Generation Huh?

Just finished reading an essay in The Weekly Standard on Millennials, that wild, wacky, much larger generation after mine (GenX). The basic point of the article being that so-called scholarly articles making generalizations about generations are often a bunch of balderdash, poppycock, pick your standard term for bunk.

I guess I'd have to agree. Reporting from the anecdotal field of the real world, here are my own observations of Generation X:

• Most of my peers are or have been married at least once.
• Most of us have jobs.
• Many of us have kids or, if not kids, pets.
• We have a low tolerance for the foolishness imposed on us by Baby Boomer bosses.

Beyond that? Honestly, my observations become nearly useless because our friendships and work acquaintances are self-selecting. I've worked at Disney, which attracts one demographic. I've worked for the Department of Defense, which will bring in a slightly different demographic. I've worked for NASA and the aerospace community, which truly has a niche set of social attributes. In fact, the space community has been so monochromatic that I wrote a master's thesis on marketing approaches to bring in more women and minorities. Regardless, I have been drawn to and worked in environments that have very strong, very recognizable cultures. Disney is all about entertainment, perkiness, neatness, and guest-focused customer service. The military culture is predominantly male, top-down, honor-focused, and has a tendency to break things and kill people on behalf of our national defense. The space community is almost a mix of the two: very upbeat ("visionary"), top-down, and WASP male, with a few more hopeful women than the military and a lot fewer minorities.

I suppose it's instructive, then, to talk about Facebook and my 20th high school reunion, both of which provided me the opportunity to see how "normal people" in my generation have done. (Point of reference: I got a paper award for "Most Unusual Job" at the reunion.) My high school, situated in the Western Suburbs of Chicago, produced a lot of people with what my folks used to call "straight jobs": doctors, lawyers, contractors, nurses, teachers, what have you. As a writer for NASA (and now a freelance writer working for aerospace and non-aerospace clients), I do not quite fit that label.

In other ways, I'm right in line with the tastes of middle-class white males of my age and background: I watch the NFL; I listen to classic rock and pop music from my high school days; I drive a Honda sedan; I get annoyed by the foolishness of both major political parties (the left more than the right) and recently registered as "unaffiliated" in Florida as a mild protest. I'll probably vote libertarian in coming years.

The Generation X (born 1961-1975) peers I interact with most often are scientists, engineers, or technology-focused in some way. They're some of the best and brightest people I've ever met, and they give me hope that this nation can continue to do great things. While all high-achieving, very few of these folks to share common ideas about the future--they range from loud libertarians to confident conservatives to passionate progressives. The political battles we inherited from our parents will continue.

My peers who have become parents also have a wide range of beliefs and attitudes about the world; however, being parents, they have that common traditional streak that wants to see their children grow up well-behaved, mature, and capable of getting a job. Again, it might be a self-selecting reflection on my friends, but none of them has the attitude that their kids can't or shouldn't try to do better or that they should expect a check from the government to live.

Undoubtedly I'm not seeing the whole picture of "my generation." I heard a lot when I was in college for my B.A. and afterward about how expectations were being lowered for us because many of us graduated in the middle of the Gulf War recession. I heard similar things about the Millennials in 2002 when I got my M.A. and we were going through the second Gulf War recession. (Note to self--no more schooling: I keep graduating just after war-induced recessions.) The "low expectations" line is media BS. We work, we pay our bills, we'd like to have more money. How is that any different from the Baby Boomers? Who are the exemplars of Generation X--Elon Musk, President Obama, Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Bezos, Darlene Cavalier? Or are they Marilyn Manson, Timothy McVeigh, Len Bias, and Pink? (Okay, you have your lists, I have mine.) History will be the judge of our deeds.

In the end, about all you can say about a "generation" is that we had a similar set of world events happen around us and we all found ways (some better than others) of surviving them. The only advantage we have over previous generations is that we get to see a bit more of the future than they do. What we do with the knowledge and experience is, of course, up to us.

Book Review: When Generations Collide

This book is worth reading as an introduction to the problems of generational conflicts within the workplace. Written in 2002, it unfortunately misses some of the more interesting developments of the 2000s, such as the conversations that have been going on within NASA. The full title of this book is When Generations Collide: Who They Are. Why They Clash. How to Solve the Generational Puzzle at Work. It was written by Lynne C. Lancaster (a Boomer) and David Stillman (a Gen-Xer), who have formed a consulting business called BridgeWorks, which helps businesses cope with multiple generations in the workplace. The book and the company cover the typical Human Resources issues that can come up, including personality clashes, hiring, retention, departures, training, and benefits.

