Articles
Millennials Are Looking
for Something Completely
Different
"Millennials are not
interested in letting
ideological posturing
stand in the way of
“getting stuff done,” as
they like to say. Their
generation’s idealism –
in sharp contrast to the
more ideological
approach adopted by
Boomers – is
characterized by a
pragmatic impulse
focused on finding
practical solutions to
problems."
By Michael D. Hais and
Morley Winograd
NewGeography.com
August 12, 2010
Save Us, Millennials
"...if anyone should
take personally the
poisoning of a vast
ecosystem in the Gulf of
Mexico, it should be the
one cohort of the
electorate that showed
the most skepticism of
oil companies and the
strongest desire for a
new green economy."
By Timothy Egan
N. Y. Times
Opinionator
June 3, 2010
Leading a Los Angeles
Renaissance
"Millennials aren’t
interested in
confrontation and
debilitating debates
focused on making sure
one side wins and the
other loses. "
By Morley Winograd and
Michael D. Hais
NewGeography.com
April 21, 2010
The Millennial
Metropolis
"some of the greatest
opportunities in housing
will be in those
metropolitan areas that
can provide the same
amenities of suburban
life that Los Angeles
did sixty years ago. In
this Millennials are
just like their parents
who moved to the suburbs
in order to buy their
own home, with a front
and back yard, however
small, in a safe
neighborhood with good
schools."
By Morley Winograd
and Michael D. Hais
NewGeography.com
April 19, 2010
Dangerous Thoughts:
Millennial Millstone?
How ObamaCare could
alienate the president's
strongest supporters.
To get some expert
perspective, I put this
question to Morley
Winograd and Mike Hais,
authors of Millennial
Makeover, the
political class' bible
for understanding the
YouTube generation. They
appreciated the concern
I was raising. But they
were pretty confident in
predicting that the
health care bill,
whatever its flaws,
won't turn off young
voters in any lasting
way. They cited two main
reasons: Throughout the
turbulent ups and downs
of the Obama era so far,
young voters have
remained the most loyal
part of his base; and
millennials are far more
civic-minded than any
other generational
cohort and far less
prone to today's zero
sum politics.
Forbes
By Dan
Gerstein
March 31,
2010
Move over Kanye West,
Taylor Swift and the
Millennial generation
are taking over music
When Kanye West jumped
on stage to protest
Swift’s victory over
Beyoncé for Best Female
Video at the MTV Video
Music Awards last
September, he was
foreshadowing just how
shocked Gen-Xers will be
when their signature
genre, rap, drops from
the top of the charts as
fast as you can say
“Napster.” According to
the Record Industry
Association of America’s
official tally of music
sales by genre, rap’s
popularity peaked in
2002, just as the first
Millennials entered
adulthood, and has now
fallen to third place
behind country and rock
in America’s musical
purchases.
Christian Science
Monitor
By Morley Winograd
and Michael D. Hais
January 29, 2010
Millennials Think
Globally, Act Locally
In contrast to the
generational stereotypes
many people hold of
them, Millennials are
very much concerned
about and connected to
the world around them –
more so, in fact, than
many older Americans.
Responding to questions
on foreign policy in a
recent Pew Research
Center survey, only 9%
of Millennials were
unable to express an
opinion on how President
Obama is doing in
working with our allies,
while almost a quarter
of senior citizens had
no opinion on the same
subject. On the knotty
question of
Israeli/Palestinian
relations, all but 7% of
Millennials could tell
survey researchers what
they thought of American
foreign policy in this
area. On the other hand,
26% of senior citizens
could not (see table
below).
NewGeography.com
Morley Winograd and
Michael D. Hais
August
31, 2009
Are the Millennials the
new GI Generation?
Two-thirds of
Millennials told Pew
survey researchers that
they approved of the way
President Obama was
handling the economy,
with only 5% saying his
economic policies have
made things worse. And
although 32% of
undergraduates at
four-year colleges told
Edison Media Research
that financial worries
have increased the
stress they're under,
75% of Millennials
expressed confidence
that Obama was doing the
right things to fix the
economy.
