 I'm Nicole Golden. I am the Director here of the Youth Prosperity and Security Initiative. So as you can imagine just with that title alone, what a real privilege and pleasure it is to be sitting down tonight to hear from John Dogby about his amazing new book, which if you haven't read it, you should, and to have a chance to engage you all as well in a conversation about first globals or today's millennials. It's a real privilege, as I said, as John is going to talk about, and as you may know, the world's largest youth and sort of young person, the millennial cohort really in history, largest generation in history right now globally and of course having a huge impact here in the U.S., which is obviously the focus of John's recent book. His illustrious career I think is noteworthy to everyone. It's funny, one of the reasons I'm doubly excited is not often do I get to sit down with a fellow author of an article and if you find yourself in Italy, John and I are both very big in Italy this month and you should pick up this month's current version of Aspenia where we both happen to have pieces on millennials. John's focusing on the work of the book, on first globals here and mine, looking at global first globals, if you will, or more of the youth cohort. So really with that, since we don't have too much time, I'm going to pass the floor to John and let him tell us about some of the really fascinating findings in the book and then we'll have a conversation with you all from there. Thank you. Thanks for the nice intro and thanks for using amazing and illustrious. You just made my website. I just want you to know that. Well thank you. I'm going to start actually with a funny story. This just happened, so this is just in. I was in Wilmington, Delaware and I met with a group at the University of Wilmington that were part of a statewide youth employment workplace development board. And this story was told to me by the Chief of Operations of the State Police. And he said, you're not going to believe this, but a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from a 23-year-old state trooper telling me 45 minutes before his shift that he could not make it to work because the video game that he was playing, his team was about to invade Mogadishu. He asked me, can you make any sense out of that? I said, no, I just wrote this book. That's all. But you know what? I'm actually going to try to make some sense out of that throughout the course of my talk because I've come to the point where I kind of understand that. I'm not all the way there, but I kind of understand it. So let me tell you how all this came about. I have a very exciting career. I've had a very exciting career. And only part of that career has been the part where we generate the data. The most important and the most fun is taking all that data in large amounts and trying to figure out what it all means. And so I had written this first book about the future, The Way Will Be, and that came out in 1988. And one of the chapters was about these first globals. And it turned out that over the three and a half, almost four years of that just extended book tour, that was the most popular topic on the road, the most popular topic in the blogs, the most popular response that I heard. And so I decided to follow up with this book focusing on first globals alone and making two thirds of the book descriptive and updating a lot of the information in the first book. And then one third of the book is decidedly prescriptive as to now that we know all this, what is it that we can do? And so I'll go back to actually 2002, how this all came about. I was commissioned by the Foreign Policy Association in New York. They put on the great debates throughout the United States in communities all over the U.S. And they wanted to have some sort of an idea of context. So we're doing these great debates and people show up for them. But what do the American people think about a wide variety of foreign policy issues? So what are their attitudes towards nations, certain nations and certain cultures and certain alliances and certain enemies? What's the proper role of the United States in the world today? Are we a policeman or should we act in concert with our allies? Should we not act at all? We tested situations. What about multiculturalism in the U.S.? What about immigration, free trade? 3,000 Americans we talked to, about 150 questions. And as the results came in, what was so notable was that first of all, when you took America as a whole, on pretty much every issue we were split right down the middle. Welcome to America today. But then when I looked at those Americans who were 30 years of age and older, there was fundamental agreement just about everything. Some slight differences, 5, 6, 8 percentage points. Enough to be interesting. But then all the way over on the other side of the spectrum, dramatically different in terms of almost everything were these 18 to 30 year olds. They were just so different. Least likely to want America to be the sole superpower. Least likely to see war as a solution. Least likely to see American culture as inherently superior. Most likely to favor immigration. Just wildly different. And what brought it all home for me was one question that I tested back in O2 for the very first time. And it has been on every one of my surveys ever since. And that is, which of the following best describes who you are? A resident of your city or town, an American citizen, or a citizen of the planet Earth. Now it was not a majority who said a citizen of the planet Earth, but it was almost as many who said I'm a citizen of the planet Earth as I am an American citizen. And that was just so wildly different from every other age cohort. And so then the discussions began throughout the decade, and particularly after 9-11. Why are the feelings like this? And then I continued on within depth surveys of all of the age cohorts to try to find some reason why these kids were different. And before I answer that question, let me define some terms and offer some premises for you. First, as I see it, there are age groups and there are age cohorts. An age group is where you are in the life cycle. 