Aside from being informative (but very generalized...we're talking about groups of people, after all, not individuals), When Generations Collide is also entertaining, as it provides real-world examples from Lynne and David's work interactions (they couldn't stand each other when they first met). The book also provides examples from the workplace that really help the reader understand how differences in expectations up and down the generations can create tension or misunderstandings.

It might or might not surprise the reader to learn that the primary differences between the generations (Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and Traditionalists--a combination of the Silent Generation and Greatest Generation) concern questions of values. And here, I think, is where the book shines, because it demonstrates how those values express themselves across a variety of work situations, from communication style to giving feedback to defining "retirement." The authors also make the point that these clashes directly affect both turnover and the bottom line. With multiple generations likely to fill the workplace for years to come (the Boomers aren't going away silently...heck, my Silent Generation parents are all still working), this problem isn't going away any time soon.

One of my readers, Rolando, has written a couple of thoughtful emails in response to my postings, one of them on the generational issue. I believe When Generations Collide answers one of his questions:

I really would appreciate any advice you have on "what management wants to hear?" OR "How does management like to hear things?"

It is not so much the first question where the book can help as the second question. The point is not to tell you what to think or even how, but more about how you express yourself, whatever generation you are. Again, understanding that these are generalities (for instance, I behave and think a lot more like a Traditionalist or Boomer in some things, very much like the Xer in others), here are the guiding emphases for the four primary working generations:

• Traditionalists (born 1900-1945): "Build a legacy." The emphasis for this group is on long-term loyalty to the organization, doing a good job, and moving up the traditional ladder. Growing up in a mostly male or white-male-dominated military-style culture, they tend to just say, "Yes, sir," and go do the job, whatever it is, with a minimum of complaint, fuss, or talk.
• Baby Boomers (born 1946-1965): "Build a stellar career." With such a large generation competing for work, the Boomers are very competitive, with their elders and peers. Because of their sheer number of peers, emphasis on idealism (they were taught that they could do anything), and their willingness to challenge authority, the Boomers were able to change some aspects of the stoic Traditionalists's organizations. They tend to be very protocol-oriented and status-conscious since they had to "play the game" and compete to get ahead.
• Generation X (born 1966-1980): "Build a portable career." Growing up in a period when many institutions were under assault, changing, or falling apart (example: the divorce rate tripled during this period, with my own family being one of the casualties), Xers do not have a great deal of faith in institutions as a whole. As a result, Xers tend to build up a set of transferrable skills so that they can be "safe," regardless of where they end up. In the workplace, they are often "looking out for number one," but are willing to join teams if said teams offer a minimum of time wasting. They are almost natural-born consultants and are uncomfortable in positions of leadership.
• Generation Y/Millennials (born 1980-2000): "Build parallel careers." For the most part, this generation has grown up in a period of plenty under the tutelage of affluent Baby Boomer parents. This affluence and Boomer influence means that Millennials have been ingrained with the notion of a multi-faceted, "well-rounded" resume. Over-programmed at times, Millennials grew up with not just academics, but also sports, group memberships, dance, and travel experiences. Raised in more democratic households, Millennials often had a voice in family decisions, so they are used to giving feedback to adults, receiving feedback, and being listened to. In the workplace, this translates into a very short or nonexistent period of wanting to give input into the running of businesses ("dues paying" grates on them), but they also tend to be more loyal than Gen-Xers if they are provided with work that offers many different types of tasks and that is meaningful to them.

If you found yourself nodding in agreement to any or all of these, you have some idea of what sorts of challenges are ahead for America's working generations. Again, I recommend this book as an introduction to the generational puzzle and as a starting point for thinking about communication styles. There are interesting times ahead, and education needs to happen at all levels for improvements to be made.

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

Again, some great comments from my readers: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3124283&postID=2398902107051507476. My responses are below.

Madi:

I particularly liked this:

I personally don't take major issue with our hierarchical structure and believe that it's essential in being an effective organization, especially given our size. I believe the question should actually be: "How do you transform the organization, into one where employees can openly contribute, in all facets of organizational operations?"

And this...

