Migration of MSM’s young, college-educated and plugged in
Posted by Bill Gaffney | October 3rd, 2007Our resident newsosaur, Alan Mutter, expressed his concerns yesterday about yet another step toward the extinction of traditional main stream media from brain drain.
A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals (”human capital”) to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, health hazards where they are living or other reasons. [wikipedia]
Alan has vocalized a frequent topic of frustration I’ve overheard both inside and outside the workplace from the twenty and thirty-somethings. The oldest of this generation of employees was raised on Nintendo and Walkmen, with the youngest on XBox and iPods. They not only use modern media, they are defined by modern media.
They are acutely aware of their fifty-something bosses lack of use or leveraging online in a way they wish they would. The unfortunate reality is that these individuals often aren’t invited to the table to discuss strategic vision. Worse, when they are finally asked to the table, they are then trumped by MSM veterans whose opinions and decisions are rooted in what is truly a different model with different goals.
It seems like the pace of change inside media is slowing, tied up in politics and lack of expertise in managing technical projects – while the pace of change is continuing apace outside our windows. [newsosaur]
The end result of this failure to capitalize on these resources or the iceberg-like speed of adoption due to bureaucracy, ego and fear for job security is that most of the talent, that when paired with the experience contained in MSM could aid in sustaining the business, simply flee. They recognize what many at the top don’t realize. MSM isn’t the only game in town.
Given Alan’s article a read. He succinctly states a sentiment with which we at MSM should all be concerned. Â
