Media Is Not Culture

We're not so sure.

The impact of demographics on social trends can never be understated. Technologies live and die based not on their inherent worthiness but on the willingness of the market to accept them. Understanding and meeting a need (or sometimes creating one) is what makes new ideas gain traction. Demographics underlie and facilitate the process.

There are three major demographic trends driving American (and most Western) culture:

1. Baby Boomers (and the society as a whole) are aging. The average age of the culture is increasing.
2. The children of the Baby Boomers are reaching the age of majority and becoming the major wage earning group.
3. Global flows of citizens are making diverse population a reality. In the US, for example, the white population was 80% in 1980, is 70% today and will be 60% by 2015.

With age (generally) comes a shift in focus. AARP suggests that life, post-50, is all about finding meaning, consuming less and focusing on personal fulfillment. From what we can tell, this is the exact same ethic as the current crop of college graduates. Meanwhile, the culture is rapidly becoming bi-lingual as a reality. (The Hispanic population grew from 14 Million to 35 Million between 1980 and 2000.)

Monolithic media (the big TV networks and city newspapers) served the culture well in the days when the culture itself was monolithic. Today, however, the culture is fractured and fragmented, creating the need for micro-publishing. Blogs are here because they suit the real culture and its microniches.

The fragmentation and change is just beginning.

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

Don't forget to read the Bugler!

For many HR Directors, internet job boards were a failed experiment. Essentially, too many candidates. Not enough qualifications. And absolutely no guarantee that any of them would fit comfortably into your corporate culture.

Referrals from trusted associates, on the other hand, have always been the safer route. Unfortunately Employee Referral Programs tend to limit the scope of your search. The solution, devised by companies like H3.com, is in developing a Talent Scout Network-a small group of good people, both inside and outside your company, who know lots of other good people.

Talent scouts are a breed of people who keep their ears to the ground, who know your industry, and who always seem to know who's coming and going before anyone else. They're people who don't just connect you to a good candidate. They connect you to an entire community of good candidates. Like having a squadron of headhunters, but without the high headhunter fees.

A free white paper from H3.com discusses the new phenomenon of talent scout networks. And the success that HR directors are having with them.

To get a copy, visit H3.com.

• Learn how to cultivate and maintain a talent scout network.
• Learn how they're helping HR work more efficiently with hiring managers.
• Learn how they're helping to slash recruiting costs.

At H3.com you can also experiment with the system by launching a risk-free search.