EP 42: Banning the 'M' Word
Is government wrong in the way it attempts to reach out to young people? Does it work against its own interest when it tries to "have a talk" or come to terms with millennials? Is "millennials" maybe a bad or condescending word? Increasingly, people are saying yes to all three, and that it's high time we overhaul the conversation. On this episode we talk with observers including a generations expert, a national-level local government group and a "millennial mayor" to explore what we can do differently than generically label 20- to 30-year-olds as a disengaged enigma more interested in wasting money on ukeleles than saving up for homes and retirement. Matt Thornhill - https://www.sirhq.com/matt-thornhill/ ELGL - http://elgl.org Mayor Ian Baltutis - http://www.burlingtonnc.gov/139/Ian-Baltutis-Mayor "Wall Street Journal admits to 'millennials misstep'" - http://mashable.com/2017/12/05/wall-street-journal-bans-millennials-snotty-term-disdain/#5KZUDB0sTiqf "I Have to Ask You: Is Local Government Inviting to Young Professionals?" - http://elgl.org/2017/12/05/i-have-to-ask-you/ "Millennials are more than 4 times more likely to do this at their desk than baby boomers" - http://komonews.com/station/question-answer/millennials-are-more-than-4-times-more-likely-to-do-this-at-their-desk-than-baby-boomers To Measure the 'Uber Effect,' Cities Get Creative - https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/to-measure-the-uber-effect-cities-get-creative/550295/?utm_source=citylab-daily&silverid=MzEwMTkyMjY2NjU2S0 Politico, "Mayors to Young America: Can We Talk?" - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/30/mayors-poll-millennials-cities-urban-policy-215765
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. They'll talk about millennials being entitled and lazy and not really willing to work hard. And When you look at a lot of elected bodies, you don't see a lot of millennials,
especially at the local government level. And so we kind of jumped in and embraced that, after the public kind of reflected it back at us. Institutional change is tough, but how do we talk about it in a way that recognizes and celebrates the positive change that is is about to come versus just having this kind of gloom and doom. Oh, my goodness. Change is coming, and it looks horrible because everyone has an iPhone. We're all familiar with the portrayal of today's younger people when it comes to responsibility
and, you know, civic engagement. But does government or any big organization do itself damage in the way it tries to understand and reach out to younger generations? Does it work? Or does it fall into a pop culture stereotype and assumption trap, only making things more awkward? Should we stop using the m word? My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation, a podcast about cities and towns in the face of change from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, episode 42. Alright. So on this episode, we're gonna be talking about millennials. Wait, hold on. Let me try that again. On this episode, we're gonna be talking about millennials. I don't know why that's happening. The sensor keeps kicking on every time I try to say the word millennials. Millennials. Do do do do do do do do do millennials. Alright. Yeah. I I don't know why that's happening. The sensor keeps kicking on every time I try to say this word. Maybe if I spell it, maybe if I try to spell the word. Let's try that. M I l l e n s. Okay. Millennials. Maybe if I look it up. How about that? Maybe I can just look it up and say what the definition is so you know what we're talking about So I'll just type it into my computer in Google m I l l e n s. Alright. So on Wiki, Wikipedia. So the definition is millennials, also known as generation y, are the generational demographic cohort following generation x. There are no precise dates for when this cohort starts or ends. Demographers and researchers typically use the early nineteen eighties as starting birth years and the mid nineteen nineties to early two thousands as ending birth years. Alright. So maybe I wore that joke out a little bit. But what is true is that there are organizations that have banned usage of this term, and that term is millennials. Just kidding with all that. The word is millennials, the generic term for the more than 80,000,000 people in their twenties to mid thirties out there today who can't help but be the subject of corporate and governmental America's obsession. Everyone with a big stake in either sales or engagement or some sort of popular design or legacy wants to know how to make inroads with millennials, how to speak to them and use their language and create an appeal that will turn millennials heads, make them lower their Warby Parker sunglasses and take note of this cool thing that millennials will want to write a post about. But frustratingly, this huge generation of young