Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials. This is her first of hopefully many articles on YGG.

About a week ago my dad send me this email:

Subject: Riot! by Paramore

Message: Get a copy of this CD. There are at least 6 good songs it. My son lent me his copy.

Two things intrigued me about this email: 1) my father rarely recommends products and 2) my brother is 18 years old. So how in the world did my baby boomer father like music written by teenagers so much he sent an email to about 40 of his closest friends and family (of all ages) recommending this CD?

It turns out my dad isn’t the only person over 35 who enjoys Paramore. The group has as many parents at the show as they have kids, and the parents love every minute of it. Intrigued, I went to Paramore’s MySpace page and listened to some of their sampler music. It didn’t take me long to realize this was the same band I’d heard (and liked) on the MTV reality show, The Hills. I also vaguely remember some of the songs from riding in my brother’s car over Christmas break.

I checked out their list of hit singles on Wikipedia and noticed they’ve been gaining speed since the middle of 2007. Judging from their sold-out shows in the UK, I’m predicting they will continue to gain fans and hit super stardom in 2008. There are a few things I believe has contributed to Paramore’s snowballing popularity that will serve all musicians (and businesses) well in the future:

It is very interesting how much we rely on technology in our everyday businesses lives, from computers to cell phones to PDA’s. It has been increasingly more available to keep in touch, or share data and even using to make yourself money. But it is really amazing how far wireless communications has come in the last 5 years. It has come all the way from backpack sized phones to devices smaller than the palm of your hand. I want to discuss all the new advances in wireless technology, and how they can help you in your business life.

I am probably as connected as any person out there today. There is no possible way that you cannot get a hold of me at anytime of the business day, and even after it. If I don’t have my laptop hooked up anywhere I go I also use a device called a Blackberry that allows my e-mail to be sent to me anytime of the day. Then there is the phone I always carry with me wherever I go. They are my lifeline for my business. There has been many deals that could have been lost if clients could not get a hold of me right away.

This is the start of a series of post’s based on this subject. It came to be out of many conversations with colleagues and businessmen over coffee. I hope you find some inspiration from this!

Not Involving your Employees in you Business

What I talk about in this series are things I have experienced first hand from a company that I used to work for, who will be referred to as Company X from here on. They are the prime example for this set of articles as how not to adjust and do business in the new millennium. They paid for all their vital mistakes and now no longer do business.

There is quite the obvious correlation between ignoring your employees and a slow moving, close to death organization. This is a bi-product of the industrial age, where employees ran there tasks by the orders of a few, competition was scarce so they could get away with being slow to change and react and the consumer had little choice. Well globilization has changed all of this, but the mindframe still exists through a lot of large well established companies and the people that have grown up with these ideals.

But what most businesses are realizing that positive business power comes from communities rather than one mind. By using the ingenuity of many minds to accomplish a task you will more than likely come up with a much better solution than one mind. The dialog that opens up between colleagues can provide different perspectives that open up new doors that may have remained shut without a team working on it.

By not listening and including your employees you run a great risk of missing great opportunities and becoming a stagnant business.

Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials. This is her first of hopefully many articles on YGG.

As consumers, we are careful of the type of personal information we give out and who we give it to. As an entrepreneur trying to market a new product or service, however, understanding your customers’ needs is essential. In an age where identity theft is rampant and telemarketers and spam mail are avoided at all costs, there are many consumers who would rather take their business elsewhere than risk privacy invasion. So how can you do marketing research on buyers’ purchases without alienating saavy consumers?

I believe there are two key characteristics of companies who will be able to collect useful marketing data without losing the trust of their customers - customer anonymity and company transparency.

Allowing the Customer to Keep Anonymity

Seth Godin recently wrote a post on his blog about how consumers don’t actually care about data collection as much as is believed. In it, he writes:

For students finishing up their college careers or even business people looking to succeed in their current jobs, no question is more common than “How do I stand out?”. As one of our readers, “John Con”, put it in one of our previous posts,
What do you wish you did/didn’t do in college that would help you succeed today or more precisely- what will make a person stand out?
As I am constantly being asked this question by other friends just finishing college and even older friends who are looking to improve or change their careers, I want to put my thoughts and experiences thus far out for communal cogitation. These are not so much the specific actions I believe are best, there is no specific combination of activities that guarantees success however, it is a set of goals that allow you to stand out and can be achieved through any number of paths.

1. Be a Whole Person

This isn’t just the usual tip career services hands out as you fill in the last few lines of your resume, it is an integral part of any interview. If you spend every spare minute working and studying rather than pursuing your other passions you will quickly run out of material for situational interviews. In fact, a number of the recruiters I have talked to actually frown on a straight 4.0 students to the point of being especially critical of those with above a 3.8. Don’t take this as an excuse to not study but, when you’re faced with a choice between taking part in a student organization or a committee and studying to make sure you get a straight 4.0, go with the depth of experience that external activities can provide.

As the corporate world struggles with the new millennial workforce, many employers are experiencing great success with rotational programs. Originally pioneered by a number of large corporations to train engineers, the programs now are used in all areas of business from IT to Finance. These programs satisfy Generation Y’s need for travel, new experiences and training through a number of four to eight month rotations in different businesses, locales and departments.

The advantages of these types of roles become quickly evident when you realize that breadth of knowledge, cross-departmental and cross-business, that can be obtained in an incredibly short period of time, two years for many of the programs. Program participants roll off with a great amount of diversified knowledge that may take 5-10 years for someone else to gain in a standard role. Sounds amazing right? It is but, whether you are a participant in one of these programs or a employer managing them, you need to make sure you don’t get vertigo from the accelerated spin of rotational programs. Here are a few tips to help you avoid vertigo:

1. Avoid Over-Diversification

The biggest strength of a rotational program is the opportunity to diversify but, it can be dizzying as well. Many people skip from rotation to rotation without focus, similar to the way some college students do between majors. Then, when they get to the end of their program they have had a number of great experiences but are left to wonder, now what?

Many college students have to stay in school for another year or two, which is not an option for those in a rotational program and can cause you to take a default role off-rotation that you may not like. After your first rotation or even during, start to figure out what you like and take rotations that will aid you in your end while still providing a good set of diverse skills.