As an organization, we have leaders who have a vast amount of experience combined and are in positions to make decisions based on their knowledge and those very experiences

We do indeed have many, many smart people within NASA--our Gray Eminences who built Apollo and Shuttle; the next generation of managers, who are leading the current projects like Constellation, Ares, Orion, LRO, Kepler, etc.; and the new generation, who is gung-ho to bring in the dot-com ethos and a lot of new toys to the table to make things move more quickly. All of these experience bases need to be integrated in an environment of continued budget wariness, economic uncertainty, and increased activity in the private sector, which is understandably trying to recruit the best-and-brightest, wherever they can find them.

I also liked Tim's idea for a "NASA 101" class. Disney had something similar--a couple somethings, actually:

• "Disney Traditions," which is a basic indoctrination into the Disney culture and is, I believe, required of all cast members at Walt Disney World.
• "Disney University," where managers and salaried employees (independent contributors) learn the basics about budgets, HR compliance, marketing, etc. After 16 classes, I got a certificate of some kind that indicated I'd taken the relevant courses.

I also liked this from Tim:

The other important factor is to have managers trained in effectively evaluating advice from less-experienced employees. Clear expectations and a defined process for evaluating (and enacting!) new ideas are critical to empowering the employees. The whole system of training, evaluation, and feedback must be in place to support systemic changes in the organization.

Not sure what that would look like, but if I'm reading it correctly, it's an opportunity for every new employee to act and think like a consultant and for management to exchange ideas.

I did download and read the "Next 20 Years" article Nick recommended. It is useful reading, and nearly worth the $6.95 I paid for it. There are obviously other forces at work on NASA than just generations being born, making their impact, and retiring.

• We have the current recession, which might cause some folks to hold off on retirement
• An ongoing war overseas, which has increased concerns about the security of our cutting-edge technologies and reduced the number of tech-savvy foreign nationals who come here to stay
• A decline in the number of students studying STEM disciplines, which is constraining the "pipeline" for qualified scientists, engineers, etc.

It is, indeed, an exciting time to be in the space business, but that excitement is both positive and negative. There is great promise but also great uncertainty, and the challenges at hand are many-faceted. I've heard concerns that if NASA starts reviewing its overall mission or function, there is the likelihood that programs could be cut. This overlooks the potential that the discussions might improve the public's reception of the space program and might result in an increase the budget to do all the things currently on the agency's plate and more.

So, in addition to Madi's rephrasing of my previous question...

How do you transform the organization, into one where employees can openly contribute, in all facets of organizational operations?

We might also ask:

Assuming the agency makes this transformation, what should NASA do? This is a question for the agency and its employees, but also the taxpayers and our elected leadership.

Lots to do: where to start?

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

Following Up On Gen Y and NASA

Yesterday's posting on the latest "Gen Y presentation" produced some great, thought-provoking comments. Nick's response deserves to be quoted and responded to, so I'll do that below and try to comment where I think appropriate.

Re: “bigger challenges

”If you have any insight into what those “bigger challenges” are, I’d love to hear them. We’re actually going through a process of sorts right now to identify them and I’d really like to get you involved in those discussions.

Another reader comment from "1963" actually anticipated some of my thoughts:

Perhaps I'm just another grumpy old man, but sometimes these Gen-Y inputs sound like folks who demand to be respected before they have paid any dues that can be respected. While it takes smarts to come up with a good idea, it takes wisdom to know how to get it implemented in a large, political bureaucracy. And while we can complain and wish that NASA wasn't a large, political bureaucracy - the reality is what it is, and the odds of it changing are low. But does that mean we give up? Or does that mean we use our smarts to work the politics in our favor?

Here's what work comes down to for me: performance, process, politics, and people.