people does it differently. They don't work the same way. They don't seem to care about the same things as, say, boomers. We don't see the younger people working as hard or caring as much. Is the world really gonna be a better place when they're in charge? They're more concerned with art and fun instead of really buckling down at school and setting out a solid foundation for a sterling career where you work past 5PM and set up a comfortable retirement for yourself. And, I mean, look, I'm I'm just sort of summarizing the homogenized take on the millennial generation. And for example, I actually saw on Twitter recently, someone posted a slide from a presentation on millennials on what millennials seem to want. And the first one it said was a sense of meaning. And you have to ask, you know, how is that unique to anybody who isn't a nihilist? To look at it another way, if you wanna get some ridiculous stuff in your inbox each morning and throughout the day, set up a Google alert for the word millennials. Just by looking at the headlines that come up, you'd think we already solved this thing, that we've cracked the millennial code and we know what to do with it. Alright. So I'm just gonna take out my iPhone right now, and I swear this isn't rehearsed or scripted. I'm just gonna read out some of the headlines that are in my inbox right now from this millennials, alert word. Okay. Got one here. It says why and how experiential marketing appeals to millennials. So that's clickbait for a non millennial audience, I guess. Scrolling down. Millennials are more than four times more likely to do this at their desk than baby boomers. Now that's definitely clickbait, and maybe later in the show, we'll cave and see what that is. Now here's another one. What do millennials believe in? WHS alum travels across The US to find the answer. That sounds lofty. K. This next one says, collecting sneakers that tell a story is new hobby for ritzy millennials. Woah. Okay. Here's a big one. What do millennials really want? That's the headline. I'll bookmark that one. K. Okay. So here's one we've seen a million times. Are millennials investing for retirement? The whole millennials not being ready for retirement thing. Okay. And I swear to God, I'm not making this up. Just a couple headlines below it. It says, millennials are saving early for retirement, thanks to the great recession. So there you go. Sparkling water is still the hottest beverage among millennials. Young Alabama, a political organization started by millennials. Okay. And maybe I'm thinking inside my own box here, but that sounds like it's set up to read like a paradox of young people showing interest in politics. And, I'll segue out with that one because, you know, with all the outreach and scrambling to understand young America, it's government that's really getting most of my focus here, government and politics. I've sat in on meetings where speakers come in and and talk about this, specifically about how to get millennials engaged in government, how how to get them interested in public service, how to reach out to them, how to recruit them to work in government and retain them so they don't leave for something else because we all know millennials swing from job to job like vines. And if that's not a stereotype, then it may be a misunderstanding or a misplacement of context. And so here's what this episode is gonna focus on, is that with all of this effort that we're putting into understanding this group of 80,000,000 people, are we maybe going about it the wrong way? Are we maybe kind of being offensive with it potentially? Maybe a bit condescending? If you're wondering, I'm too old to be a millennial. I'm I'm actually a few years outside of the bracket, which I'm saying is a fact, but also kind of as a joke. But with all the labeling and assumptions and stereotype, are we doing this effort to recruit millennials and sort of earn their desire? Are we doing a service to that? Or are we creating resentment and backlash? So a little while back in late twenty seventeen, I was at a workshop with public officials, mostly from the boomer generation, if I may, where focus fell on generational differences. It was on the agenda, and it got really interesting. The speaker or moderator, Matt Thornhill, asked the group to list out qualities of the millennial generation. We heard things like lazy, disloyal, they pack up fifteen minutes before five, they seem detached from the structure, just not engaged like we are. And overall, there's this sense of entitlement. And it wasn't to beat up on millennials or support the stereotypes. It was to get everyone to confront their own perspectives and then analyze why they might think that. Thornhill said, for one, maybe some of these qualities have to do with the fact that there may be decades of experience and different sets of responsibilities between these two generations. No one can trust.
