Millennial Leadership: “Different by Design” World Café

Tuesday, July 26, 2012

Grassroots Solutions

What’s at the intersection of Minnesota & the world’s deepest needs & the rising generation’s

greatest desires & potential?

Blaze a new trail, build a new future

• Who will come with us?

Business World

Positive

• Ethical Business Practices

o Don’t want what we’ve seen

• Fairness

• Work/Life Balance

o Ex. Social, B-Corp

• Working for your passion ☺

Opportunity

• Approach to Communication

o Important to navigate among different generations

o New Ways

� We are curious, want to experiment (environment not always open to this)

• Local Decentralize Value

o Diverse voices

What can we do to create effective communities to take action today?

• Too busy mentality

• What are healthy community values?

• Values around having difficult conversations

• Educate

o Transfer of knowledge create meaningful opportunities for people

1) Do we have a culture of opportunity?

a. Jobs, education, upward mobility

b. Space – foot in the door

2) How to capture their curiosity

a. Tug on their heart’s passion

b. Challenge of motivation

c. Try too hard on the wrong people, focus on those likely to engage

3) What would an effective community look like?

a. Culture of opportunity to engage

b. Good jobs, education

What can be done to create an ethical, bottom-up approach to encourage *people as we define the

path to the future*?

• DON’T WAIT

Political System

• Do you know who you are?

• Do you know your sphere of influence?

Old

Opposition

• Transform resistance to old-system change

o Limitations of digital media

o Do we know what those systems are?

o Where are the knowledge gaps?

New

• Looking back

o Who’s following?

o When are we able to do this?

• Blazing own trail

o How do you find the community to support & create new system?

• Attitude is reality

• Direction community/people with you

• Networks collaboration

3) What are the new ground rules?

• Keep in mind those who have come before us

o What can we do to bring generations together to collaborate?

• Uncover/Explore our own core beliefs

• Challenge, yes, but don’t be an asshole

• Safe (enough) space expectations of resilience

o Can this happen online?

• Start with finding common humanity

o Experience it – then you want it

• This generation

o Multi-faceted identities

o Not polarized

o Resist labels

o Networks increasingly diverse

o Entrepreneurial regardless of sector

o More collaboration

2) Discomfort

Ask questions to challenge core beliefs

• Figure out core beliefs

• Mine & yours

• What are our shared beliefs?

o We really do have common ground!

o MN’s strategic plan

What are tough questions?

• White privilege

How to Spark Action

• Rebrand MN Nice

o Ground rules

• Be ready to receive tough questions

• Public Campaign

o Leaders – respected

o Respond to tough questions

o They pose questions

Question #1 [What’s at the intersection of Minnesota & the world’s deepest needs & the rising

generation’s greatest desires & potential?]

• Processing

o Communicate to others

• Intersection

o Looking at the whole but where do we begin?

• Our generation

o Open

• Obstacles

o People, systems, generalizations about each other

o Connect when you feel a divide

o Unmet expectations (specifically economy struggles)

o Making good evaluations before moving forward

• Digital Conversation & Archiving

o Intersections between art and tech

o Digital literacy

• Transfer of knowledge

• Technology connects us to others and information

o Isolation of networks

� Unintended consequences?

• Overload leading to inaction/paralysis

o How do we move to action?

o How do we connect with new folks at the same time?

o BREAK OUT OF COMFORT ZONES!

� Out from behind technologies

� Outside of our own interest groups

� Beyond just my social network

Question #2: How do we move people past the intersection? (together)

• New people, fresh thoughts

Question #3: How do we be patient?

• Action takes time

• You have to be asked

• Try new things

• Meet new people

• Accountability

o Begin with friends

• Piece for self

• Share ideas/exposure

• Meet them where they’re at

• Own style of doing things

• Start with friends

o Not structured

• Digital Archiving

o Art & technology & culture

o Achievement gap

o Social interaction

• Dichotomy

o Technology connects us forming communities

• Interest groups/subscriptionon this group

• Beyond values is it identity

Question #3: How do we practice waiting?

• Where do people want to be?

• Collaborate with people who complement you and challenge you

o Are you willing to create tension to make change?

� What change?

• Different by design

o Boomers didn’t accommodate individual needs

o Millennials let everybody do their own thing

o Where is the balance?

• Change takes too much time or not enough

• Measured response

o What cost are you willing to pay for change?

• Growing pains around protocol

o Work for greater mission

o Keep conversations going through missions

o Assume best intentions of others

o Bring all voice to table & listen

• Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics

• Who talks logistics when resources are limited

• Structure

o Millennials don’t necessarily create it, but want it

o Lack of management by management

• Ask why? When the answer is “It’s always been this way?”