By Morley
Winograd and Michael D.
Hais
Los Angeles
Times
Opinion
June 21, 2009
Is Meghan McCain the new
face of the GOP?
"In brash blog posts
on the Daily Beast —
"The GOP doesn't
understand sex" — and
outpouring of posts on
Twitter, she has
described herself as a
pro-sex, "pro-life,
pro-gay-marriage
Republican," one who
experts say may be at
the forefront of a new
GOP breed: the "Meghan
McCain Republican." That
GOP faction is younger
and interested in fiscal
responsibility and less
government involvement
in people's lives, while
supporting
environmentalism and
civic engagement.
They're part of the
millennial generation,
the largest and most
diverse generation in
American history, whose
voters — born starting
in the early 1980s —
cast ballots for Barack
Obama by a more than
2-to-1 ratio. "
By Carla Marinucci
San
Francisco Chronicle
May 12, 2009
How to Lose a Generation
"Though
many people question the
political sophistication
of the Millennials, they
have been instilled with
egalitarian and
participatory values by
their parents since
birth. This
child-rearing produced a
generation that was wide
open to the personal
appeal and message of
Barack Obama and his
party. Moving forward,
the initial preference
of millennials for
President Obama and the
Democrats will remain in
place for a lifetime
unless Republicans can
quickly adapt their
message and find a
messenger who can speak
to this powerful new
force in American
politics. "
By
Morley Winograd and
Michael D. Hais
Los
Angeles Times OP-ED
May 12, 2009
This President is No
Cable Guy
Presidents and their top
advisers have long gone
to war against specific
publications: John
Kennedy famously
canceled the White House
subscriptions to the
Republican-leaning New
York Herald Tribune.
Certainly the Clinton
years gave the
president's defenders
ample opportunity to
denounce "tabloid
trash." And for more
than 40 years
conservative audiences
have yelped with delight
at ritual denunciations
of the New York Times.
Even Spiro Agnew in his
1969 acid,
anti-establishment and
alliterative attacks on
the TV networks singled
out "a small group of
men, numbering no more
than a dozen anchorman,
commentators and
executive producers."
By Walter Shapiro
Politics Daily
May
1, 2009
Here in the Real World
They’re Shutting Detroit
Down
In 1973,
OPEC’s embargo tripled
the price of oil. GM
failed to respond
quickly enough to the
consumer’s sudden demand
for fuel-efficient cars.
At the same time, the
Japanese with their then
superior, lean
manufacturing techniques
stepped into the vacuum,
gaining a foothold in
the North American car
market that they have
continued to expand.
Ironically, thirty years
later the very same
inability to shift
product offerings during
a spike in oil prices
precipitated GM’s
current difficulties.
By Morley
Winograd and Michael D.
Hais
NewGeography.com
April 29, 2009
Obama's outreach pays
off in first 100 days
In his first
100 days as president,
Barack Obama has
marshaled a potent array
of political weapons to
keep himself at the top
of public opinion polls
- a blend of skillful
communication and
messaging, unprecedented
voter outreach and the
creative use of
technical,
youth-oriented
organizing tools never
before seen in American
presidential politics.
If that arsenal sounds
familiar, it's no
surprise: President
Obama and his team are
reaching for the same
weapons that propelled
candidate Obama's
successful run to the
White House, and they've
gotten quicker on the
draw.
By Carla
Marinucci, and Joe
Garofoli
San
Francisco Chronicle
April 29, 2009
Will Work for Meaning
In a recent USA
Today
piece, Michael Hais,
who co-authored
Millennial Makeover:
MySpace, YouTube, and
the Future of American
Politics with Morley
Winograd, said, "Other
generations were reared
to be more
individualistic. This
civic generation has a
willingness to put aside
some of their own
personal advancement to
improve society." The
article also nods to the
overwhelmingly positive
response of Millennials
to Obama, and their
answer to his call for
national service.