It's different to them. So one thing that you can never do is say to any of your, younger workers or people in your community, well, how was your age? Not relevant. Not relevant. You know, when I was your age just isn't relevant because we're not in that time anymore. We're not going back to that device ever. Ever. And the last thing of these cohort effects now these cohort effects are not psychological. This is not who you are as a person. This is sociological. It's what imprinted you when you went through your wonder red years, if you will. Through your your ages 10 to 20, your adolescent years. Because whatever happened, whatever was happening in the world at that time, in culture, in society, imprinted you. But each other as you go through this time period, a different time and place in history, if you will. The silence, boomers, it was the late fifties to mid seventies. Gymnastics, late seventies to mid nineties. Millennials, late nineties to 20. And the disease is happening now. They're gonna be shaped more by Trump's presidency than they will ever be shaped by Obama's presidency. But that's how we end up with these different generational mindsets. That's where they get formed and shaped and they go with us to fill the rest of our
lives. Fill the rest of our lives. So we're gonna fill Thanks for bearing with the audio quality there. Here's Matt up close.
Matt Thornhill, managing director, SIR's Institute for Tomorrow.
And so with your presentation focused on some generational differences, when did that sort of become a focus of yours and why?
We got into the understanding generational differences about fifteen years ago, starting with helping organizations and companies understand the boomer consumer. At the time, boomers were aging out of the golden demographic. They were no no longer 18 to 49. They were now 50 and older. And we found that marketers didn't know what to do with them. It's like they wanted to treat them like they were senior citizens. And we knew people in their fifties. It's like, well, they're not done buying stuff. They're still so we started a a think tank we called the Boomer Project to help, organizations understand and companies understand how to sell to this older demographic. And then along the way, we ended up studying other generations so we could compare and contrast with boomers and found ourselves now fifteen years later helping organizations and communities and local governments understand, we call it generational dynamics. Millennials, gen xers, and boomers all interacting in the marketplace and in the workplace at the same time.
So when you do the exercise of saying, you know, write down some descriptions of boomers, write down descriptions of millennials, what what do you typically see coming from people who are who are tasked with doing that?
Well, when we do workshops, we'll ask people, you know, what what words come to mind? How would you define the behaviors and attitudes you see in the different generations? And what they give us are are kind of stereotypical responses, but they're rooted in some truth. But there are also some misconceptions that come out of it. They'll typically talk about how boomers have a strong work ethic and that boomers are very loyal to organizations. And and some of those are are generational traits that we see in boomer generations. They'll talk about gen xers being autonomous or independent or self reliant, which are traits that we see typically in gen xers. They'll talk about millennials being entitled and, and lazy and not really willing to work hard. And those are actually not traits of the millennial generation. Those are traits of 25 year olds. Not all 25 year olds, but but that's just the issue that we run into with audiences is is they tend to fall towards stereotypes, and stereotypes are often not correct. And each generation goes through that time of life, which is a very formative time of life at a different time and place in history. So the label of of millennial is not so much about who they are now as people, but just how they got they got imprinted. And they could have been imprinted by their experiences growing up from how their parents raised them. That could have a more dramatic impact in society or defining events in society and culture. So we one of the things that we help organizations understand is that this label is about as useful as, you know, if if you hired us to come in and talk about the difference between men and women. We all understand there's differences between men and women. But individuals, you gotta deal with individuals. You gotta manage individuals, and you have to deal with their mindsets. And and you can't label them as, well, you're a man and you're a gen x or therefore you're this. No. You're Bob. And I gotta deal with you as Bob and and how you're wired. So you ultimately have to take it down to the kind of one on one level. But at the 30,000 foot view or the 80,000,000 view of of, millennials, You know, we we say to people, you know, these generations, Gen Xers, boomers, millennials, they're they're all about 75, 80,000,000 people. Each generation is three times larger than the population of Canada. Are all Canadians the same? No. But some of them speak French for heaven's sake. I mean, there are differences. So, of course, there's gonna be differences when we're talking about generation. And when we tell folks, look, if I say something about a generation and they've got a particular trait and and you go, well, that's not me, it's because there are exceptions and you're exceptional.