• Performance boils down to the content: do you know your stuff? Are you conversant enough with the actual work being performed? Depending on the complexity of your job, mastery of it could take anywhere from one hour to one month to one year to a lifetime. I look at this shakedown part of a job as ending when I know enough to understand the tasks and boundaries expected of the content. No one respects "the new guy" until s/he has been around long enough to know the business and make positive contributions. In some jobs, the new-guy perspective is wanted/valued/respected up front (consultants come to mind), while in others a "new guy" might be anyone with less than 10 years of experience. I've heard of such organizations, and the only way to win them over is to get down enough of the language to let the others know you can speak it.
• Processes are the things one must do to function in the organization: do you know where to get office supplies? Do you know how to get information from one group or another? Do you know which forms must be used to accomplish tasks?
• Politics are pretty straightforward as well: what are the organizational and power relationships within a particular work group? Woe to the newbie who starts talking about their politics or telling jokes in the first week without a complete understanding of the local norms. Office politics also define the boundaries of how you advance your own agenda (once you understand the content and the processes).
• People are who you have to work with, day in and day out. Do you understand what drives your coworkers? Do you know who knows what you need to know? Knowledge of individual motivations can be different from political knowledge. You might find someone who plays a very smooth political game, but once you get to know them one on one, you might find that they hate the game but play it out of sheer self-defense. This doesn't mean being best-buddies with everyone in the office, but it does mean having more than a vague realization of the other personalities in the room.

The point of all these basic definitions is that you need a knowledge of all of them to be truly effective in any workplace. And, as I was a pain-in-the-neck twentysomething 15-odd years ago, I can tell you that I learned most of these lessons the hard way by trying to do or fix things MY way first without bothering to learn the way things worked around me. I get the whole youthful enthusiasm thing and the desire to change the world and fix things that are obviously broken right now. However (again, after butting heads with more than a few managers in the hospitality and defense industries), I eventually had to learn to slow down, find out why things operated the way they did, and then figure out the most effective way to use the system as it is to move things in a more positive direction.

Admittedly, this is my personal approach, and might not work with everyone. However, I sometimes sense that youthful impatience in the presentations OpenNASA produces, and I've talked to enough people (like 1963) to know that Gen Y's desire to come in and fix/change things without "learning the system" or "paying their dues" can grate. Obviously, the world is changing and Gen X and the Boomers aren't getting any younger. But the Xers and the Boomers have been with the organization a bit longer, and so have a better handle on what's going on, how to get things done, and what to expect of this or that decision/idea. And there's also seniority to consider. Some people are not eager to be shown the door to make room for someone half their age, especially in the middle of a recession. I'm not saying that's what you're saying, but that's how some people perceive the presentations.

One thing I've noted especially among the young is a distinct impatience with "war stories," those long rambles that can come out of the mouth of older folks (you know--anyone over 30) about some event way back in the Dark Ages (like, the 1990s). Eyes roll, sighs blow forth, and the youth crosses their arms, hoping the lecture or story will end soon. But those stories are a great deal of how human beings and institutions carry on institutional knowledge. I've heard folks talk until they're blue in the face about "knowledge management systems" and "collecting lessons learned," but the fact remains that if someone's got a question about a particular type of problem, they're more likely to march down the hall, collar an old-timer ("graybeard" being the un-PC term) and ask, "Hey, how did you solve X on Shuttle/Apollo?"

I don't think the impatience problem is a particularly Gen Y problem. Like I said, I had it myself. It's just something to think about. It's not all about the new toys/technologies. Sometimes it's about the stories and the relationships you build. One thing I'd like to see NASA try is a pairing-up of graybeard mentors with rookie engineers/scientists as a living means of knowledge transfer.

Re: “brain heavy”

That’s an interesting point. I made this presentation in particular with the Digital Astronaut (DA) project in mind – which, is brain heavy. Academics, scientists, doctors, and all that stuff. I’ll give some more thought to your observation but one thought I have on this subject is even the folks “bending metal, installing wiring, turning wrenches, and welding structures” have ideas they’d love to share. In fact, those ideas are some of the most valuable ones you can get because they are the ones who are “doing it.”

Good point. My "four P's" above would apply to this group as well.

I think there’s a pretty big misconception behind the “Gen Y” label and how it’s been spun that’s its all about the technology and fancy web 2.0 gadgets. That’s not how I see it for sure, and as a project manager, my goal with DA is going to be able to figure out how to utilize the functionality of collaborative technology without creating barriers for people to contribute. It’s a starting point, not an ending point, and something I know will take quite a bit of continuous iteration to get right. That will probably mean not using all the bells and whistles on whatever website we put up. It will also mean augmenting whatever we do with other ways of interaction. I definitely get that and it’s a big part of our plan. I’ll try to do a better job of spelling that out next time – heck, maybe that’s a whole other presentation in itself. Hmm….

