Gen Y makes a mark - Brigham Young University–Idaho
Gen Y makes a mark | |
|Their imprint is entrepreneurship |
|[FINAL Edition] |
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|USA TODAY - McLean, Va. |
|Author: |Sharon Jayson |
|Date: |Dec 7, 2006 |
|Start Page: |D.1 |
|Section: |LIFE |
|Text Word Count: |1642 |
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| Document Text |
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|(Copyright (c) 2006 USA Today. All Rights Reserved.) |
|They've got the smarts and the confidence to get a job, but increasing numbers of the millennial generation -- those in their mid-20s |
|and younger -- are deciding corporate America just doesn't fit their needs. |
|So armed with a hefty dose of optimism, moxie and self-esteem, they are becoming entrepreneurs. |
|"People are realizing they don't have to go to work in suits and ties and don't have to talk about budgets every day," says Ben |
|Kaufman, 20, founder of a company that makes iPod accessories. "They can have a job they like. They can create a job for themselves." |
|Kaufman, of Melville, N.Y., named his company Mophie for his golden retrievers, Molly and Sophie. It earned a best-of-show award at |
|the 2006 Macworld Expo in San Francisco. |
|He started out with financial help from his parents, but he now has more than $1.5 million in venture capital. His line of cases, |
|armbands and belt clips is produced in China, which he visits several times a year, between classes at Champlain College in |
|Burlington, Vt., where he's a sophomore majoring in business. |
|It's no surprise that Kaufman focused first on the iPod. His generation demands customized music, and now they are trying to do the |
|same with their lives. |
|"They want to create a custom life and create the kind of career that fits around the kind of life they want," says Bruce Tulgan, the |
|founder of RainmakerThinking, a management training firm in New Haven, Conn., and an author specializing in generational diversity in |
|the workplace. |
|Experts say these children of the baby-boom generation, also known as Gen Y or echo boomers, are taking to heart a desire for the kind|
|of work-life balance their parents didn't have. They see being their own boss as a way to resolve the conflict. So now they're |
|pressing ahead with new products or services or finding a new twist on old-style careers. They're at the leading edge of a trend |
|toward entrepreneurship that has bubbled for decades and now, thanks in large part to technology, is starting to surge. |
|"It is a fun-loving generation," says Ellen Kossek, a Michigan State University professor in East Lansing who has spent 18 years |
|researching workplace flexibility. |
|"They view work as part of life, but they don't live to work the way we were socialized as boomers. There is a real mismatch between |
|what the young generation wants and what employers are offering." |
|Kossek says work-life issues are among the top three concerns among young graduates. But these young entrepreneurs aren't always |
|thinking long-term about running their own shop. |
|"Employers aren't offering what they want, so the young say they'll be their own boss and start their own business." |
|But "what they find out is that it's not a way to get a work- life balance. When you have your own business, you're working long |
|hours, because if you don't work, money doesn't come in." |
|Maybe because this is an optimistic bunch or perhaps because they haven't planned their lives further than the weekend, they don't |
|seem too worried about work. But because they are young and so new to the workforce, much of what is known about them is anecdotal |
|with little existing data about their work habits. |
|Those who have studied generations in the workplace, such as author David Stillman of Minneapolis, do have some insights. Stillman, |
|who co-wrote the 2002 book When Generations Collide, says these young workers have very different ideas from those of earlier |
|generations. |
|"This generation has the group-think mentality," he says. "When you are raised to collaborate at home, then you are taught how to do |
|that in middle school and practice it in college, you show up at work saying 'Where's my team?' They're just comfortable working with |
|peers." |
|Many go into business with friends. |
|Maren Seibold, 25, is an environmental consultant for a Seattle area company; she teamed up last year with her 26-year-old tattoo |
|artist husband, Mark Bentley, and a friend who does body piercing, Anthony Mason, 24, to launch Mantis Machines, which sells a |
|redesigned version of the instrument that professional tattooists use. |
|Seibold, who has a degree in chemical engineering, tinkered with the tool to maximize its versatility and use a greater variety of |
|needles. Mason's father owns a tool company and provided the materials. A $10,000 loan helped them get started. "It was something we |
|all wanted to do," Seibold says. |
|Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2005 show that some 370,000 young people ages 16-24 were self-employed, the occupational category |
|that includes entrepreneurs. In 1975, when baby boomers were young, some 351,000 were in that category. While that growth over 30 |
|years isn't striking, indicators suggest more change ahead. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the self-employed category will |
|grow 5% from 2004 to 2014, compared with 2% growth for the decade that began in 1994. |