And so it might seem obvious that generalizations are there to be general and can't be applied to the individual. You know, a crowd shot is not a head and shoulder shot. And if we reach out to an individual with assumptions based on a massive category, it might just be because that's the best we've got, even though it might totally fall flat. So what else can we do? There are groups who just outright ban the use of the word millennial in the sense that we can use it as a definition of what people want and how they behave. Let's talk to one of them. Hey there. It's Kirsten. This is Kirsten Wyatt. She's the head of ELGL,
which stands for engaging local government leaders. A lot of you are already very familiar with them. My husband and I founded ELGL about six years ago Mhmm. Because we saw a need for professional association that was big tent, that welcomed anybody into membership regardless of the department they were working in in local government or the job title that they had. We recognized that there was a real interest in an exchange of ideas and of cross training and learning, and that some of the more traditional professional associations, didn't do that. And so kind of by the use of social media and then also online information sharing, What we thought would be just a small Oregon based, kind of lunch and learn group has turned into a national organization that, provides a ton of content and training and learning opportunities for our members and the community as a whole. So the m word, as we call it, is actually banned here at ELGL.
And and notably, I think the Wall Street Journal also has banned the m word. So we're in we're in good company. And real quick, what Kirsten's referring to is something that came out in The Wall Street Journal just days before she and I spoke, in December 2017. They published something. The the title was millennial Misstep, and it acknowledges that The Wall Street Journal uses the term a lot and how it's kind of become it just says, millennials has become a sort of snide shorthand in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. And then later in the paragraph, it says, what we usually mean is young people. So we should probably just say that. And it says, let's also be precise when referring to this group and resist the temptation to use stereotypes, apply a blanket label, or let the term become a crutch in our stories.
Okay. Sorry about that. Back to Kirsten. But the reason that we are opposed to the use of the word is that we feel like too often it is a generational stereotype that's used to pigeonhole people, especially people who are earlier in their careers, into, certain stereotypes. Right. And what we would prefer to do is have healthy discussions on the ways that our workforce is changing in local government and characteristics and attitudes that we see as being advantages or potentially challenging, to our work our workplaces. I think that to stereotype and to assume that an entire generation of people, acts a certain way, doesn't do us any good and it doesn't help us solve problems. And if anything, it just creates, articles that people like to click on when they find out that millennials are, you know, ruining the avocado industry or or I guess, what is it? Propping up the avocado industry and not being able to buy buy homes or ruining the diamond industry or the casual dining industry. Those types of things I think are clickbait, and it doesn't help us from our vantage point of improving local government workplaces and also make local government workplaces, places that people want to work and want to engage with and want to spend their careers with.
In December, I ran across a piece by a young person named Alyssa Woolverton. It was posted at eldl.org, and it really wrestled with the question as to whether local government was truly all that inviting to young professionals. She acknowledges that not all workplaces are the same. You know, feedback varies, and some local governments are amazing to work for. But here's an excerpt about her experience. As a student, I was evaluated on my performance. I received feedback. And when I did well, I moved up. I took risks. I could stand out from my peers and find out what I wanted to do. Because of that, I graduated magna cum laude, Latin organization for two years, and believed I would love serving the public. And then, none of that mattered in my internship. In my two years in two different government internships, I went from a confident, skilled, and well developed leader to a helpless, unskilled, and disheartened barely professional. I knew there would be red tape. I knew that people were not going to take me seriously because of the Explitive. Millennialisms that plague our clickbait society. I knew that not every moment would fill me with butterflies and rainbows, but Expletive. I didn't think it was going to kill my dreams of serving the public. She goes on to say that she felt her assets, like her energy and optimism and new perspective, were seen as a nuisance or just something that didn't fit the grid.