20-somethings, this is the most profound thing you will hear tonight. 20-somethings are always 20-somethings. They care about me, how I look, what I should wear, what I'm doing on the weekend. Does he or she love me? What about a job? What about me? That's the essence of being a 20-something, which was brought home very powerfully to me. I was going through my mom's effects a few years ago. She had passed away a while ago, but I was going through all these effects and I found some letters that I had written home to my mom when I was in college. I was so annoying. These letters will never be seen by anyone. But that's the essence of being a 20-something. And too much of the criticism of millennials is because they're acting like 20-somethings. And much of the essence of being in your 40s and 50s is to absolutely blot out how you were when you were 20-something. I guess that's the sort of thing that keeps us going. But an age cohort is when history intrudes upon the lives of young people. And some kind of historical event is a game changer. And forms, shapes, and develops the values that late teens and 20-somethings will then carry with them for the rest of their lives. So a favorite story, one that I tell in the book, is of a favorite economics professor in college who, like most everyone in his age cohort, was a member of the greatest generation. He fought in World War II. And he would tell us stories informally how on Saturday night, December 6th, 1941, he and his friends would be sitting in their dormitories, as they always were, before going out and talking about the things that young men talked about, girls and sports. That was pretty much it. And then December 7th, 1941 was Pearl Harbor. And the next morning, a Monday morning, he said, we were all standing in line outside the Selective Service Bureau. And when we were at open, we were ready to serve, to protect and defend American lives, American honor, who we were. Those 20-somethings weren't born the greatest generation. History made them that. My generation, my cohort were boomers. Funny story, I was at Lafayette College. About six weeks ago, in Eastern Pennsylvania, about 400 people were there. And in the Q&A period, a student raised his hand. And he said, sir, can you please tell us how everyone should deal with our narcissism? And I said, young man, we boomers have given you so much. Don't you dare take our narcissism away from us. But here we were, we grew up in the heat of the Cold War. American values trumped everything. We were the greatest nation on earth. It was not only us versus them. We were good and they were evil. And that's what we were inculcated in. But then the game changer for us was the fire hoses in Birmingham. And the assassination of a president. And a war that initially didn't make sense, but then appeared to be good versus evil, or evil versus evil, but we weren't good or whatever. But that shaped our values. So fast forward now to the millennials, to our first globals. These kids, when you're 65, you can talk like that. These kids were already global. You had to sort of step back and watch what was happening as early as the 1990s. And incidentally, I write about those between 1979 and 1994. But now we've gone through 2013 and so we're adding a couple of million born in 1995 barring anything cataclysmic that will impact tweens and teens today and shape them in a different direction. We're ultimately looking at an age cohort that's already a close second in size in the United States to baby boomers. And could very easily come close if not actually tie the number of baby boomers. So the sheer numbers make them very important. About 74 million right now, 78 million baby boomers. But think about it, these kids played more soccer than baseball and football. Huge difference. That's a global sport. They paid attention to the World Cup. Manchester United. I remember, I tell the story all the time, our oldest son is 35. My wife and I went and signed him up for soccer. And it was one of those situations where they got down to the Z's because they couldn't find a coach. And so I became the coach. And I remember one of the fathers coming up to me and saying, John, we expect you to teach the fundamentals of soccer to these kids. Kick the ball and don't hurt yourself. That to me was the fundamentals of soccer. I had no, I never played soccer. But they did and it was global. I saw the evolution of MTV from nonstop 24 hour music videos to news reports about Oxfam and Amnesty International and global music. I saw the evolution of hip hop which started as so much great American music started in the inner city and was African American. But hip hop is global. It's not an American export that's global. It's so many strains of so many different kinds of cultures and music. In addition to all of that, we do these annual surveys for Hamilton College in upstate New York. Polls of young people. Every year we would do them in conjunction with the sociology class. And we'd ask a number of questions. But in this instance, we wondered how young people saw themselves in relationship to others. And what we discovered was that they were most likely to consider themselves global. Most likely in December of 2004, December 2004, they told us, what will America look like 20 years from now? They said Senator Barack Obama. That was four months after his speech. Why? Because he looks like us. They recognized that they were multicultural already. They recognized that they were already different. Very powerfully, as we sailed through the 1990s, we saw that these young people were so facile with technology that it was changing who they were, changing how they got their information. In the early surveys that we did in the 80s and 90s, we always asked the question, who are your friends? And invariably, you know, I work with so-and-so. She's in my gym class. I grew up with him. I played a little league with him or whatever the case may be. It was somebody local. By the late 90s, they were referring to their social networks. And their social networks that included people from Thailand and Sao Paulo. We're seeing this already. That in other words, they were exposed to a far larger playing