On Faith
The Faith
Divide: what brings us
together and drives us
apart
Will Work for
Meaning
By Eboo
Patel
Washington Post
April
17, 2009
Authors Speak On
Internet’s Power
In March 2008, Winograd
and Hais published their
book Millennial
Makeover: MySpace,
YouTube, and the Future
of American Politics,
which accurately
predicted a win for
democratic presidential
candidate Barack Obama
after years of
republican domination.
The two authors cited
statistics yesterday
stating that 80 percent
of Obama’s winning
margin was composed of
youthful “Millennial”
voters, whose
proficiency with
Web-based
social-networking sites
allowed candidates to
mobilize followers while
also allowing followers
to mobilize each other.
By
Gulus Emre
Harvard Crimson
April 16, 2009
More Than Half of
Americans Using Internet
for Political News and
Activities
A report released today
by the Pew Internet &
American Life Project,
based on a survey of
2,254 adults
interviewed, confirms
what's more than
apparent to the online
masses: The Web is
changing our political
life. And it's not just
affecting how people
consume political
information — it's also
impacting how they
interact with the
political process. The
report signals the
undeniable emergence of
what Lee Rainie, Pew
Internet's director,
called a growing
"participatory class" in
an interview days before
the November election.
The Clickocracy
By Jose Antonio Vargas
Washington Post
April
15, 2009
'Civic generation' rolls
up sleeves in record
numbers
Young adults who grew up
in the shadow of the
9/11 attacks and saw the
wreckage of Hurricane
Katrina are volunteering
at home and abroad in
record numbers. The
generation that learned
in school to serve as
well as to read and
write, the Millennials
were the first global
Internet explorers even
as they pioneered social
networking for favorite
causes at home.
By Andrea Stone
USA
Today
April 14, 2009
Get Ready For
Wiki-Government
"Given Millennials’
values and behaviors and
the technologies they
love, the thrust of
efforts by the Obama
administration to
reshape governance in
the United States will
involve the creation of
open structures
attempting to maximize
the number who
participate in
policy-making. Dispersed
participatory
structures, such as
Google or Wikipedia, are
brands Millennials think
of when asked to name
information sources they
trust. It is from these
models that Millennials
will draw their
inspiration for
reshaping America’s
governing processes."
By Morley Winograd
and Michael Hais
GSA Office of Citizen
Services and
Communications
Intergovernmental
Solutions Newsletter
Spring, 2009
Click here to Download
pdf of entire newsletter
Obama turns left
The U.S.
President is putting the
state in charge of the
economy in the land of
free enterprise. Are the
'best and brightest' up
to the task?
"There
are now more Millennials
than boomers. To be
precise, there are 17
million more people born
between 1982 and 2003
living in the United
States than there are
people who were born
between 1946 and 1964.
There are 27 million
more Millennials than
there are Gen-Xers, the
generation in between.
The Millennials
constitute the largest
generation in American
history. Millennials
identify as Democrats
over Republicans by 55
to 30 per cent; in one
poll 80 per cent
identified with Mr.
Obama, and only 10 per
cent identified
generically with
Republicans. The
boomers, who were raised
to believe in ideals —
hence the culture wars
of the past 50 years —
taught their children
civic responsibility,
says Morley Winograd,
co-author of Millennial
Makeover, a book that
explores the phenomenon.
"
By John Ibbitson
Globe and Mail
April
4, 2009
Lessons from Detroit: 10
Years Later, the
Overhaul of the Domestic
Auto Industry and Its
Parallels with the
Republicans' Problem
the current debate over
whether to save our
domestic auto industry
has revealed some
starkly different views
about the future of
manufacturing in America
among economists,
elected officials and
corporate executives.
There are many
disagreements about
solutions to the Big
Three’s current
financial difficulties,
but the more fundamental
debate is whether the
industry should bend to
the will of the
government’s and
taxpayers' priorities or
serve only the needs of
the companies’ customers
and their shareholders.