I asked Kirsten about the shape of the local government welcomed that. Well, I think that it's more of a symptom of the fact that you have these huge generational shifts coming up. Like you have a huge generation of people about to retire, and we've been talking about that for, you know, ten years, I think, in the local government field. Right. You know, the fact that there was this really, unbalanced, distribution of ages in our, leadership structures in local government. And so I think that, you know, some of it is predicated on the fact that local governments are looking at their management team and they're they're realizing that, you know, that 75% of the management team is within retirement age in the next, you know, couple of years. That's right. And so there's been this need to say, okay, what do we do next? I think where it becomes problematic is where you look at that that shift or that, that trend of people retiring and the next generation coming up and taking those places. But then instead of saying, here are all the great things that that will provoke, you instead pat yourself on the back and say things will never be the same because I'm leaving. And so that's what we wanna focus on is, okay, yes, like mass retirements are tough. Yes. Institutional change is tough. But how do we talk about it in a way that recognizes and celebrates the positive change that is about to come versus just having this kind of gloom and doom? Oh my goodness. Change is coming, and it looks horrible because everyone has an iPhone. So the big takeaways that we would love to encourage, your listeners to remember is that this isn't about casting stereotypes on generations. This is really about, reevaluating and being thoughtful and mindful of how work is changing, especially as we are losing a generation of knowledge and we are welcoming in, a new generation of leadership. And so what I would prefer to see local government organizations doing is celebrating that change and working on how do you implement change and adapt to it, and how do you also retain some of that knowledge that you're losing rather than, boil it down to just some generational stereotypes that make assumptions about, people based on their age or their years of experience. And so I would encourage your listeners, to continue to work with ELGL as we, find new ways to explore and express these topics and provide real life examples of organizations who've been successful at succession, succession planning, at things like workforce development, training, making changes in your, employee, handbook to reflect, you know, new desires of your employee base. Things like that are really important if we're going to truly understand this change that is occurring, and we're we're not just poking fun at it.
So how about some actual practicable suggestions? Things that could actually work for a younger worker when it comes to recruitment, retention, and the fact that technology is changing, communication is changing, the economy is changing. What works? Kirsten and ELGL specifically work with local government, but some of the elements that can be put into place can be practiced at really any big organization. Here's Kirsten.
So my first two recommendations are kind of what I would consider low hanging fruit. The first recommendation that I have is to make sure, that you're not hoarding training for yourself and that you're instead spreading spreading those opportunities into your agencies. And here's an example. There are some conferences, especially the big national local government conferences that offer incredible training opportunities. But year after year, the same people from the same agencies attend. And I get that heading to a conference and having that networking opportunity is an amazing experience. But if you really want to take knowledge and have it, trickle down into your agency, send someone new if you can't afford to take someone with you. And if you can't afford it, take someone new in your agency that you want to get that training and experience. I think for a long time, what we've done in local government is we've saved the very best training for people once they get to the position or the level that they're being trained at, and that's not helping us build that bridge between someone who is up and coming and ready to assume that position and someone who's been in that position for twenty years. Right. So my first recommendation is to look at your training budget. If you can't afford to take two people to GFOA or to ICMA this year, send one person and don't send yourself, especially if you've been going for the last twenty years every single year. And then my second recommendation is to recognize that, we are in a situation where, generalist positions in local government are few and far between. As we've had to deal with, budget shortfalls at the local level, very traditionally, positions like assistant to the city manager, assistant director positions have been eliminated, and, obviously, you know, for good reason. But if we're going to train people to take over those top leadership spots in our departments and in city management in general, we need to give them a foot in the door to experience some of those director level tasks like budgeting, like personal management Mhmm. Like asset management. And we can't do that if everyone is doing, if there's no one that's learning on the job to become a director. Right. And so looking at your personnel budget for the coming year and saying, what are some departments where we anticipate some retirements or some turnover in the next couple of years? And can we create an assistant position so we can have someone learning on the job about how to accomplish those tasks? So those would be my first two kind of low hanging fruit things that you can do with your existing staff.
So working for a national organization like ELGL, Kirsten gets to see a lot of cool innovative practices from town to town, things that may appeal to and work for the new generation of worker.