field. So history then intruded upon their lives, twice. The first was 9-11. What's so important about 9-11 is what didn't happen, as opposed to what did happen. America was invaded again, and it was horrific. And it was seen by everybody over and over and over again. It's hard to believe, in fact. And yet, unlike the greatest generation that saw that attack or heard about that attack and turned inward, America the force of good against sheer evil. These kids understood good versus evil, but they didn't turn inward. They turned outward and said, how did this happen? And how could this happen among people who wear the same clothes we do? Who dress like us? Who follow the world cup like us? Who are just like us? That is what is so important about 9-11 in their lives. They did not turn ultra-security conscious. They turned ultra-global in their sensibility. Several years later was the Great Recession. If you're 30, 31 years of age, you've lived your entire adult life now in a Great Recession. That's had a huge impact. I'm going to get into politics a little bit later. But the one concern that I have, obviously, is the longer this lingers, the more I'm seeing a small but growing jaded group that doesn't trust anybody. And I call, and this is a very serious point, C-E-N-G-A, CINGA, college educated not going anywhere. And that's a very troubling. It's one of the reasons why third of this book is devoted to prescriptions. But now, let's examine our first globals in some detail. Number one, globals and their multicultural world. First and foremost, demographically, they're multicultural. So I'm a boomer. 81% of us are white. You are a Nike. I am. Yes. A generation Xer. I would have come clean. I would have, honestly. So I've got sons who are part Nike and part global. And they are about 61% or 62% white. And then I just showed you my little granddaughter who's eight months old today. And she is 48% white. So demographically, they live in a completely different world. It's not only that, though. You take first globals just born within those years, 66% have passports and have traveled abroad. And I will anticipate the question, yeah, but they're educated and no. Yes, the more educated and the more upscale are more global. But understand that this is a phenomenon that cuts across income, educational level, and race and ethnicity, region as well. You need to understand that. So 35% of this age cohort expect, not hope or wish, they expect to live and work in a foreign capital at some point in their lives. 60% say it's very or somewhat important to be fluent in a foreign language in order for me to succeed. 33% alone say it's very important to be fluent in a foreign language. Both of those figures are double the next oldest group, Nikes. Now, are 60% taking foreign languages? Are 33% mastering foreign languages? So the difference is the aspiration to do that, which then produces a demand to do that. Is American culture inherently superior to the cultures of, and then we list China and Southeast Asia and South Asia, Arab and Muslim, Latin, and so on? You need to understand this in context. Privates, that cohort that was born between 1926 and 1944, upwards of 70% say yes. American culture is superior. Boomers in the 60s percentile say yes. Nikes in most instances, the majority say yes. There's a few instances where they dip below 50%. First globals 41% to 48% say American culture is inherently superior. May not appear to be like an impressive number, but compare that to the other age cohorts. This is not in the book because this was recent. This was a test that I did. And essentially, we did a poll among globals alone. We asked attitudes towards 21 nations. Pollster talk, very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat un-you know how we talk. There was an NPR spoof on the Zogbees one time. I actually wasn't expecting it, and I heard it. And it was one of those things where, oh honey, I'm home, and my wife says, what would you like for dinner? I said, well, let's see. Choice one is choice two. Well, how was your day today? I'm somewhat happy, the spoof said, as opposed to very happy or somewhat un-well, anyway. So there's our scale, very favorable to very unfavorable. No surprises. UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, at or near the top, Iran, Syria, Egypt plugging away to get down at the bottom, all the other countries somewhere in the middle. Here's what is different. I thought what I would do was follow up by asking this question. I'm going to read this list of countries back to you. If you were asked by the State Department to be a goodwill ambassador in each of these countries for one year, would you say, number one, at the drop of a hat, that was the poll, at the drop of a hat, yes, I accept. Number two, I'd be reluctant, think about it, and then ultimately say yes. Number three, not consider it at all. In every instance, those who said the drop of a hat and ultimately yes, among First Globals, were nine to 15 points higher than the favorability rating for each country. I just found that fascinating and it suggests to me there's a lot more work to do on that, but that's very suggestive. There's a flexibility there. Globals in the workplace, this is something that has been completely and totally misunderstood. And confession, my son now runs and owns the company, but I was an employer and so I sort of feel like some of you remember the ad, the hair club for men. I was both a president and a client. And so I'd be on the road, I've been on the road 250, 270 days a year for many years. And in the last decade, I'd come back and I'd see young people that were hired either when I was gone or that I hired and then they were there. I didn't know who they were and I'd come back and why do they have a mobile device in their left hand and a mouse in their right hand? And my chief of staff would put his armor on my shoulder and say, they're marketing Zogby worldwide. All right, okay, so I just tiptoe into my office. Why are they on eBay at 2.30 in the afternoon? They're saving you money on hard work. So I could envision this scarlet letter, I, irrelevant on my forehead. Just go in the office and be quiet, let them just run it. They know what they're doing, right? The book on them, they're not nine to five. They're not. They're seven and 24. They're always on. And being on means being global. If their networks, their contacts, if their interests are worldwide, nine to five is a very narrow window. Number two, they want to change the world. 