By Morley
Winograd and Michael
Hais
NDN Millennial
Makeover Blog
March
30, 2009
Obama responds to
citizen questions
“In the
new world of online
media, formal press
conferences are just one
element or program to
get the message out — to
those, usually older,
who watch such things on
TV. The online version
he is doing is an
alternative way to get
out the same message, in
this case on the budget,
targeted toward a
different audience,
usually younger,” said
Morley Winograd, a
former adviser to Al
Gore who now runs the
Institute for
Communication Technology
Management at the
University of Southern
California.
By
Phillip Elliott
Associated Press
March 26, 2009
Obama turns to online
army to push his budget
plan
"The
legislative branch is
about to experience
crowd-sourcing," said
Morley Winograd, the
co-author with Michael
Hais of "Millennial
Makeover." He was using
a term for leveraging
Web technologies to
enable mass
collaboration. "The
ability to communicate
and organize is a
powerful weapon, and
this will be part of a
transformational change
in politics," he
predicted Thursday.
Winograd and Hais
believe "Millennials"
(voters under 30) are
using online tools to
remake politics.
By Frank Davies
San Jose Mercury News
March
19, 2009
Millennial Tremors
A new
generation looks to
transform American
politics.
"Morley
Winograd and Michael
Hais, fellows at the
Democratic advocacy
group NDN and co-authors
of the perceptive book
Millennial Makeover, say
that Millennials display
the group-oriented
values of a "civic
generation" like the
fabled "GI Generation"
that surmounted the
Depression and won World
War II. Civic
generations (a phrase
originated by authors
William Strauss and Neil
Howe) tend to favor
"inclusive solutions"
that "accomplish results
without ... ideological
argument," Winograd
says. Such generations
are joiners and
builders. They would
rather light candles
than curse darkness.
Several of those at the
ONE summit echoed Laura
Cluff, a senior from
Curry, who said that
Obama electrified her
peers largely because he
said he couldn't solve
problems alone. "He
said, 'You've got to do
your part.' When he said
that, tears went down my
face."
POLITICS
By Ronald Brownstein
National Journal
February 14, 2009
Obama Typifies Spirit of
Civic Engagement
“That sound
you hear is the last
wheezing gasp of
boomer-age politics, the
cataloging of
individuals according to
their areas of
oppression, the endless
process of tallying
cultural differences
rather than aggregating
common objectives. It is
a political philosophy
that probably made sense
30 years ago but that
seems sort of baffling
at the dawn of the Obama
era.”
By Morley
Winograd and Michael D.
Hais
Special to
Roll Call
February 2, 2009
Inauguration is a
'generational
touchstone'
"Morley Winograd, an
author and a fellow at
NDN, a progressive think
tank and advocacy
organization, says the
Woodstock comparison is
entirely appropriate.
'This is their moment to
demonstrate to America
what they think
America's future should
be like,' said Winograd.
'They are going to
celebrate that and
underline it for all of
America. Of course, the
race relations
breakthrough is huge,
and the media will be
focused on it ... but
the generational
difference, the moment
the generational shift
takes place, is also an
important story.'"
By Carla Marinucci
San
Francisco Chronicle
January 20, 2009
Obama continues to
attract, inspire
'Millennials'
"The 2008 election also
revealed a steep hurdle
for the Republican
Party. With young people
choosing Obama over John
McCain by a 2-to-1
margin, Republicans
could risk losing their
grip on an entire
generation of voters.
Authors Morley Winograd
and Michael Hais, both
fellows at the
progressive Washington
think tank NDN, credit
Obama's success with
young voters to his
generational appeal.
They argue that his
campaign pitch for
public service -
fine-tuned with the help
of a chief speechwriter
who is just 27 years old
- was perfectly
calibrated for the
so-called millennial
generation, meaning
those born roughly
between 1980 and 2000."
