I am a member of Generation X. Every time I say that it kinda feels cool, like I am a member of some underground rock band, right? Gen Xers are those who saw the birth of the personal computer generation and video games. Now, you have probably heard of Generation Y, which is a group of young people who were born into a time when computers, video games, and the Internet were already a part of our society and they have never known otherwise. And it would make sense that those who come after Generation Y would be Generation Z, right? Well, Gen Z didn’t really catch on so lots of folks started calling them the iGeneration, or the Net Generation because of their seemingly immersed-in-technology lifestyle. Whatever you want to call them, all those generation designations have one thing in common: they revolve around an age group.
I however fall into the camp of focusing on another generation that knows no age limits: Generation C, which stands for ‘connected’.
Brian Solis (www.briansolis.com) provides the best description of who Generation C is and how you can ‘connect’ with them. Go read what he says because he knocks it out of the park. The key takeaway is this: Generation C knows no age limit because it is a lifestyle. This generation knows no age limit because their habits, attitudes, and expectations span the entire range of generations we see today. From small kids to your grandmother, Generation C-ers are emerging because of this proliferation of tools that shape our hyper-connected society. And their number grows every day.
A Gen C-er is easy to recognize. They spend vast amounts of time ‘connected’ in various ways. Their opinions, decisions, and choices are influenced by others they connect to. As Solis describes them, in addition to being influenced by those within their personal connected circles, they see no problem being influenced by complete strangers who reside in the networks that they frequent. They relish shared digital experiences and they purposefully seek out answers and solutions in connected ways that bypass the traditional ways that businesses have expected their customers to use.
So what does that mean for you? It means you better figure out how to ‘connect’ with Generation C because what you don’t realize is that a certain percentage of your customers are joining Generation C every day, every week, every month. And the pace is accelerating.