|Such growth is largely a result of the Internet, where snazzy websites don't betray a home-based operation. Entrepreneurs can be more |
|professional with less need for capital or office space. Global communication is easy and immediate. Businesses can outsource products|
|and services and get a toll-free telephone number for nationwide access. Taking a risk isn't quite the financial leap of faith it once|
|was. |
|"There's such a frontier for possible business ideas," says Scott Neuberger, 25, CEO of Boston-based Collegeboxes. "The barrier to |
|entry is very low and doesn't require a lot of money in a lot of cases. I think there's more of an entrepreneurial spirit in our |
|generation than perhaps in other generations. Being an entrepreneur has become cool and sexy." |
|In 2004, Neuberger bought Collegeboxes, competitor of a business he started at Washington University in St. Louis to help students |
|relocate. It now operates in 18 states, offering door-to-door pickup and delivery, shipping and storage services, and appliance |
|rentals. |
|College students also are the focus of Arel Moodie's business, The Placefinder, which helps students find off-campus housing, |
|roommates and sublets at his alma mater, Binghamton University, in upstate New York. Moodie, of Johnson City, N.Y., plans to expand |
|further into the state and to New Jersey. |
|Getting started required taking a risk. "We were scared out of our minds," Moodie, 23, says. "We realized we're young, and we may not |
|know everything we need to know, but what do we have to lose? If the business doesn't work, we'll totally get jobs like everybody |
|else." |
|The self-employed are considerably more satisfied with their jobs than are other workers, according to a Pew Research Center poll of |
|2,003 Americans ages 18 and over released in August. They're more satisfied with their salaries, the job security, chances for |
|promotion, level of on-the-job stress, flexibility of hours and proximity of work and home, the poll found. |
|"You've got a generation that has clearly seen the corporate culture not be loyal to their employees," says David Finney, president of|
|Champlain College, which this fall launched a new program to lure enterprising undergraduates already in business for themselves. |
|"This generation understands that the burden of taking care of themselves rests with them and not some company." |
|Although being an entrepreneur doesn't require a college degree, increasing numbers of campuses are offering courses to inspire those |
|with business acumen. The Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship, keeps a tally of |
|courses related to entrepreneurship at two-year and four-year colleges and universities. Newly compiled data show that 80% of the |
|2,662 campuses in the report offer at least one such course. |
|Last month, Grand Canyon University, a private, Christian university in Phoenix, announced a new College of Entrepreneurship that, |
|starting in January, will provide students with seed money from a venture capital fund vested with $4.5 million to help launch |
|projects. |
|Ian Schumann, 21, started his ultralight backpacking gear company this fall during his senior year at the University of Texas-Austin. |
|He personally bankrolled his invention -- a trekking pole -- that he assembles and sells under the name Adapt All-Terrain Gear. |
|"All the money I've put into it has come out of my personal savings. It was something I was excited about trying to make work," he |
|says. "If it doesn't work, I've wasted $1,500." |
|Senior Jason Nikel, 23, of Shelburne, Vt., is in Champlain College's entrepreneurial program. Nikel, a multimedia and graphic design |
|major, created a clothing line of hats, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts called Third Shift Clothing. |
|"It's not exactly at the point where I can graduate and have the income support me, so I'll keep it as a side project as I have for |
|the past two years," he says. "I'll take it as far as it can go." |
|Sheena Lindahl, 24, and husband Michael Simmons, 25, have turned the rise of entrepreneurialism into their own business. While |
|attending New York University in 2003, the duo started Extreme Entrepreneurship Education to help their peers pursue their dream |
|careers. Lindahl has supported herself since age 17. Simmons started a website-development company at 16, has won awards for |
|entrepreneurship and wrote an inspirational book about business success. This fall, they branched out with a tour of college campuses |
|to inspire future entrepreneurs. |
|"I think it has a lot to do with the high expectations we were brought up with. 'You can do it. You can have what you want,"' Lindahl |
|says. "We're criticized for wanting it all: high pay, purposeful work, flexible hours. It's hard for people in our generation just to |
|do work." |
|--- |
|Following 'Gen Next' |
|USA TODAY and MacNeil/Lehrer Productions are chronicling the interests and concerns of the next generation: 16- to 25-year-olds. The |
|series includes stories in USA TODAY and on NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, a Pew poll and a PBS documentary in January. |
|For links and more stories, visit news.. |
|[Illustration] |
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|PHOTO, Color, Jeff W. Reinking for USA TODAY; PHOTO, Color, PHOTO, B/ W |
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|Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission |
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