 Hello and welcome to today's Red Back Business Girls webinar series. My name is Michael Bunker. I'm an employee of Red Back Conferencing and today we have a very exciting topic for you all. Today we're looking at Gen Y and Gen Z. Have they entered the workforce? What can associations do to appeal to them? So I'm very happy to introduce our two presenters today. We've got Belinda Moore joining us and Alex Richardson for our session on the Generation X, sorry, Y and Z approach to membership. So thank you both for joining. Thank you. Thank you Belinda. So what we want to do today is look at a couple different themes about this space, especially with the younger generations coming into the association market. So what we're going to be looking at for today is the differing attitudes towards member. What associations need to do to appeal to these groups? Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z, communications preferences and the future workplace. So I'm very excited to hear about this. Hope you all are as well. So to start off, we're going to throw over to Belinda to start off with her presentation. Belinda, go ahead. Thank you. So there's 20 minutes to go through and there's a lot in here. Membership is changing completely at the moment. There's been more change in the last eight to ten years than in the three or four hundred years that preceded it. And definitely with Gen Z and Gen Y coming through, there is so much that we need to be considering when we're going to put together a really successful membership marketing program. Now, first of all, what we've found is because there's now so many generations in the workplace, we have a number of different tribes forming and these tribes have different attitudes towards membership that need to be considered. You look at the Baby Boomership, the research is really, really clear. They're the most likely to join, the most likely to renew and the most likely to become proactively involved in their organization. So that's things like boards, committees, your long term volunteering. Now, Gen Z and Gen Y have very different attitudes towards all of those things. And as a result, a lot of associations are having difficulties adapting their traditional offerings into this younger market. So today, I'd just like to quickly go through a few of the reasons for this and what we can do to try and adapt into this younger generation. First of all, imagine you're building a house. You may want six bathrooms, 22 kitchens and only a single bedroom. Now, it's your house, you do what you want, but you try to sell that house. Now, that is what is happening with associations, the products, the services, the communications channels, the events, the decision making structures, everything about so many associations is entirely geared to the preferences of the boomers. So this means that while a baby boomer might come in and be very, very comfortable with how the association operates, they could also be unconsciously alienating this younger generation who just aren't comfortable with those environments. And things that we used to see a lot, like when you'd go on a board, you're basically committing for a 12-year term. It's generally said, and why I'm interested in that. When they look at their attitudes to involvement are very different, it's like, why do I need to be involved? And I'll just come when I need it, not just because you have a meeting every second of Thursday. So it's really important to take a fresh look from a younger perspective at what's happening in your association and think, are we really welcoming to these younger generations with what we're doing? Are the products and the services, are our publications? Is it the way that we communicate with our members relevant to this younger generation? Because, you know, we all worried when Gen Y came in, but I've got to tell you, Gen Z is a whole different kettle of fish again. The good news is, the research is showing that they're pretty career orientated, which that is a little bit of good news for professional and industry associations who provide a lot of those services. But we'll talk more about value in a moment. When you're looking at how Gen Z is different from Gen Y, Gen Z are called the Snapchat generation for a reason. Facebook is old hat, email is old hat. They want to engage through these different social media. They're very, very smartphone dependent. And if you want to do good communications to recruit and retain members, you've got to be looking at what can you do through your smartphone to get people engaged. And you know what? They don't want to be sold at. They want you to engage them. So when you are doing the communication side of things, getting that interactivity is really critical because that's how they engage with their friends. You've got to mimic that. They're very, very privacy orientated as well. So be aware of this. They're very different from Gen Y and their perspective to that. And also this group, they've never known a pre-September 11 world. Now, that is massive. They don't have that naivety that the older generations had. They're very aware their impulse towards cocooning is strong, but also their need to experience and have that sense of adventure. So what can you do when you're engaging with these groups to enable them to indulge that? But bear in mind as well. A lot of the things that we talk about when we're talking about the younger generation aren't factors of generation. They're factors of age. For example, when you're starting into your career, whether you did it as a baby boomer or as a Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, the need to get that critical first step in your career was the same. It's how you did it that is different. The fact that you're going to be short of cash, that you're probably not going to own your own home, these factors all applied to all of us when we came through. It doesn't make them any less relevant. But how you solve those challenges is different. So now let's look at really with the membership models. They're changing and you have a problem here. Not a problem, but an interesting challenge. The older generation are very conditioned to traditional membership models. And if the average age of your members is say 40 and above, which it is for a lot of us, you've got to be careful about your shift. You can't just go completely to some of these very, very newfangled models. Like there are some organizations doing the pay what you think we're worth model. Now, if all your members are under the age of 28, go for it. If they're not, you've got to look at ways of creating transitional membership models that proactively engage the younger generation without alienating the older generation. And this is really, really important because a lot of the older generation will also enjoy some of the products and services that you bring in and some