be frozen from a new global ice age in 20 years. American competitiveness was starting to slip, our cars were no damn good, and our morals weren't much better. So institutional trust has been hard to come by.

As near as I can tell, most of my peers are "fiscally conservative, socially liberal." By this they generally mean that they don't think it's a bright idea for the federal government to be spending gobs of money on welfare programs that don't work, but they also don't want the government intruding on matters of personal behavior. This sort of thinking drives ideologues of the left and right insane, because that essentially makes a lot of us disaffected moderates or Libertarians. And if you look at the average Ron Paul rally, you'll see what I mean.

I think Gen X was much more capitalistic and money-focused in its college years than the Boomers, which at least claimed to be idealistic. (I'm thinking of Winona Ryder in Heathers telling her former-hippie teacher to "Get a life!")

There seems to be more of a "looking out for number one" attitude among us, with money seen as a means to an end. A lot of Gen Xers got sucked up into the Dot Com bubble, which wiped out a lot of fortunes (yet another example of insecurity and dashed hopes--you'd think some of us would've learned our lessons from the '70s). The Dot Com revolution also created a lot of computer engineers and not a lot of aerospace engineers. After all, we tend to follow the money. Aerospace was going south by the time we graduated, thanks to the end of the Cold War, with job cuts happening in large numbers. NASA, while a source of pride, was no longer a crucial part of American identity (thanks, again, to the end of the Cold War). And thanks to Challenger, we began to doubt governmental space efforts as well.

Gen Xers haven't all been disappointed or failures, by any stretch. Those who survived the Dot Bomb did so with style. Consider Elon Musk, for example, who formed and sold two or three different companies before founding his own space launch company. Another major supporter of privately funded space travel is Rick Tumlinson. While I'm not certain of his age, he has an Xer attitude about space development, particularly in his cutting remarks about and distrust toward government-run space ventures.

Another thing in Gen X's favor is the fact that we have endured the first birth pangs of the computer revolution. While we've had our share of disappointments (see above), we've also gotten used to constant change. In a sense, we were the first generation to live with the consequences of what the '60s hath wrought, for good and ill.

Old timers like me can already amuse, horrify, and bore our younger coworkers with stories of working with typewriters or Apple IIc computers in grade school or by talking about the relative merits of Pong, the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, TRS-80, or the original Nintendo entertainment system. We were the first to stake out claims and benefit financially from the Internet. However, we are almost dinosaurs in our attachment to print and stable forms of ownership, like physical books, CDs, records, tapes, and copyright laws. We are already fighting a serious battle between those who prefer virtual ownership and rights and those who expect to be paid for every piece of paper work. We are also the last generation of Cold Warriors, the last group to whom "commie" was a deadly serious and nasty epithet--at least to those of us who considered ourselves children of Reagan.

Today the most likely place you'll find an Xer is as a consultant or independent contributor. Rather than focus on front-line jobs, we tend to gravitate toward positions that allow us to demonstrate our strengths and sink or swim by our own efforts. We pride ourselves in being tech-savvy, but I know that I for one use computers as electronic versions of paper-based processes, like mail, documents, or contracts that could still change. I suspect that Gen X and Gen Y have very different ideas about the permanence of the written word. The "real" thing for me is the signed paper, not some electronic form. I can't speak for others on this issue, but I'd say I have an appreciation of how things were done before while still being tech-savvy enough to navigate a computer without freaking out. I don't worry that I'm going to crash the computer, I just want to know how a new toy works and whether it's useful or not.

I'm a laggard when it comes to embracing the latest toys, like the Internet or cell phones, but eventually I was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. For me, the constant presence of electronic gadgetry is an intrusion on my privacy, and my best revenge is to just turn the damn things off when I get home or if I want to be left alone. Other Xer and Boomer bosses I know live by their crackberries, and they're welcome to them. Given my pre-Boomer parents, I suppose I grew up with a profounder respect for privacy. That, too, might be going out the window with Gen Y, who bring their cell phones (with cameras) everywhere.

I couldn't say what the trend is for Xers, but I suspect we're not nearly as hep to all the gadgetry as our younger cousins. I would say this about Gen X workers: we take our personal performance very seriously. We appear to be less than patient when others drop the ball. And we're very task-driven. Give us a cool assignment, leave us alone to finish it, and then we'll come back for the next project.

A coworker pointed out that we are used to entertaining ourselves (again, a function of the single-parent household), and that also means "rugged individualism" runs rampant through our cultural DNA. I was accused by a manager a couple years ago of being rather "transaction-oriented" in my business relationships, which I've learned is also an Xer trait: we'll call you when we need you. In a corporate world where "team building" and "team playing" are the big buzzwords, Xers can look like the odd man/woman out. However, that's often why we end up as consultants--not part of the traditional management culture, able to come in, analyze and criticize what's wrong without the responsibility for implementing, and then move on to the next client/task. If there's still a "hired gun" left in the corporate world, that gun is probaby being fired by an Xer.

So what we're left with is an odd conglomeration of individuals. We can be broadly categorized as a group that hates categories. We don't always play well with others, but we'll work our asses off on individual projects if we can see the point or gain in it. We were also the first generation to get comfortable with the idea of career development and job hopping, a mindset Gen Y has in spades. I read somewhere that America breeds the most ineffectual 18-year-olds and the most competent 30-year-olds anywhere, and that's probably true. When I was graduating high school, we were being disparaged in the media as "mall rats" and "slackers." The depressing strains of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and related grunge made up the musical mindset after a decade of pop music that was performed by people with strange hair and whose output ranged from decent to deplorable. None of us learned to dance, or at least dance well, because everyone was told to just "do your own thing." And a lot of the music you couldn't dance to anyway, just play "air guitar" to--a phenomenon that has now turned into a video game. If one statement covers the Gen-X world view, "Do your own thing" would be it.

It'll be interesting to see how well we manage to get along with Gen Y, as opposed to the Boomers. We have a common interest in technology, but obviously a different relationship with it, as we struggled while they're used to things working well and at a high level. Gen Yers tend to be more group-oriented, more trusting of authority (but like us in their willingness to question it), and much more optimistic about the future. For instance, I recall with chagrin once trying to explain to a younger coworker what a "recession" was. The ruthless capitalist in me likes to think that Xers will have a decent future ahead of us, as there are so few of us, we'll have to be in demand--won't we? Not necessarily. The Gen Y kids are go-getters, and not shy about pushing for the next promotion. Still, when push comes to shove, is a Boomer CEO going to hand the reins over to a snarky but more experienced Xer or an inexperienced but team-player Millennial? I guess time will tell.