85%, that is so spectacularly higher than any other age cohort. 85% say, I want to change the world. I want to make a difference. I want to make it a better place. 71% want to work for an entity that affords them that opportunity to do so. I know in my own consulting over the years, go back 24, 20, 18 years ago, we had to work for Fortune 500 companies here and overseas, and then they would say to us, and while you're doing the survey, we have this little program, CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility. We want to test it and see if we're doing the right thing. Oh my God, CSR is absolutely essential to the branding of any company, including your local dry cleaner. You get into a taxi cab. We're green, it says. They have Priuses now. Every company has to do it. Well, the customers demand it, and the employees demand it as well. More about globals. 60% say that it is very important to them to support a global charity. Now, I'm often asked, well, how does that compare with previous groups of 20-somethings? Nobody would have even thought to ask that question. I certainly didn't years ago, so I have no comparison. All I know is that 60% today say it's very important to support a global charity. What else about them? This, to me, is the most outstanding piece of all. Those of us, and I'm not demeaning us, especially us boomers, because God knows we came directly from God to this plan. But we are steeped and schooled in verticalism. In other words, we are bureaucratic. That's the world in which we grew up. That's how decisions were made. That's how we think. Typically, we see a problem. You report it to your supervisor, your assistant manager, your boss. And the way it works, invariably, in bureaucracies, is that by the time it gets up to the third link in the chain of command, that's about six months later, everybody forgot what the problem was in the first place. We didn't have a problem. Problem solved. Kids are horizontal and immediate. There is a problem. It must be resolved, and it must be resolved quickly. How do I do it? Somewhere out there is a solution. I'm going to send that out via crowdsourcing. I'm going to go to my network, and hopefully that network goes to its network. It goes viral, and then solutions come back. Why do solutions come back? Because you made me feel important by asking me in the first place. And you making me feel important is cool. I owe you a response. And the genius behind that is that not only do solutions come back, but they get tested as you go out, and in, out, and in, and you're building consensus resolution. You should read Parig Khanna. Do you know that name? Leading public intellectual in this town. New American Foundation, and Young Man. I know that. How to run the world. Are you familiar with that book? Read that one. I just want you to buy mine, but read his. Finally, marriage and the family. Three out of four globals want to be married. It is very important to them. Find that interesting. Marriage, first of all, gay marriage is not even on the radar screen. It's just not even an issue. But in terms of marriage, the viewpoint is different. 16%, not a high figure, not so much higher than any of the other age cohorts. 16% say it's likely that my spouse and I will be living on different continents. 15%, 16% say it's likely that we share raising a child living in two different countries. Very intriguing. But let me end on a very, very intriguing point. Because, you know, last year, earlier in the year, there were two best sellers. One was a runaway best seller. Cheryl Sandberg. Lean in. Yes, women are their own worst enemies when it comes to success in the business world. You can have it all. You can be a super mom and you can become a CEO. But women are their own worst enemies. They need to lean in. Only for a short time, Gabby Reese's book was high on the list. And Gabby Reese, Gabrielle Reese, former Olympian volleyball star, model, six foot three. And her book was My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper. And basically, she said, you know, when she got married, she decided, my kids need me to nurture them. My husband needs me to be a wife and the mom at home for the, you know, blah, blah, blah, the interest and stability of the family. So, America, where do you stand? Which author's thesis do you subscribe to? America as a whole? Split. Right down the middle. Now, first globals lean towards leaning in. 37, 29. Cheryl Sandberg over Gabby Reese. However, among young men, it's 27% Cheryl Sandberg, 29% Gabby Reese. And among young women, it's 51% Cheryl Sandberg and 23% Gabby Reese. That's going to be a really interesting conversation to be watching. And those are one of the advantages of being 65 in this world today. I can just watch it as a student and a pollster. Thank you very much. There's a lot to talk about. So indeed, there's a lot to talk about. I'll close with one intriguing point. I think you opened, continued and closed with many intriguing points. So I'll kick us off with a few questions and then we'll have some time for some of your questions. One point you touched upon was in terms of the globalness, the interest in foreign languages, the interest in other countries and having a passport and travel. When I think back as a Nike to the languages that were offered when I went to public school, English, French, obviously English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, that was the basics. And now I know there's so much more offerings. And I'm curious if you picked up a change in what languages and just the way that young, that first schools are engaging in the world differently than the Nikes or other groups Well, you know, it's not large numbers yet but there are numbers in Mandarin and Arabic, Russian and of course those who are taking Spanish as opposed to French and German. That's