Okay, that makes sense. But, again, some people might not be comfortable with your new digital environment. I experienced one of my first neo-Luddite moments this week when I learned that I've got to transition from Office 2003 to 2007, which has a completely different interface for Microsoft Word. Okay, go ahead and laugh, but I've been using the same interface professionally, with moderate changes over the years, since 1996. That's 13 years of using the same program, but by golly, I know the system I've got, and can play it like a Stradivarius. Now I've got to readjust all of my usual keyboard and mouse rhythms. My productivity will drop for a few weeks (or months) as I spend time deciphering the new menus, taking classes to learn a whole new set of shortcuts, and in general grousing about the evils of Bill Gates and his merry band of outlaw programmers. All I'd ask is that you consider the user habits of other (older) audiences.

Re: Contributions

You talked about how these tools will enable people to make fundamentally better contributions than they might make f2f. That’s something that I flush out more verbally in the talk itself, and hopefully I’ll find some time to write those notes up into a post on opennasa.com sometime soon, but essentially… yes. Again, I’ll go back to the DA project. Even the team I work with is spread out across the country. I wish we werent’ because we all much prefer F2F meetings. Part of what we are building will be built out of necessity for us to collaborate on our own project! I think that’s great and will really
help drive out the requirements, which will help us clearly articulate exactly what contributions we are looking for. We hope to have this flushed out when we launch a few months from now. But one of the major goals of the DA is to gather input from scientists, coders, doctors, students, academics, and people from all over the place. The contributions themselves can be in a few different buckets, including improving the actual code structure of the model, adding to the knowledge base behind the model, and building on the “hypothesis” of the model to run experiments and simulations and ultimately help us develop countermeasures and buy down the risk of sending humans on long duration space flights. Our eventual website will have the audiences clearly defined as well as what contributions we’re looking for. It will no doubt be a big challenge, but also one that would be immensely valuable if we can accomplish it because it won’t be just NASA funded scientists and engineers looking at the problem any more, but others as well. I’m convinced that broadening our scope of input will
help provide better solutions in the end.

Re: Global Marketplace

I think DA is a good example of what this can look like for NASA. Not everything can be out their for external collaboration for the reasons you highlighted. But there is a portion of what we do that can. If we open up the items in our work portfolio that can be collaborated on publicly, it would help us leverage our already overworked internal resources. The DA is about human physiology and science. There’s a huge reliance on knowledge from the medical profession, which is an opportune thing to open up to an outside community of collaborators.

Re: moving forward

If you’ve been following the discussion as Bart and I have, you hear a lot of feedback given that we need concrete examples of what this looks like at NASA (versus just talking about it). Although I do think there is a lot of education and awareness that also needs to be done (hence the presentations), I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, its not as easy as just being able to implement some of this stuff for the average joe at NASA for a host of reasons. Luckily, I’m in a place now that I really have an opportunity (and authority) to share a knowledge asset (the computational model that is DA) with the world and work with others on further developing the body of knowledge and digital
analogue for all to use. My hope is that not only will NASA benefit, but that people around the world will benefit by using DA as an “innovation incubator” of sorts. I see the government’s role as one of an integrator of knowledge and a facilitator of collaboration – ultimately providing the right ingredients to enable innovation and keep pushing science and exploration forward. The idea of a lone genius, sitting in his office cubicle, coming up with “the great idea” is mysterious and romantic, but maybe a bit unrealistic. True innovation happens when you have knowledge brokers taking even old tried ideas, and applying them in new ways. I’m hoping the DA helps make that happen.

When it comes to making better contributions, the primary arguments I've read--on NASAWatch and elsewhere--focus on "Showing me the money." We need high-power, high-efficiency, high-capability, low-weight spacecraft and launch vehicles. How will DA or other collaborative enviroments bring about those results? Back up those answers with data, and your agenda will move forward swiftly.

I look forward to viewing DA in more detail. Again, I would like to throw in a recommendation or two from a technical writer's point of view.

• Who is your audience? I'm guessing web-minded people, yes? Well, that will probably mean a younger audience, meaning you might lose an older audience. You need to consider alternate delivery methods for those of us addicted to hard copies. Booklets, handouts, white papers, and other more traditional media, while passé in some quarters, are still traditional and acceptable media for conveying messages within NASA.
• Also, what do you want your audience to do or how do you want them to react after using the information on DA? This means designing your application, interface, and outputs with particular needs in mind.
• How much data does your audience need to accomplish what they will want from the product?