By Chris Megerian
Palm Beach Post
Washington Bureau
January 19, 2009
Obama Family Values
Surveys reveal that
people born between 1968
and 1979 place a
considerably higher
value on family, and a
lower value on work,
than their baby-boomer
counterparts. Women in
the former age cohort
are actually having more
children than their
predecessors and,
particularly among the
college-educated, they
appear to be working
somewhat less. And this
family-friendly shift is
likely to continue
throughout the next wave
of child-rearers. As
Morley Winograd and
Michael Hais suggest in
their book,
Millennial Makeover,
the Millennial
generation, born after
1983 and twice as
numerous as Generation
X, also enthusiastically
embraces the notion of a
strong family.
By Joel Kotkin
New
Geographer
Forbes
January 20,
2009
Tapping into a
generation's blind
optimism
The new national service
should include young
people in their late-20s
and early-30s, in
addition to the recent
high school and college
grads who often fill the
ranks. And it should pay
a half-decent salary.
The work should go
beyond the typical
tutoring and tot-lot
construction, building
skills for the
healthcare and
green-collar jobs of the
future. And Americorps
2.0 should take an
open-source approach —
let young volunteers
interested in a weekend
of service use
social-networking
technology to find
like-minded souls and
design projects that fit
their skills. Morley
Winograd and Michael D.
Hais, co-authors of
Millennial Makeover: My
Space, YouTube and the
Future of American
Politics, have
proposed a nonprofit
"Spirit of Service"
website along these
lines. It's a good place
to start.
By David Scharfenberg
The
Boston Globe
January 19, 2009
Lofty expectations for
Obama's inaugural speech
Morley Winograd, a
fellow at NDN, a
Democratic advocacy
group, and co-author of
Millennial Makeover:
MySpace, YouTube, & the
Future of American
Politics, said that
the speech will probably
include at least one
reference to a theme
that Americans on both
sides of the aisle will
welcome: "rebuilding
America's civic spirit."
"The way to solve that
is through a unified
effort, a perfect
millennial theme, the
'Joshua generation'—that
we hold hands and blow
down the walls
together," he said. "I
don't think it will have
a single digit of
partisan tinge. ... It
will be 'everybody is in
this together.' "
By Carla Marinucci
San
Francisco Chronicle
January 19, 2009
Washington is Crisis
City again
And
so, a 30-year era is
ending, an era in which
one political party, the
Republicans, saw
government as the
problem. Whether or not
it is smart to run $1.2
trillion deficits and
massively expand
government's control
over private enterprise,
the course has been set.
Morley Winograd and
Michael D. Hais,
co-authors of
Millennial Makeover:
MySpace, You Tube, and
the Future of American
Politics, say the
United States is
undergoing the sixth
major political
realignment in its
history. The nation is
transforming, they say,
from the worn-out
arguments of an
idealistic but fractured
baby boom generation to
a more civic
consciousness
exemplified by
"Millennials" born
between 1982 and 2003.
Civic generations, Hais
and Winograd say, are
primarily interested in
strengthening government
and political
institutions.
By
Chuck Raasch
New
Politics
January 8,
2009
The Facebook Revolution
National
Perspective
"The
talk around here is how
the young woman — a
"teenybopper," in the
words of Elliot, who was
not amused at her fate
or at the furies
unleashed on Facebook —
hijacked a centuries-old
process to inherit a
part-time job that pays
only $6,408 annually but
has serious, adult
responsibilities, like
investing around $17
million when
property-tax revenues
pour in and sometimes
borrowing millions
during the course of a
year. "
The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
November
29, 2008
Young Americans hold the
key to Obama's success
Why the Millennial
Generation is our best
hope for an economic
recovery
How can
a generation without
much money help rebuild
the economy? Precisely
because they're starting
out. They haven't lost
50% of their nest eggs
in the stock-market
meltdown; they're on a
path to accumulate
wealth. They don't have
a house to sell; they'll
be motivated buyers.
They're educated,
technologically savvy,
inspired, driven to
succeed personally but
also concerned for the
greater good. And not
incidentally, two of
every three voters under
age 30 marked their
ballot for Obama.
