What We Don’t Cover…

Blogs are wonderful. In all honestly, some are more wonderful than others. Where’s the value? The value lies in the perspectives, resources and advice that becomes available for you to accept or disagree with.

While the Young Professionals wish to release blogs that will prove valuable to our readership, we realize there is a great inquisitive world of questions, concerns or ideas we’re not addressing. As such, we have created a new page associated with our blog titled “Q&A.”

Over the next couple of weeks, and into the future, we will gather questions from professionals and students and post them to this page. We will start to provide answers – or opinions – to these questions and we encourage you to do the same!

These questions will not just surround the theme: young professionals. They will be questions pertaining to the industry as we are all a part of this great industry. Stay tuned, and we hope you enjoy this resource!

- Nora Johnson, 2009 IAEE YPC Chair

Attracting and Engaging Young Professionals

By: Nora Johnson, 2009 IAEE Young Professionals Chair and SMMP Services Specialist, Experient

“How can I attract, engage and retain young professionals?”  Undoubtedly, many of you have heard or asked a similar question in the past.  Naturally, many of you have also had two words immediately come to mind: technology and entertainment.

 In short, the answers are:

Attract: Show an interest in them

Engage: Invite them to get involved or give them a seat at the table

Retain: See 1 and 2 and add a dash of letting them own and pursue a project or initiative

You will notice that technology and entertainment are not in the short answers.  Why are they absent?  There is a lot to be said for the relevancy of these two words.  However, the reality goes beyond a generational trend and reveals a more significant business and societal trend.  A friend of mine, who is a Director of Design for a prominent fashion line, once mentioned that the days of big department stores, such as Macy’s, dictating the fashion of the season are over.  Rather, fashion is being heavily influenced by the numerous sub-cultures in our society: the “Jocks,” the “Skaters,” the “Goths,” the “Preps” and many more.  Essentially, trends are being generated from the bottom, up, rather than from the top, down, which had traditionally been the standing model for business. 

What, you may ask, does this have to do with young professionals,