Anyway, this was a really long response, but as you can probably tell, one that I’m passionate about. I’d love to talk to anyone who has any thoughts, in particular about how to create an online, open-source, computational model of human physiology (digital astronaut).

My response was pretty long, too. If you made it this far, congratulations. Thanks for continuing to prompt and provoke debate, Nick. There are things to be done on all sides of the debate, including mine.

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.

OmegaCon - Lessons Learned

I have to give OmegaCon two ratings, one for my personal experience and one for my professional experience. I did, after all, attend with ulterior motives: I was looking for ways to reach SF fans in such a way that they'd become more interested/involved in space advocacy, which is different from fandom. Personally, I had fun. But then I don't mind talking SF with like-minded fans or dressing up like a damn fool as a means of joining the fun. Professionally, I have a lot of thinking to do. A comment from Ben Bova, who is both an eminent SF writer and space advocate, gave me pause. I explained my mission, more or less, saying, "There are more SF fans than space advocates. How do we get all these folks to be advocates?" He smiled and said, "I have no idea. I've been trying for 50 years. If you figure it out, let me know." How scary is that?

I wasn't nearly as pushy at this conference as I could have been. I'm probably more comfortable dealing with people my age or older, and maybe half the con was under 30, and as a lady in the elevator said, they were more interested in costuming and playing video games. I did talk to a couple of Xers and listen to a lot of people in and out of my panel sessions, and here are the "magic words" I heard in passing:

• "It needs to be fun."
• "NASA is too stodgy."
• "A lot of people are more interested in the commercial aspect, even if it's from the self-interest angle. They're imagining themselves going up into space. You can't do that with NASA."
• There was a lot of concern in the Moon, Mars, and Beyond track about the progress the Chinese were making and what, if anything, NASA was doing about it. (Answer, given the current administration's budget and priorities: zip.)
• One gentleman was upset that there were no official Ares I or Ares V model rockets available. This same person felt the commercial space thing was "dangerous," as it could lead to a de-scoping of NASA if proven successful.
• A couple of SF editors and writers expressed the opinion that commercial industry was better equipped to handle space transportation issues. I noted that those expressing such opinions were Xers like me. There is a strong libertarian streak in a lot of hard SF (begun by Heinlein), which probably feeds the libertarian ethos in some aspects of the space advocacy community today.
• Nanotechnology was of much greater interest than the space program. What, if anything, is NASA doing with nanotechnology? Ah, the glories of Google. Ames Research Center is working on this stuff. Is there any way to incorporate nanotech into Constellation?
• There were a couple of rooms full of kids playing video games. NASA is taking steps in this direction, but one hopes that those steps will be taken in the company of people who have actually played video games.
• The discussions I had with the English professors was interesting, as one of them suggested that their students, despite getting a lot of PC miseducation, might still get behind space exploration if it was doing things that were relevant to them now, like global warming or energy production. Is Constellation set up to do that? No, not necessarily...

These answers shouldn't really come as a surprise. If SF fans are into exciting adventures that either offer hope for the future or expand their horizons, surely the space program can offer them both, right? Um...well, maybe. I mean, I think going to the Moon, Mars, and beyond is cool, but if you want to sell space to the more hard-headed pragmatists out there, even the SF fans are going to want to know that the space program is about more than just keeping the existing infrastructure employed.

The challenge, of course, is that NASA has such a limited range of control over its destiny. On the one hand, advocates are saying, "If you guys do something cool, we'll support you." Meanwhile, the reality is that NASA can only do something cool if the general public persuades the nation's elected officials that they want to see them done. Thus the chicken and the egg face off once again.

*

From a freelance writer point of view, I picked up some useful information in the event I ever find the time/inclination to write SF professionally. Some choice bits of intel include:

• "If you have a manuscript [novel], expect that someone will hold onto it for two years."
• "No simultaneous submissions."
• "Writers must know the business end of writing."
• "About half my money goes toward taxes." --David Drake
• "Set up a post office box to force yourself out of the house." --Drake (again)
• "I've written more books under pseudonyms than under my real name." --Mike Resnick
• Most of the best paying professional magazines are now online.
• SF is now taking over all forms of entertainment and is becoming part of the mainstream.
• "Knowing what to steal is a lot of this business."
• "The greatest threat to writers isn't piracy, it's obscurity." --Cory Doctorow (quoted, he wasn't at the con)
• "Don't write according to trends. By the time it's a trend, it's already dead."
• Gen Xers seem to have taken over the editorial chores in the SF world.
• Listening to the science professionals talk in the Hard Science track made me realize why I'm an English major. Some of that stuff just zoomed over my head.
• Cover art matters a great deal in the ability to sell a book. The writer often has little to no control over the cover art.
• There are more than 2,000 new books every year in the fantasy and science fiction genre.
• Books generally remain on the shelves 30-60 days.
• Borders distributes books based on national sales numbers. What this means in practical terms is that they will buy the same number of a particular author's works for every location despite local or regional increases or decreases in interest.
• "If you're going to get rejected, it'll happen immediately." --Eric Flint
• Publisher consider a hardcover book doing well if it sells 70% of its print run; 55% for paperbacks.
• Entry into the fiction world is determined by writing quality; entry to the non-fiction writing world is based more on credentials.
• When dealing with agents, don't pay reading fees. "Money should flow to the writer."
• Editors see agents as "bastions holding back the slush pile."
• "Most of the bestselling authors at Baen came from the slush pile.
• Editor Lou Anders on deadlines: "I have fake deadline one and fake deadline two."
• American authors earn more from American customers buying books from American publishers than from American customers buying editions of their books from overseas.
• There are mixed opinions about self-publishing. Aside from one writer, most of those who have sold through large or small presses believe that self-publishing works against you.
• Agents are valuable because they know the market and have the contacts necessary to get stories into the hands of the right editors.
• "Make sure you understand your temperament and get along with your agent."
• It's okay to check back with an editor after a six-month gap if your manucript hasn't been rejected right away. If a story hasn't been rejected right away, it goes into a "guilt pile." Those are the stories that are good enough to survive the first cut ("Editors are looking for ways to eliminate you up front"), but not urgent enough to be read right away.
• The top performers (Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, etc.) get the most attention because they bring in most of the money. First-time authors are an unknown quantity, so the system is not set up to support them until they become a known quantity.
• Conventions are a good opportunity to meet fans and sell a few books, but they are not a cost-effective way of selling a lot of books.
• "Opinions are like assholes: everybody's got one." Publishing industry corollary: "Editors are assholes, but everybody wants one."

Book/Story/Reference/Web Site Recommendations

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Murray Leinster, A Logic Named Joe
David Louis Edelman, Infoquake
Dean Koontz, Lightning
David Walton, Terminal Mind
Joy Ward, Haint
Baen Free Library
Jodee Blanco, The Complete Guide to Book Publicity
Miss Snark
L. Sprague DeCamp, The Incomplete Enchanter
Travis Taylor, Warp Speed, One Day on Mars, Von Neumann's War, and Quantum Connection
A.E. van Vogt, World of Null-A
Fred Hoyle, October the First is Too Late
Hal Duncan, Vellum: The Book of All Hours, Ink: The Book of All Hours
SFWA.org
Steven Erickson, The Malazan Book of the Fallen

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 Baby Boomers

I’ve put this off long enough, but it needs to be said: we still need to market space exploration, development, and settlement to Baby Boomers (born ~1948-1963, now aged 45 to 60). Why? The answers are simple: they’re still a large chunk of the workforce—the vast majority of the aerospace workforce—they haven’t all retired yet, and they still have most of the money. As they do retire in earnest, they will turn into—if they have not already—crotchety, older versions of themselves, suffering from what Alec Guinness called the “vices of old men”: mistrust and caution. They will have their health care and Social Security checks to consider, and will not want anything interfering with federal spending on them—including NASA. It’s no surprise that AARP is now one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, spending in the tens of millions every year.

We have one primary advantage with keeping space “sold” to the Boomer generation: they are also NASA’s primary supporters because they grew up with and helped launch Apollo. If you want to know what cultural events the Boomers experienced, a viewing of the movie Forrest Gump or American Graffiti will do nicely: Sputnik, racial integration in the South, the Bay of Pigs Invasion and Cuban Missile Crisis, the “space race,” the erecting of the Berlin Wall, the assassination of JFK and later his brother RFK, the marches and assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vietnam, the “Summer of Love,” rock ‘n’ roll, the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Woodstock, and the various movements that would impact Generation X into the ‘70s and ‘80s.