significant. It leads to another question though and we were talking about this last night in Tulsa. There are so many decisions that need to be made about public education including how decisions are made and including at some point I want to address our state trooper friend in Wilmington but one of the things that needs to be addressed is you can't expect fluency in language by taking it in 9th, 10th and 11th grade and then never taking it at all. This is the sort of thing that starts in preschool and kindergarten and you carry through the rest of your lives where the models all over the rest of the world is where the models are as opposed to here and that will happen not because only it will be demanded by millennials and millennials as parents but also the very incillary of the world now as opposed to a nation in splendid isolation it's funny you mentioned that when I came out of school and was entering the workplace and you have your resume and people say oh do you speak any other languages or what languages do you speak besides English presumably and I would say well I took French in school and it was that very point because I had three years of public high school French education it was fine to see among Europeans or other peers then and certainly not now but it relates to another point that you brought up which I want to take a minute to talk about more which is the language you use for first global sanghas college educated not going anywhere about 12 to 15 percent of global 12 to 15 percent and so when I hear that I think of a parallel in the global context which is an acronym for not engage in education, employment or training which is currently globally about 25 percent of the world's youth, young people are part of this category and one of the and sort of that ties into the global unemployment crisis that we have one of the reasons for that and we talked a little bit about this as well is the skills mismatch even if they're coming out of college they may not have the right skills whether it's the language the math, the science the soft skills, the life skills whatever it is to get the job that's available and so I'm curious for thoughts on that but related to that also is that as you may know in this room this is global entrepreneurship week and so I think it's just an interesting time to make that connection and your thoughts on how you see sanghas and those trends and the global recession driving some of what we see as these trends for young entrepreneurs and entrepreneurism and we see that globally as well as here in the U.S. and I'd love your thoughts on that. You raised a number of things so let me just do them in bullet fashion. Number one there are 25 percent of young people who are not engaged I think what is remarkable however is the flip side of that that 75 percent are engaged. There's been an enormous growth over the last 15 years in what we refer to in the rest of the world as the C class and so movement from real poverty into having some sort of disposable income which affords the opportunity then to move to the next level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I can start thinking of more than just providing food for myself I can even think of a future and so the demand then in education and then some standards in education. In terms of global entrepreneurship week I have a couple of blog posts that are out this week and I am a supporter with the Kaufman Foundation and Global Entrepreneurship Week in the sense that let's just focus on this country alone. Kids are now less in a job economy and more into what Alan Blinder at Princeton refers to as the gig economy so today's 20 somethings can expect to have 4 gigs by the age of 30 and 10 by the age of 40 what that means is that the same sorts of skills that are required to start a business are the basic skills that are required to survive and thrive in a gig economy you need to be nimble you need to have multiple skills and know how to draw on those skills not only as you are serving your project and taking care of your current gig but as you are looking ahead for the next gig and wondering now how do I sell myself for the next gig and which from my bag of skills that I have obtained do I draw from now young people come to me all the time and ask how do I start it let me see your resume and I would suggest that professional printers create a stamp with a 3.8 on it because everybody's resume 3.8 I am not interested in your 3.8 I am not I don't know of employers that are why would they be everybody else has one you know what I am interested in is so you worked as a camp counselor now did you resolve a conflict did you counsel a student did you talk someone out of doing something desperate did you help somebody get out of trouble you worked as a cashier did you save money did you ask money in other words tell me what it is you know how to do more importantly tell me what it is you've actually done have you been a mentor you've been a coach what is it that you bring to the table that's the game changer now how does that relate that's entrepreneurism that's the sort of thing that someone who starts a business instinctively knows how to do those who succeed instinctively knows how to do what makes me different I think that translates into being entrepreneurial in whatever place you are I think that's something that we see more and more another full disclosure moment I'm a Nike and I'm also an economist so my I know we at least have to be right every once in a while but and so with that so my frame is often goes down to kind of a supply and demand you know kind of you so talking about the supply side what are the skills that we've talked a little bit about in globals and you also mentioned what globals are looking for in the workplace and how they're demanding more of their employers and you talk about some prescriptions in the book and I'm curious because I think you're right I think we see an increasing appetite from millennial workforce to be purposeful in their work not only in the companies they work for but as you talked about the way that their time is matched and their time is valued and they can do volunteering and some of the things