of the convenience that you bring into appeal to the younger generation. But you don't want to move them too far out of their comfort zone. They've had 40 to 60 years to be conditioned to these old membership models. But one of the things that applies, no matter the age of your members, is the fact that there will always, always be competition for your products, your services, your events, your magazines, everything. There is going to be someone competing with some or all of those things. But one of the things that is your really unique competitive advantage is your community. It is almost impossible to compete against a strong and engaged community of people who feel emotionally about the organisation they're involved in. The book, The Ten Lessons for Cultivating Member Commitment, it talks about the decision to join is very different than the decision to belong. The decision to join is a very transactional one that you make when you join like, ah, give it a go. The decision to belong is an emotional decision to be part of something and it's one of the reasons why particularly with these younger generations, how you engage with people over that first year of membership is critical because the biggest drop-off in members is first and second year members and that is even more extreme in the younger generations. So you've got to be very aware of how do you build a relationship and that means the old HTML emails that you blast out there, they're pretty well dead for this generation. You've got to think about the language you use. They want to deal with people, they want to engage and have a relationship that's fun or a little bit humorous where you come across as real and the kind of organisation that they want to be a part of, ethical. They don't want a relationship with a building that looks perfect. So it's about how do you bring that in but at the same time that you're doing that, you've also got to be providing tangible value and value is not just a list of products and services. My pet dislike is when you call up somebody and you're like, oh, can you give me more information about membership? And they're like, yeah, we've got workshops and we've got a conference and we've got our email bulletin and magazine and a website. You know what, I don't care. Every association's got those things. What you've got to talk about is what is the real value they're providing. They're giving you money. It's an investment. It's an investment in the success of something that's important to them. So what is that? Now, for someone who's in their early career, it's an investment in the success of their career. How do I get that critical first step? How do I have the confidence that I'm making the right decisions for my future? And you know what? I'm broke at the moment. How do I get access to some discounts? It's going to help me to get the products and services I need for my career to be successful. How do I get leadership experience? I'm not well networked. How do I expand my networks? And when you do come up with the value and those benefits, it can't just be the value promise. You've actually got to come up with a tangible way to deliver that value. And that's massively important. And don't just rely on what you think is going to be a good idea. Ask them. So you go to the younger generation. You talk to them about what's their biggest concerns. What are their biggest fears right now? What are they worried about? You know what someone's worried about? You can come up with those products and services and communications channels, whatever it happens to be. And you know what? Then when you've come up with those ideas, go out and do not ask them if they think it's a good idea because everyone's going to say yes, but then they don't tell you for somebody else. Ask them if we put in this product or service, will you use it in the first month? The reason you ask that question is because then you'll learn if there's any roadblocks providing value. And this is where it comes to it. With this generation, how you communicate is as important as the message itself. So you have to plan your communications very, very carefully and work in a way that gets their attention. So you've got to be interactive. Things like infographics, calculators, interactive video, that kind of thing where you create the two-way communication is critical for this generation. Use humor and the right kind of humor judiciously. Convey insights. No one wants information. We're drowning in information at the moment. But good insights are worth their weight in gold because they save you time and times the new commodity. Now, there's examples, lots and lots of really good examples about how people engage with potential and existing members in a way that gets them emotionally committed to the organization. And one of the key ways for that is running events. Now, the symbiotic nature of membership and events is unquestionable. The image that you'll see on the slide here is from the C2 event in Montreal. Now, you talk about innovation and events. This event is co-owned by the Cirque du Soleil. What you can see there is an example of one of their workshop rooms where the people sit on chairs and the chairs are lifted up to the ceiling. They have some of their sessions are run in ball pits. Now, that is an awesome event. That takes the visitor into an experience. Now, for the younger generation, you have to be able to create those experiences because those experiences will bond them to you. But you have to do it in a way that is also affordable for them to be able to attend. If people just wanted information, they'd read a book. But when they come to an event, they're actually looking for something to beyond that. Now, events are a great way to get in this younger generation for a couple of different reasons. First of all, before the event in your marketing, you can use it as a prospecting tool. You can make an offer that if you register to attend the event, you might incorporate the cost of membership. There might be a discount. If you receive a registration from a non-member, I always pick up the phone and say, hi, look, I just want to let you know we got your registration safe and sound. But I notice you're not a member. Did you want to join to get a hold of the discount? You know, it's an extra call in the day, but that call is to somebody who's got an immediate potential benefit from joining. Put that process into your events process. And then at the event, make sure you appoint welcome ambassadors from your existing membership. Now, the reason this is a good idea is, first of all, it's a great retention tool because you're asking for someone to get engaged in an ad hoc volunteering opportunity. Now ad hoc volunteering is a critical segue between an uninvolved and an involved member. Only a very small percentage of your members are ever going to be interested in