The other thing that I'm, seeing is especially if your city, city or county, if if you are in close proximity to other organizations, there are some things you can do with your benefits and also with your work schedule that will make your your organization stand out from your neighboring communities when you're competing for talent. And one of those things is a flexible work week. As we become more connected and more wired, the ability to do things like work from home, work longer hours, work alternative hours, I think becomes much more feasible. And then also, the nature of our work is changing in many positions where you're working many you're working seven days a week, but, you know, for, kind of shorter spurts at a time. And so recognizing that your employees may want a benefit like, ten hour workday four days a week, is something that will set your agency apart from another agency that's recruiting for that same position and will give you, you know, kind of a leg up when you're recruiting for for positions. Another thing that I think is critically important is to evaluate paid family leave. And the reason is, some of the cities that have implemented that nationwide have found that the number one users of that benefit have been, employees and their police and fire departments. And so as we look at the positions that are hardest to fill in our agencies that are often in public safety, we really have to consider the fact that if we are able to offer a benefit like paid family leave, that's going to affect exactly the demographic that we're trying to hire, into those agencies, let alone in your general services agencies where you might also have people who say, you know what? I'm gonna take I'm gonna take a a pay cut to join this agency because I know that they value, you know, work life balance, and they do this by offering things like, a a paid leave program. And there are so many ways to structure that type of program. It doesn't have to just be like a cash outlay. And I think one thing that local governments can do to just show good faith to a work life balance, work environment is to just do the research. You know, just show your employees that you're looking into it. That doesn't mean that you're locked in to doing it, but it shows that you're recognizing that values and priorities are changing as it relates to work, work and life. And showing that good faith agreement, I think is really important, that you're willing to look into something new that maybe wasn't offered when you were, you know, in your twenties and thirties and having kids, but you realize now is something that your workforce is interested in.
And, you know, speaking of priorities like that too with the work life balance, I mean, you know, that that's that's something that, every generation who was once, you know, in their twenties or early thirties probably put some kind of priority on, you know, when it comes to what's a desirable job. And I think that also just kinda speaks to our, you know, ongoing efforts to kind of perfect how we recruit, how we hire, how we retain.
Yeah. Absolutely. And and I think you're you're absolutely right that it has nothing to do with, you know, this new crop of 20 30 year olds Mhmm. And more to do with the fact that we are looking at those issues of work life balance, of succession planning, of training through a different lens now, especially with technology, especially with, you know, the ability to work remotely, and also just with the changing, you know, societal value of what family looks like. You know, one thing that our members have been very, very, adamant about is never framing the idea of, paid family leave as something that's just for women or just for parents and really looking at this idea that families come in all shapes and sizes now. And so paid family leave may mean caring for your aging parents. It may mean a a dad taking paternity leave. And so I think that some of that is coming into play too, and those are all of those different lenses, that just a new, you know, very large segment of our workforce is, you know, how we're looking at that. So, yeah, I think you're you're right on with that. It's factoring in, you know, the changing world around us as well. Mhmm. You know, the economy is based on far different things nowadays than it was, you know, forty years ago. That's right. And so, you know, factoring that into how we recruit and retain and attract people to a local government career, I think is critically important.
Okay. So I think we've got it at this point. The younger generation feels unfairly characterized. There can be backlash against the utterance of those millennials to the point that organizations are banning usage of the term, and there are alternate lenses based on the context of how society has evolved institutionally. So what else? How do we wrap up? Where do we go from here? Well, recently, I talked with a mayor who uses his own millennialism, if I may, to help with perspective.