The Boomers were children of America’s post-World War II prosperity, as the Greatest Generation came home and set to building a peaceful, more prosperous nation than they had known during the Great Depression. The nation itself, while not exactly at peace, was not exactly at war, either. There was the Cold War, which threatened utter annihilation via nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and there were police actions in various places to contain communism, Vietnam being the largest of such conflicts. As the World War II generation set to remaking the world, their children, made comfortable by that world, had the time and leisure to change things. They were encouraged to speak their minds and were the first generation of “teenagers” that companies marketed products to explicitly. Unlike Generation X, who was told they would be the “first generation in America to do worse than their parents,” Boomers were told they could do anything. And in a nation that sent men to the Moon, such conceits were reasonable.

The problem with Boomers, if I may say so from my Generation X blogger’s soapbox, is that they set to remaking everything in their own image, from music to culture to the media to relations between the sexes to clothing, and not all of it was for the better. However, they were a large cohort, and so they had power. Jim Morrison, who was actually a pre-Boomer (born 1943), got the anthem just right: “We want the world and we want it now!” As in the French Revolution of 1789, everything was up for grabs, and subject to question or destruction if it didn’t please the masses. Down with marriage! Down with the church! Down with The Man! Down with the military! Down with bourgeois morality! The problem with throwing all those things out, as the French learned, was that the things that replaced them could be much, much worse.

But I’m getting off my track here, as I feared I would. The question before us is, “How do we keep the Boomers supporting space?” Again, the fact that they grew up with Apollo should count for something. We need to ask them if they want their Gen X and Millennial children and grandchildren to feel the same excitement that they did. Isn’t that worth something? Do they want their kids and grandkids to have the same opportunities that they did? Aren’t space exploration and development exemplars of unlimited opportunity?

Another angle: again appealing to Boomer self-interest, what about space-based medical research and spinoffs? Weightlessness results in weakened immune systems and loss of muscle and bone tissue, which are also problems affecting the elderly. Might space not provide an opportunity to keep Boomers younger longer?

Angle #3, the one Mike Griffin has been using now and then: We are in another space race, though a slower one, with the Chinese, Europeans, Russians, and eventually the Indians and Japanese. Do we really want to get that far behind again before we decide to catch up? Apparently so.

Angle #4: Emphasize the environmental benefits of space development. This can take multiple forms, from Earth observation satellites to space-based power sources (space solar power or helium-3 fusion). Along with this argument one can throw in the mining of asteroids and the Moon for metals and minerals that are becoming harder and more expensive to find. And mining itself is a dirty process, with ground water contamination often an unhealthy side-effect. Take those activities into space and import power from space. High-density energy sources from space allow for clean energy that does not require us to cut back our high-powered lifestyles.

Angle #5: Retiring Boomer scientists and engineers can have late careers as teachers, trainers, or mentors for the next generation. These retirement careers can supplant income lost from full-time jobs and enable Boomers to pass on their knowledge.

Angle #6: New vacation/retirement opportunities. Suborbital space tourism is already generating enough buzz to keep people’s eyes fixed on Mojave, California and other godforsaken spots as the next phase of cutting-age adventures. Imagine what orbital or lunar tourism will do. And what if we finally manage to build large-scale settlements at L4/L5 or on the Moon? Wouldn’t lower gravity be a benefit to any senior? (Of course they’ll have to be healthy enough to survive the lift to orbit first…)

Angle #7: Investment opportunities. The Boomers might be big fans of the welfare state, but they're also the same "Me Generation" that enjoyed the big gains of the '80s. "Greed is good," or so Gordon Gecko claimed. And like any good group of Americans, they're not above making a few extra bucks if they think a space venture is a good investment.

Angle #8: Space could provide some unique opportunities for estate and funeral planning. Consider the money being made on sending one’s ashes into space. And what about tax-free annuities that fund your grandkids’ settlement of the Moon or Mars? It’s a break for the Boomer, and if the kids decide they don’t want to live in space, they take the tax hit, not Mom and Dad.

These are just some thoughts I threw together for an ISDC presentation. No doubt there are others. The point being: we need to keep the Boomers interested and engaged in space activities before they decide that medical expenses and cash handouts are more important to them than the frontier that might make America rich enough to pay for them.

Now let’s see what sort of ruckus this will cause.