long-term volunteering positions. But ad hoc volunteering is different to one-off thing. And if you can get people doing that, they are much, much more likely to renew. So if you're running an event, no matter how big or small, I'd be looking through who are my first-year members from the younger generation and give them a quick call. Look, do you mind coming and being our member ambassador at this particular event? Now, what that does is, first of all, it's a retention tool for them because now they're more likely to renew based on the fact that they're volunteered and ask them in a way that they're going to want to point out what the benefit is. So you're going to get a chance to meet a whole heap of new people, what the time commitment is. It's only a day out of your time and you know what? You're going to get into that event free of charge and point out the parking and food because for some reason that always increases the response rates. Look, there's free parking at the event as well and you know what? Of course, there's food and drink all day. Now, once you've got that person to volunteer, you've got a very powerful tool because that person then, their job is to go and see all of the prospective members and other new members who've only just joined at that event and ensure they have a really, really good time. So what you're doing then is you're helping to build that community and how do you make it so they can identify it? It's something simple. A green little dot on the badge for non-members and a purple one for someone who's joined in the last three months or six months, whatever it happens to be. But what you're doing then is you're building your ability to be able to create meaningful connections between people because when I started in the early 90s in associations, it was very, very different back then. First of all, fax was still cool and we didn't have email. But the communication between the association and its members was very one-directional. We sat up here and we told our members things. And you know, we kept them up to date because every quarter they got a magazine. Not much else, but they got their magazine once a quarter. That's changed now. The associations who are doing particularly well and those who are doing very well in the younger generations are the facilitators and enablers of communities. They're the people who have create connections between members that are meaningful and produce tangible value. And if you, when it's coming to the younger generation, go with good communications, creating a community and building the strongest possible tangible value where they would miss you desperately if you were gone, then you're going to be successful with this generation. Thank you. Very nice, Belinda. I think that is an absolutely perfect segue into communicating and that's where we can hand over now to Alex to talk to us. How do we communicate to the younger generations, especially from the point of an association? Thanks, Michael. Look, I just want to say Belinda's points were fantastic and some of the things that I really took away from that was she spoke about membership being designed for boomers and I am a Gen Y, I'm a Millennial, so I'm here to talk about how the different generations want to be communicated with and what's coming for the different generations in terms of disruption and what that means in terms of engaging and creating those communities, how they want to be talked to, how can you actually provide that tangible value? So if we start with, for example, Generation X, Generation X are looking at you know, newsletters, Facebook and direct mail still in terms of what they're looking to engage content from but they don't want to have information regurgitated at them. Like Belinda said, if they want information, they'll go and read a book. They want to be engaged with stories, tell real stories and we're seeing associations use real life stories from different programs and different experiential events that they're running and putting that into their communications as a way of people being able to engage with that content and with that story in a way that they do with social media, for example. Now if we look at Gen Y and Millennials, on the other hand, Facebook, what we're seeing is that Millennials are starting to drop Facebook. They're moving away from Facebook in general from your wall and general communications but Facebook Live is starting to pick up and we're seeing a lot of associations starting to run events on places like Periscope which is a Twitter video live streaming and Facebook Live as well as your Instagrams, your YouTube and Communities and Direct Mail. Now we've seen some really great associations running online communities and creating a really engaged online communities using tools like Hialogic, for example. I know of one association who has only 2,500 members and they've created an online community that now has over 15,000 posts across an online community which boosts their SEO and so on but it's really engaging those members and providing that tangible value to them by giving them a voice but where it's going in terms of social media and communications is towards video. People really want to be looking at video and engaging in content around video so we're seeing now LinkedIn has just launched video on their feeds and people can start posting that. We're seeing a lot of Gen Y starting to use that in their business communications and associations and businesses really need to catch up in terms of that. Facebook and YouTube are obviously doing it very well but we're going to start seeing it across a lot of other different communication platforms. Is there anything else that's going to be changing in the space just besides the video component? That's a good question and it plays back into what Belinda was talking about Gen Z. So a lot of the modern marketing and where things are going Generation Z are on Snapchat and they're on WhatsApp. This is what I was actually moving into next which was around WhatsApp has got 1 billion users on it. Snapchat has 175 million and Snapchat has already moved into ads so they've already moved into the ability for ads but they're doing it in an amazing way that's really engaging for Generation Z which is all around the interactive ads. For example, if you use Snapchat or even if you use Facebook video you've already seen those video conferencing tools where you can put antlers on your head or have those kind of interactive animations. Now Snapchat is allowing you to create those your own animations that you can actually have and use those as ads across their platform. Now Generation Z are engaging more and more with these tools and not with Facebook so we really need to see associations move into the world of Snapchat and WhatsApp is definitely coming in terms of advertising as well. Even our company, we have corporate