My name is Ian Baltutis, and I live here in Burlington, North Carolina. And I'm an entrepreneur,
so and inventor. Mayor Baltutis is now 32, just elected to a second term. So when I first started running for office,
we had a lot of people start asking, well, how old are you? Are you even old enough to run? And that branched into kind of realizing that I was one of the first millennial elected leaders in our county. And when you look at a lot of elected bodies, you don't see a lot of millennials, especially at the local government level. And so we kind of jumped in and embraced that, after the public kind of reflected it back at us. And it's been interesting because folks will look at it two ways. One, you look as, oh, we're excited to see the millennial generation jumping in, getting engaged, taking, leadership roles. Or the other side, which looks at, oh, those lazy millennials, why would you want to associate with them? And, I look at it as an amazing opportunity to kind of rewrite the narrative and say, you may think that we're lazy and we don't wanna work, but look at what we're doing, as leaders in our community. Yeah. So the initial kind of ageism that I got was I'd be knocking on people's doors, and they'd ask me, well, you're not even old enough. You don't even look old enough to vote. What are you doing here? What are you trying to do? And after a couple minutes of chatting with them, they had this realization that, oh, wait. You're actually running for office, and you're here on my doorstep, and I appreciate that. And so no matter what age they were, they appreciated that that physical, personal interaction, that we're bringing to the office. And so that kind of overcame some of the the ageism and realized it's more about actions than appearances. And so we've worked at every step of our campaign to have to overcome that. I also show up at numerous conferences and, events and meetings and get mistaken for an assistant city manager or somebody's assistant, when in fact, my title is mayor. But it's fun to kind of upset the norm and get people to think a little more constructively about who should be in the room, who's not in the room, and and look look more around them.
Did you come across people who saw your age as an asset maybe?
You know, the the the skeptical people, but were there people who became believers because of your age and they wanted something different or a different perspective? Yeah. So when I first got elected in 2015, the average voter in Burlington, the average age was 63 years old. So we elected our youngest mayor in the city's history with an average, voter age twice my age. Right. And so I think that really speaks to how we inspired, citizens of all generations in our community. And so, look, this is kind of a new perspective on how we do city government combining some of the the good old days perspective of grassroots candid at your doorstep campaigning with the modern social media tech approach as well. And folks appreciate that younger generational focus of saying, how do we pull all these things together? How do we pull new skill sets into the equation? And then how do we engage everybody using those tools?
So engaging people, I mean, so you as mayor, what do you see out there in terms of, younger populations and their level of engagement with maybe not just local government, but just civics in general or government in general?
I think, and this comes from thousands of conversations with students, that for so long, we've seen local government as something that we're not welcome at. And that's because when you look at a lot of city councils, you see folks that are old enough to be our grandparents, or our parents' age. And so it doesn't seem like something that's attainable for us. And that makes, just walking in the door and providing our feedback somewhat unwelcoming. And so our goal has been to really make the council chamber, make the council conversation, accessible and welcoming to everyone, even if they're not old enough to vote. And so a lot of our work has been outreach to students to talk about how good government is comprised of representatives who reflect the whole community. And that's age, that's race, that's socioeconomic, demographics. It's it's really about reflecting the whole community. And so building that understanding at the very base level, when kids are very young to say, look, we all have a role in local government. We all have a role in public service, and we never know when we're gonna step up or when the community is gonna ask us to step up and lead, but we've gotta have that in the back of our mind that that someday we're gonna be called on. And no matter where we are in life, we've gotta ask ourselves, what's best for our community? And can I devote myself to that role for this period of time? It may not be a career. It may not be more than a couple of years, but we can each make a tremendous difference by stepping up when our community calls on us. And so, by kind of opening the door and setting the base that we all have this role at some point in our life, then my goal is that generations down the road will have a much more diverse representative body, and a better understanding across the whole community. So it's not just a few percentage of the community that's actually engaging, but it's really the the whole breadth of the community that's engaging with local government.
What do you think reinforces, you know, the the the why behind why we're having this conversation today? I mean, the sort of heartburn behind generational difference conversations and all that. Why are we still kinda having these contextual conversations?
