Today's lede item comes from HBR intern examplar Carla Yengo-Kahn. It?s tough to be stuck in the middle. The latest Fed report on changes in U.S. family finances between 2007 and 2010 depicts declines across the board, including a 25% drop in net worth for households under age 34 and a 33% drop for those between 55 and 64. But the worst blow by far hits those in between, notes Neil Howe in Social Trends Biweekly: a 54% decline in net worth for families of Generation X, and a nearly 40% decline for younger baby boomers.
The statistics can be partially explained by the housing crisis, Howe says. Middle-aged families are more affected by declining home values because their homes constitute a larger part of their total assets. But the economic challenges faced by Gen X and younger baby boomers are part of a much longer pattern. For years, Gen X-ers have been outperformed by their parent's generations. And Gen Y now threatens to surpass them as well.
There's a well-know joke often credited to Woody Allen that 80 percent of life is just showing up. "I know very few Gen Xers who think this is true," Howe writes, "or even funny."
APPARENTLY, A RHETORICAL QUESTION
How Do You Measure Your Social Media Strategy? (MIT Sloan Management Review)
It takes leadership from the top and "a clear vision" to successfully implement social tools in a business, say respondents to a recent MIT survey. Recipes for social media success also include the following four ingredients: 1) tools that are simple to use, 2) properly structured incentive systems, 3) a clear purpose for what problems the social initiative is intended to solve and 4) clear direction about how to communicate with social tools, both inside and outside the organization. Oh, and there's this one other thing: someone should probably figure out how to gauge effectiveness. The most common answer to the question, "How do you measure social software use?" was: "Do not measure."
SPEAKING OF STEREOTYPES
Techies: Overfed, Overworked and Overtired (TechRepublic)
IT managers eat too much, work too much, and sleep too little. Clich?d perhaps, but apparently true. Over half the respondents in a survey of IT decision-makers said they consume more than 2500 calories per day (well beyond the US Department of Health recommendation), enjoy fewer than seven hours of downtime per week, and sleep just 6 hours per night. Nevertheless, their self-image is just fine: some 75% rate themselves of above average fitness.
BONUS BITS:
Company Tales
Starbucks Opening Inside a Funeral Home (Time Moneyland)
Google's Zero-Carbon Quest (Fortune)
GM's Steve Girsky on Renewed Customer Focus, Overcapacity and the Volt (Knowledge@Wharton)
Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2012/07/morning-advantage-why-gen-x-has-no-money.html
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