so I'm just curious again what you see around that and how that also may translate into the way that young people are giving you talked about some of the charity and then you also connected that to you talked about some of the immediacy the results orientation the short term nature the impatience in some ways of young people and I see that in terms of the use of platforms like Akiva with young people the direct relationship that young people want to have that globals want to have with their philanthropy with their time that there's an impatience to it and I'm just curious if you see that and how from a demand side from an employer side they can meet that demand once again in bullets the good thing is you can be involved without having to attend a meeting every other Tuesday you know the other thing is on the one hand there is impulsive giving but it's don't laugh it is thoughtful impulsive it's something that you know hits you right where you're at and the new model you know this is something I consulted with the World Health Organization and UNAIDS you know the old model you know is that you find 35 people to give a million dollars or more that's the old model the new model is you find a million people to give 35 dollars and the power of that resource is that once you've gotten that million people you know there's another 35 dollars out there just waiting in the wings for the next time how do you reach them the power of social media I mean one of the things that I told the UNAIDS forget about the full page Adam the Washington Post and the New York Times you're pissing money away and that incidentally that's the first time that a naughty word has been used in this new building I want you to know I think probably not but the power then is arm your your caregivers with mobile devices I just handed someone medication that will prolong their life that's I figure that's 140 characters right that's the sort of stuff now the young people want to volunteer they are volunteering remember they've been literally schooled in volunteering they're part of mandatory school mandatory secondary education so it's something that they've come to expect another thing and this is the sort of work I do with United Ways and chambers of commerce with mayors is there is this conventional wisdom that has been sewed in pillows for hundreds of years and that's where the heart is and the truth is millennials are leading the charge of redefining what space and geography is all about so I may live in San Diego but I'm from Peoria I love Peoria nobody makes pizza like Joe's in Peoria basically I live in San Diego and pay property taxes maybe in San Diego but reach out to me Peoria because I can be an ambassador I may give to the United Way I think that we have to just redefine when people live in a much smaller world what it means to be involved in their quote local community as well and before we turn over to you I'm gonna sort of go back to almost where you started from which is one of the things that struck me so much about your book was just the opportunistic tone and neither of us are first global but I think both of us would like to categorize ourselves as friends of first global friends of first global that's a terrible acronym so I won't even go there but as a phrase it sounds quite nice fog anyway so I'm curious you know the book came out you've been speaking are you as optimistic now I like this quote from the book is you wrote it to showcase the promise and potential and the possible lost opportunity if we don't act now so I agree with that sentiment for sort of American first global and really for global first global so now we're here does that still hold are you still optimistic it is and it's not just simply a feeling I was in Tulsa last night young man came up to me and said you know we followed your advice and now the mayor who I had spoken to at a conference of mayors has a Tulsa 1000 of young people that he reaches out to that his staff reaches out to just to find out not only what they're thinking and not only to find out what's cool but what do they think about certain agenda items and how problems need to be resolved now when I fly back home and I live in a small upstate New York City of Utica I will go directly from the airport to the first salon follow up of the Ted lecture that we had there last month we're developing an eight-point agenda designed to get globals on local boards and to resolve some housing issues and I think that's very cool no I'm very optimistic as opposed to somewhat optimistic or not optimistic or not optimistic at all so on that optimistic I think we have time for a few questions whatever yeah sure one two three four yep and you got a microphone coming you want to take them all at once no I'll answer them quickly each one in turn my name is Leonid Desichne I study global affairs question what you can name even without big explanations what main task can resolve now humanity as in general all humanity what's main task for humanity main problem I not mean tornado and natural disaster social disaster what do you mean what is biggest problem for humanity now well there are many you know but the we're in the middle of a revolution this is not cliche we're in the middle of a revolution this is tantamount to the serfs and peasants who chipped away and destroyed feudalism as did the bourgeoisie but that took a thousand years this is happening minute by minute in our lives it's happening rapidly we're trying to play catch up with what's happening and it's hard to understand this is like the year 1848 all over again 1919 all over again all these revolutions all at once but this is the big one so on one hand we're having creative destruction or just pure destruction on the other hand we're running trying to build new pillars depending on where you go obviously it's it's economic growing that next economy that we know needs to be grown and doing it quickly because our current economy and fiscal institutions and government simply can't sustain what we have so it's jobs, jobs, gigs jobs, growth but if you go now to the countries that have actually had physical revolutions I did 24 focus groups in Tunisia I pulled there, I