That's a wonderful question as to why we're having these contextual conversations. Because where do you draw the line? Where where was the better day? Was it the early part of the century? Was it three hundred years ago? Where did we have better civic engagement? And I I'm a history buff. I love, reading biographies and reading history. And if you look at young leadership, we had fantastic, like, youth or young leader engagement when our country went through the revolution. If you look at some of these leaders. And so was that the better day for young engagement? It's it's a tough question. And so just drawing the line doesn't solve anything. It's better to kinda look at the whole system and say, well, what can we draw from each of these decades, each of these scenarios, each of these generations?
Mayor Ian Baltutis, Burlington, North Carolina. That's gonna do it for the substantive part of this episode. Of course, as I think I kind of promised, let's get back to that clickbait article, and just see what it is. You'll recall the headline was, millennials are more than four times more likely to do this at their desk than baby boomers. This is komonews.com. Click. It's it all it says is answer, eat a stinky meal. Okay. That's all this thing says. Posted Tuesday, 01/16/2018 by Como staff. Again, headline, millennials are more than four times more likely to do this at their desk than baby boomers. And I was expecting some sort of drawn out article, and it's just, answer, eat a stinky meal. That's all it says. Doesn't seem to cite any sources or anything like that. So, yeah. Sorry for wasting your time with that. Also, shout out to Kyle Knott of DeKalb, Illinois for somehow guessing what this episode was gonna be about before I even put out the preview. Thanks, Kyle. Otherwise, with regard to this episode, I want your feedback. What did I miss? What examples have you seen out there in local government or similar institutions that just totally obliterate these sentiments? Let's follow-up with some examples that you submit. My email is bbrown@nclm.org or on Twitter at muni equation. That's @muniequation. I can say from my part at the League of Municipalities in North Carolina, we as an organization and our members are really getting out ahead of this stuff, having these tough conversations because they're not going away. And maybe, just maybe, there'll be a different experience for generation z. Of course, ELGL has been on this stuff for a long time, and I'm really appreciative for their support and wisdom on this podcast. Got to add to that ELGL does a lot of work in terms of diversity overall with local government, not just age. Age. And on that tip, coming right up, they're part of an event in my neck of the woods. So on March 2, we are hosting an event on the UNC Chapel Hill campus
called inspiring women to local government careers. And what we have found over the years is far too many people talk about, their path to local government as being almost accidental, or they kind of fall into it and they had no idea that this really rewarding and enriching career working in cities or counties even existed. Again, on March 2, and it's a half day program for undergraduate women to come in and learn about all of the different jobs that you can have at the local level. And I think that the the really meaningful thing is we're gonna make sure that if you are working for a degree in environmental science or a degree in, library and information science or communications or marketing or finance, that you'll have a chance to connect with someone working in local government in those fields and really see how a career in local government can grow for you regardless of what you come out of, undergrad, what degree you come out of that with. And I think that that's really, meaningful, and it speaks to, this interest in public service that we're seeing, especially, get really people getting really excited about public service careers these days. And so we really want to nurture that and then show some real life jobs and examples of why local government employment really is the best level of public service employment,
that you can find. We've also got a similar program February 16 in Oregon. Elgl.org should have all the info for both events. I'll put everything I can in the show notes for this episode at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. Also, gonna have a link to an article in CityLab that speaks pretty directly to our last episode about how cities currently are considering or dealing with the sharing economy, like ride sharing or home sharing. Laura Bliss wrote the CityLab piece. It's about how cities are getting creative and finding useful data about how sharing economy entities are impacting their city. And it's a great addition to something that we talked about with Brooks Rainwater, on the last episode. That'll be in the show notes, or if you just wanna Google the article, the title is To Measure the Uber Effect, Cities Get Creative. Thanks for listening. Send your feedback. And the coolest, I guess, way you can do that is by recording a voice memo on your phone and sending it to me at bbrown@nclm.org. If it's a voice memo, I can just play it on the show. Nclm.org/municipalequation for past episodes. That's a new location on our totally revamped website for the league, and there may be some more changes to announce here. So we'll talk to you soon. And in the meantime, thanks for listening. This is Ben Brown.