• Not being satisfied with “just because”

• Have people around you who introduce you to new people, things, ideas

• Diversity

o What does it mean to be diverse

o How can we refine how we connect to each other?

• Technology

o Digital natives

o Not afraid of using it

• Unintended consequences?

o You can find a community that conforms to you?

1) What’s at the intersection of Minnesota & the world’s deepest needs & the rising generation’s

greatest desires & potential?

Kim: Space to communicate diversity and share and uplift. Use as many mediums and spaces to share

diversity.

Kate: Being diverse rather than just having diversity.

Nick: Not every child is getting a great education experience. Often dictated by race/ethnicity, sex; no

middle range. Not getting kids to college and then employer gap.

Julia: Children living in poverty cannot get to grade level, haven’t eaten all weekend and don’t have

home to go to

Nick: Better public transit: can bridge communities together and be better for environment

Kate: North Minneapolis: Urban desert and geographic apartheid: buy tokens first night

Julia: Brain drain? Rural MN: older, healthier, less educated

Diane: Urban centers all over MN?

Nick: Far more diverse: PTAs, mayors, city councils, now mostly white

Kim: Want to use voice: “That’s such a white activity.”

Kate: Infrastructure -> civic need to build and we have lots of potential. No place to talk about issues

with Muslim community: organized community

Nick: Clean, drinking water + agriculture: hopefully more sustainable: we’re a hot bed here in MN;

Mississippi river and lake: Mosaic and Cargill

Julia: Innovative public sector treat engages in real dialogue in meaning way where people can say that

they disagree

Kate: Somali community. Style different from mainstream/white ways

Q2: If we are different by design, how can we refine how we can connect today as Millenials?

Tim: Technology: Millennials are digital natives: they’re not afraid of it. Used as tools to figure out new

ways to network, do things, take action

Denise: All social networks are Internet based: are we becoming more isolated? Extreme left and

extreme right?

Ben: What does it mean to be diverse? Sometimes it can be bad if only want commonalities

Denise: Bridge engineering fail – safe: good analogy

Ben: More people in cities now than in rural areas: brain drain? Evolution of where our community is

going?

Denise: What matters to our kids’ and grandkids’ futures?

Tim: As leaders, we need to make sure our systems and paths that are iterative: it needs to build failure

into its system: we need more procedures and processes

Ben: Industry evaluation

Tim: Facebook not that great: only one input. Need to look at society’s needs and tie info to them-up

approach in community within vicinity to solve their own problems.

Q3: How do we measure our systems moving forward? What are our evaluative resources? What is

success? What are our goals?

Kit: Want to know shared goals before developing systems and processes

James: Someone to say want proposal, then others agree and move forward

Justin: Income, we should have a work/life balance coefficient: way to measure economic success

Vidur: Evaluating? Get good data. Sometimes people want things to change first. Sometimes the cement

system isn’t completely understood. Need to have baseline and agreed definition of success.

Justin: Biz is top heavy. Our generation is changing that with some businesses. We demand work-life

balance or we’ll go elsewhere. Now companies will offer if political structures can change

James: Tech can further democratize decentralization

Joelle: Does talent have that power? Elite: not as many spaces for them. Where is our power? Our

generation does not feel like we have lots of potential – older siblings could get any job. We’re

struggling now. / When data doesn’t reflect your viewpoint, you won’t agree to it.

Clem: Millenial advantage: comfortable with being uncomfortable. Economy tanked. Built to deal with

adapting and making changes.

Justin: We don’t hang out at a job for more than 2 years.

Clem: How to not feel like you are wishing away your time and feel it’s not in vain. Also need to make

money? Combine?

Vidur: Change is a huge buzzword. Not everything has to be changed. Pick wisely and prioritize. Not

changing something is also an option.

Justin: Keep old that you like. Generation can work with elders to make these changes. We’re not as

good about reading back to older generation.

Clem: Older have more to lose if things change. They could be defensive if have kids, mortgage, etc.

James: Recognize and harness strengths. So many ideas were spurred during this time (Great

Depression). Take initiative and act on it.

Joelle: The term nonprofit. They need to make money and grow, too.

James: Everyone needs to give back, whether you’re a corporation or nonprofit.

Vidur: No margin: No mission.

Justin: Best way citizen can vote is with your wallet.

Clem: Fair trade, B. Corp: Identify businesses that have a social mission beyond profit mission.

Justin: Deduct number of invoice to contribute to nonprofit.

Pocketbook -> there is a voice here that gets to be the board. / Economy: way to send message: one way

to send a message, a bajillion ways to send a message