pulled in Egypt as well and so on one hand young people and let's focus on that young people are saying we need jobs but we also want to be safe and stable so the very young, cool people that I met with over and over again in Tunisia who hated the Islamists ultimately quote enabled the Islamists not only because there really wasn't any opposition that meant anything to them but they figured there was safety and stability because these folks at least were organized what they didn't want to go is all of a sudden from an authoritarian regime to a state of nature or a failed state so that's by way of saying how do we reconcile how do we handle a revolution and do it and transform it in a way that there's some stability fast forward and out of the United States everything is crumbling beautiful dome over there you know doesn't work anymore one of the reasons why I'm high on millennials is that and forgive me for using the word paradigm I hate that word but but the old liberal conservative dialogue and competition doesn't mean anything to them for a bunch of reasons one is conservatism has just run its course liberalism has run its course so it's not they're not problem solvers anymore besides even if they were problem solvers one of the reasons why those ideologies and competition served us well is that there was a small element of concentricity to those circles there were a handful liberals and a handful of conservatives who believed in this is a term you have not heard in a long time it's called the national interest and who had a sense that you know we can make some deals with each other and move forward that's gone that's simply gone ironically the polls show that there are about 30% of the American people who say that that's exactly what they want that's almost as big as both parties I believe that millennials and this is I'm researching this right now so you're kind of hear this for the first time I think millennials are launching the new debate it's now between libertarianism and communitarianism and those are softer ideologies and there's an element of concentricity they are concentric with each other enough so that there is some hope somewhere in there is the answer to your question okay thank you very much Audrey with the Pakistan American League it was a delight listening to you and it was really like a treat about your analysis, about your observations about your recommendations and then in this new building which has its own grandeur it's the first time that I'm listening to somebody and that is another treat for me somebody in a three-piece suit oh thank you this is what smart people are wearing in 2014 yes since you had done so much of analysis and come across so many people questions so many people gathered so much of data in your point of view and in your point of view of your insight and foresight what do you think a contemporary man what kind of assets of values which cement people, families together what kind of assets of compassion and humanism the contemporary man and what level of emotion the contemporary man will have to express them when they meet their beloved ones okay wow it's not that I don't know the answer I know many answers I think having been trained as an historian and taught it for many years that it's so important to understand context and I would start by saying we can move this ball forward if we understand how far we have come as opposed to saying the world is going to hell we are evil people we are the worst that we ever have been in humanity no we're not please read Steven Pinker's book the better angels of our nature I read the whole thing it's about a thousand pages stunning about how far we have moved as human beings and all the efforts we have made to civilize ourselves and humanize ourselves I think we begin by understanding that we are good and we have a capacity to do good things but then at the same time in the spirit of revolution which we are living in the key word is nimble not only my message to millennials it's a message to all of us I was just in Albuquerque I was with an organization there was a mass resignation by some of the best people in the organization because a few of the board members used the most dangerous words that can be used on this planet today we are going to do things the way we have always done them dangerous you can't do anything the way you've always done it so wow employers go with the flow look 74 75 I don't know where it stops 76 million millennials guess what they are the dominant force 10 years from now period not only that 10 years from now they will be in leadership positions or team work council positions however it is they decide they are going to do it employers embrace it the employer who says the way we've always done it spouses somebody asked me a question yesterday in Tulsa what's it mean to be a man anymore Jesus is the car running take me to the airport right now I'm just a pollster I don't know the answer to that very good question but what I do know is the most dangerous words on the planet we're going to do things the way we've no we're not embrace it be nimble be cognizant wow you led with such a nice compliment I thought you were just going to do it again but that was a tough enough one yes sir and then you have a question it's hi, Britt Mitchell, Pastor Britt from Baltimore regular tender here at CSIS I've actually been in one of your groups before but I have a question I took the church in Baltimore in 1995 and it was a small church which we grew to almost a thousand members very interracial very progressive I kind of picked up to me a bunch of young folks just coming out of college graduate school usually and they kind of hung out with me and from 2000 to maybe 2004 we did demonstrations for Darfur against the war some of the lawyers helped me with social justice issues on the streets of Baltimore but lo and behold the influence to me between that time and when I retired in 2009 these folks got successful and they all started driving Nexus and Lexis and pretty soon I was an embarrassment to them and they pulled completely away from anything that I'm doing the two lawyers became lawyers for the police department interestingly