Generational ForesightSifting our way to generational insights

What Makes People Tick?

Genetic differences

Spatial differences

Temporal differences

Generations = Cohort Effects

Period EffectsChanges that affect all generations similarly

Life Cycle EffectsDifferences due to aging and life cycle

Cohort EffectsChanges that affect

generations differently

Strauss & Howe’s Saeculum

Theory

Social and Economic wave theories• Kondratiev, Elliot, Kuznet waves• Carlota Perez’ techno-economic paradigms

GENERATIONS ARE FORMED

BY EVENTS THAT HAPPEN

DURING THEIR FORMATIVE YEARS

Black swans can cause generational change

10% 30% 50% 70%

THE EFFECTSCOME IN

AT LEAST FIFTY SHADES

OF GREY

But generational shifts are rarely absolute

Aren’t coefficients sexy enough?

Good Generational Insights are Based on Quantitative Statistics

How Else Do We

even try to

Genera(tiona)lize

Billions of People?

Key:Representative, Longitudinal Data Sets

The MTV/Chevrolet survey:

“75% of Millennials would rather give up social media

for a day than their car ,and 72% said they would rather

give up texting for a week than their car."

Be selective and ambiguous. Then spread the news!

How to win the internet

Give up my car forever

or for a day?

Common survey problemsConfirmation bias: Getting results that support the stakeholder’s mission. Often results are ambiguous. Conveniently lends itself to “Internet truthiness”.

Biased generational narrative: Larger generations typically get more press.

Sampling bias: More research done on affluent members of all generations. Purchasing power and easier to reach.

Leading questions: “Would you rather save the world or make lots of money?” Better: Look for documented behavioral change.

Past focus: Fact tanks and market researchers are often too late to the game.

Psychometric assessment: How we perceive extreme values could vary with generation. E.g. younger gens favoring extreme values (vernacular “totally, “epic”+ grade inflation) Metrics like the Likert scale could create generationally skewed results.

From Baby Center’s “Millennial Moms” survey (2014) N= 1633, Millennials (18-32): 804 , GenX (33-44): 829

Find Five Faults1 Millennials both more

involved and relaxed than X’ers?

2 Age-related perception of extreme values

3 Self-assessment ≠ objective - generationally skewed?

4 Absence of longitudinal data - moms in different phases of parenting

5 Wouldn’t it be nice to know the distributions within each category?

Data-Mine User Generated Content?Facebook users’ word frequency based on age

Sentiment Analyze Emoticons?

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 20150

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Or Big IoT Data?

But who owns it?

IN THE ENDDATA WILL NEVER BE PERFECT,

WE CAN ONLY APPLY OUR B.S. FILTERS

“We're all just a bunch of sinners, but we do the best we can.”

Dolly Parton

Photo: Yahoo Images

Thank You!

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