WhatsApp accounts so all the staff are on that. I communicate more to my team on WhatsApp than I do on email probably these days. And we're seeing WhatsApp move more and more towards some of the Snapchat functionality as well. So what we're going to see is WhatsApp is going to have to open up to advertising and they've been really ante it up until this point but it's definitely coming. Facebook and Instagram ads are a really great way to get in front of people as well so if you're selling events or if you're trying to get programs out there or if you're looking to recruit volunteers for your association, you have to be looking at the social media accounts and seeing how you can do that. But you need to do it in a way that's personal and it is in a way that people can actually engage with because that's the way that they know how actual content is in terms of their social media use itself. So they really want to be seeing stories. They don't necessarily want you to tell them I've got this product. What they want to know is how has so and so used that product and how has that affected their life or their career? You know, if you've got a program that's affected somebody's career and they've chosen something different to the norm, for example, as a result of that showing that to the generation Z and the generation Y and saying, look, this is how this actually impacted that person and that's why you should be engaging with that particular program. This segues into the future workplace though and I was really interested to talk about this because where the future workplace is going is really quite interesting. We're starting to see online training, for example, and the engagement with online education is moving and the futurists and Deloitte are saying that by 2020, 90% of all workplace training will be online. So we're starting to see training moving online as well. Jobs, for example, for Gen Y, they're saying Gen Y will have 10 to 20 jobs per lifetime. Whereas Gen X and Baby Boomers were looking at two or three jobs per lifetime. Yeah, we're looking at 10 to 20 jobs per lifetime and that means that we're going to be shifting between industries, which means that associations are in a really interesting position for the future as we start to shift between different careers and different industries and needing that training and support to do that. Does it also come down to the fact that predominantly a lot of jobs that the younger generations have didn't exist generations before? I think that's definitely the case with disruption in technology. We're definitely seeing different and niches coming up in industries that we haven't seen before but also there's a demand from Gen Y and Gen Z that we haven't seen before around flexibility. They want flexible workplaces. They want to be able to work from home part-time or have different jobs and juggle different jobs to be able to say, I'm not interested in this anymore. I want to move to a different career path or I want to move to a different industry. So definitely we're seeing some interesting shifts in that. What would the future workplace potentially look like? First of all, I spoke about training in the workplace being 90% online by 2020. So it's moving towards more mobile. People are wanting to engage the content in a quick manner. It's just in time kind of training and information. They're looking to scale and de-scale workforces in general. So organizations are moving to models where they can say, we need to shift the products that we're looking at and de-scale our workforce and then re-scale later on once we've worked out what our product mix is. Which means that Generation Y and Generation Z are going to be looking at how can we actually shift and not have this security from large organizations. How can we actually shift to different industries or different gigs and hence we've seen the entrance of the gig economy with places like Uber and Air Tasker and Airbnb and so on where we're seeing people actually start to build jobs for interim so that they can transition to the next career or to the next industry. And we're really going to see a big uplift in augmented reality, virtual reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence. I saw an article just yesterday come up about DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence. And they've created a program that is able to recognize photos with a 49% success rate. Now humans have had nearly a year to develop a similar program. This has done it in a matter of weeks and humans have had that amount of time to try and do that over eight, nine months and they have only managed to reach about 38% accuracy. So artificial intelligence we're going to see disrupting the everyday lifestyle of people. But we're now seeing Oculus Go from Facebook being pushed out at a really palatable price point which means that augmented reality and virtual reality is going to change industries completely and the way that they work. So we need to be really focused on what's happening in terms of technology and disruption for an association and what impact does that have on Generation Y and Generation Z and how we engage them and what value we can actually provide them. We need to play in those spaces. Their focus is really when they're doing training it's around how to get the job done and micro-learning and sales driven. So there's a big opportunity here for associations to focus on the career progression and the professional development of their members because organizations aren't going to be doing it anymore. They're more interested in how can I upskill my salespeople to get more sales? How can I upskill my consultants or my contractors to do the job but they're not looking at where are you going to be in five to ten years time? What professional development do you actually need as an employee and there's a big shift away from that from organizations? So we really need to be looking at that as an association, as a value add. Now we mentioned before that Gen Y they're looking at 10 to 20 careers per lifetime and they're more likely to move between jobs and industries so that means that an association really needs to look at how can we support a Gen Y or a Gen Z moving from their industry to ours and how can we make it really easy and accessible for them to come in via us? How can we provide that value to them and say hey come to us first to learn about the industry and to make it into the industry? They'll need training, they're going to need networks, they're going to want those experiential events that Belinda was talking about, they're going to want those online communities to engage with and ask questions from and possibly even accreditation in order to be employed and to be able to move into that industry. Now Gen Y and Gen Z both are looking for flexibility and to be their own boss. We're seeing the big rise of startup