By Jonathan Burton
MarketWatch
November
25, 2008
Young Voters Turn
America Left
As Morley Winograd
and Michael Hais point
out in their
groundbreaking book
Millennial Makeover,
younger voters were
attracted to the
egalitarian and "civic"
orientation of the Obama
campaign. They first
rejected the
individualist, combative
baby-boomer ethos
represented by Hillary
Clinton, who did very
poorly among younger
voters. Later they also
turned against the harsh
tone of the McCain
campaign and its embrace
of both Cold War
rhetoric and social
conservatism. However,
how long will the
Millennials' leftward
tilt last? It all
depends on whether the
new administration fixes
the economy and creates
opportunities for the
Millennials who will be
flooding the workforce
in the coming years.
By Joel Kotkin
Commentary
Forbes
November 11, 2008
The burden of office
Barack Obama has much
to prove to a hopeful
nation, a watchful world
An important
element of Campaign
2008: At least 2.2
million more young
voters (aged 18 to 29)
came to the polls than
in 2004, representing
about one-sixth of the
votes cast. Morley
Winograd and Michael D.
Hais, the leading
experts on the
millennial generation,
believe that most of the
members of the new
generation who were
eligible to vote
actually cast a ballot
in 2008. While John F.
Kerry, the 2004
Democratic nominee, won
54 percent of that
group's votes, Mr. Obama
took 66 percent, by far
the largest margin of
any age segment in the
Obama column.
By
David Shribman
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
November 9, 2008
Political shift: Diverse
voting coalition favors
consensus, government
action
"The change, identified
by Democrats and many
Republicans, is not just
an Obama phenomenon. And
it's not just young
voters. Blacks and
Latinos, who turned out
in record numbers
Tuesday, are long
believers in activist
government, and the
nation's immigrant
communities, including a
growing Asian
electorate, hunger for a
break from policies that
penalize instead of
welcome newcomers."
By Mary Anne Ostrom
San Jose
Mercury News
November
8, 2008
A Decisive but Not
Overwhelming Victory for
Barack Obama
"As I said at the
American Enterprise
Election Outlook session
Thursday, the one sure
way for John McCain to
have won the election
was to pass a
constitutional amendment
raising the voting age
to 35. Not only Obama
but Democratic House
candidates, as Patrick
Ruffini notes, won by
huge margins among
voters under 30,
according to the exit
polls. Obama got 66
percent among those
under 30, won
30-somethings 54 percent
to 44 percent, ran
essentially even with
40-somethings and
50-to-64s, and carried
only those 65 and over
(53 percent to 45
percent). First-time
voters were 69 percent
Obama, 30 percent
McCain."
By
Michael Barone
US
News
November 7, 2008
Young voters, Hispanics
help Obama to victory
"...Obama drew more than
two-thirds of Hispanic
voters, dramatically
increasing John Kerry's
Latino support four
years ago and paving the
way for Obama to turn
New Mexico, Colorado and
Nevada from red to blue.
By the time the final
numbers are counted,
more than 130 million
people will have voted
in the 2008 presidential
election, a record
number that includes a
jump of 8-13 million
over 2004."
AP
Rochester
Post-Bulletin
November 5, 2008
Does Obama's win open
the door to a new
Progressive Era?
"Where Reagan
saw fear, voters on
Tuesday saw hope that
the historic victory by
Democrat Barack Obama
could herald a
generational shift in
American government.
Nearly three decades
after Reagan sparked a
conservative
transformation, many of
Obama's supporters hope
the first president born
in the tumult of the
1960s will deliver an
equally defining
progressive shift. "
By Kirsten B.
Mitchell
Herald-Tribune
November 5, 2008
America in the
Millennial Era
"Millennials, born
between 1982 and 2003,
now comprise almost
one-third of the U.S.
population and without
their overwhelming
support for his
candidacy, Barack Obama
would not have been able
to win his party’s
nomination, let alone
been elected President
of the United States.
This new, “civic”
generation is
dramatically different
than the boomers who
have dominated our
society since the 1960s
and understanding this
shift is critical to
comprehending the
changes that America
will experience over the
next forty years. "
By Morley Winograd
and Michael D. Hais
NewGeography.com
November 4, 2008
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