why america’s future shines bright

Mon, Sep 24, 2007

Ok…so we’re in a war, the most popular vote in the upcoming election seems to be a “vote of no confidence”, and the housing market is about to get an oz-style wake up call - no, we’re not in Kansas any more (although we may be soon, since everywhere else will be too expensive to live).

So why am I so bullish on America’s future?

Because the college graduates heading into the “real world” these days are on a mission… and their mission is to make the world a better place, with or without our help.

Sure, there are the success stories you hear about all over the news (Zuckerberg at Facebook, Larry and Sergey at Google, but check this out: “ever-younger entrepreneurs“… students in high school filing for patents… investing their earnings in other start-ups… selling their companies to pay their way through college… AMAZING.

The advent of the Internet and the accessibility of technology has clearly made more possible for this generation of entrepreneurs than any of its predecesors - in fact, this is the first generation in the history of civilization in which the children are adopting new technologies faster than the adults.

But reading between the lines of code, there is more to it than just the tech for tech’s sake. The spirit behind these young entrepreneurs harkens back to a sense of American values that, frankly, have felt long-gone for far too long: the spirit of the American Dream… that anyone can make a difference, everyone has a chance for success, and with determination and hard work, anything is possible. If these words make you feel more queezy than your last shuttle flight, you are officially a card-carrying member of Generation X - please go pop an SSRI and reserve your cynicism for the next “zero-percent-APR” credit program before you sign up (again).

These guys really mean it. While the Gen Y crowd often come across as either too polly-anna to be taken seriously or too needy to be tolerated, all they really want is to roll up their sleeves, dive in and make a difference. As a group they are curious, they are compassionate, they are energetic (bordering on hyperactive - probably from living an over-scheduled lifestyle since nursery school… trust me, these kids have never heard their parents say “just go outside and play”), and they know more than enough to be dangerous. (Specifically, they know more than enough to be dangerous to unchallenged assumptions, to stereotypes, to old paradigms, and to the lazy way-we’ve-always-done-things.)

Some say we’ve already seen the Greatest Generation… and to that I say the best is yet to come…

ps. Joel, love the mustache - nice touch ;)
pps. you still owe me that video clip…

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This post was written by:

Jennifer Floren - who has written 7 posts on Cheezhead.

Jenny, founder and CEO, launched Experience in 1996 with the mission to educate, assist and inspire college graduates as they forge new paths into the world of work. Experience has grown its network to include more than 3,800 universities, 100,000 employers and 3 million students and alumni – all of whom are focused on launching the careers of the world’s most important talent. Jenny has been recognized as one of the nation’s youngest business leaders and achievers by numerous organizations including Forbes, Business Week, New York Times, Working Woman, Boston Business Journal, Women’s Business, and Entrepreneur, and is a frequent speaker at nationwide universities and major business events such as the Kennedy eRecruiting Conference, EMA, the MIT Enterprise Forum, Springboard Venture Capital Forum, and the Association of Colleges & Employers. With a career path as a psychology-major-turned-entrepreneur, a relatively young CEO, a woman in business, an Internet pre- and post-bubble survivor, a venture capital fundraising veteran, an advisor to top universities and Fortune 500 employers, and as someone who helps millions of people find their true calling every day, she has many perspectives to share with her audiences. Jenny earned a BA in psychology from Dartmouth College in 1993, and was a management consultant with Bain & Company in Boston prior to starting Experience. She is currently a board member and active participant in the MIT Enterprise Forum, Junior Achievement, the Dartmouth College Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, and the Caring Canines organization which certifies and manages therapy service dogs (along with her wheaten terrier sidekick, Bailey).

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