enough but what our question is is we're talking about millennials and really some really good stuff but what happens when social needs and hope success hopefully for them does that change any of their egalitarianism or I don't know what we're going to after thank you wow that's a powerful story first of all there is and this is going to seem very harsh but there is a silver lining to the Great Recession millennials were what sociologists would used to refer to as pretty porky at one time I remember as an employer can you tell me how I can become COO of Zogby International over the next three years I have options you know well one of your options is wait till I die and then come back and ask the next person so now the flip side is do you have anything I need to get started so I kind of like the humility a whole lot better so I think there's going to be quite a bit of deferred success for this next crop of millennials secondly these are values that are formed and I don't see success getting in the way of that at all Wall Street and corporate success it could be the way of some I don't see that as endemic at all I still see these young people as being defined by their concern for the other which leads to I think a very important point remember I told you in the very beginning they were the least likely to want to go to war and two things one is war means a whole lot an exercise to them we're not talking battlefields anymore we're talking technology the second thing is you go to war against the other and then what you need to do is create an ideology that establishes the other as the devil and it's hard to do that in broad over a broad culture they have so much shared culture with each other demographically alone in this country but what they've been exposed to in video in the rest of the world and through their social media so I remain hopeful but I'm sorry about that story I'm sorry to hear that you shouldn't have retired I think we've got one more this will be the last question you had yours up early though maybe we do those too we have two women a nice woman Hi my name is Chester I'm a millennial and unfortunately also sang at the moment whatever your acronym was about college educated but kind of going nowhere we talked a lot about hope tonight but for me when I turn on the news often evening I hear phrases thrown around like generational theft and I hear reports about how my generation for us wages are stagnating at this point and basically in a nutshell how we're essentially going to have to clean up the mess that has accrued over the past two, three generations so in contrast to what you have in your book why should I share your optimism could you just give me a reason why I should basically keep my chin up and say I really am looking forward to the future when yes I can when sometimes there's such apocalyptic language being used to talk about what the US is going to look like in 10, 20 years right what I'm going to tell you is what I tell a lot of people and I mean this sincerely number one do not watch the news because it's bad news and good news is not news on the other hand go and take a look at what people your age are doing to make this world a better place here's your assignment visit this website anyone ever heard of a vase raise your hand I'm really happy to know that avaz.org don't do it right this second okay they're up to almost 30 million now almost up to 30 million they are changing the world you know that not only have they won some major successes major successes through their petition drives but Dilma, Rousseff in Brazil her reforms because she was on the hot seat was that any petition submitted to her 500,000 signatures or more must be taken up by Houses of Congress in Brazil that's huge and note that legislation that created that did not say 500,000 or more Brazilians that's another thing that I think that's pretty powerful stuff this is 12 young people in Manhattan that have a network of 30 million now and can get a million signatures go out and look at the positive things that are being done the volunteerism that's taking place and sure there are tremendous opportunities for crime and mayhem and violence but at the same time there are tremendous opportunities to counter those things with very positive things look I end up being a cup half full guy I look at the poverty and I see it in all of these countries by the same token I've seen so many people moving out of poverty in a short span and know that there's now the capacity to make that much more progress over the next 15 years when Kofi Annan announced the millennial goals people just sort of chuckled and yet the goals in terms of poverty and literacy surpassed his goals in a shorter time frame than he laid out keep your chin up that was the right answer last question and you had one too she's going to get it and then we're going to sign all those books first schools thank you are so focused or have passwords and are trying to go abroad and are so interested how do they react maybe differently to the generations before when they then go to Europe go to Asia and encounter anti-Americanism that is persistent even growing in some places are they being naive or do they have a strategy to I don't know be more positive about it put a Canadian patch on their backpack I actually did that once do you know something an Arab diplomat once said this to me and I know it to be true he said we love America it's the United States we have a problem with I think that's really intriguing for starters there's been a sea change in terms of Americans traveling and how they travel we were the most hated of travelers at one time I spoke at the University of La Sapienza in Rome 150,000 students they're very big in Italy yes we are we define millennials in Italy do you know that there was this auditorium a classroom there were 300 desks it was July and school was out of session and so all the seats were up and in the middle and one of the seats there was a piece of blue bubble gum and the professor said to me there was an American student he said that is changing now somebody said to me the other day in Albuquerque you're depicting young people who hate America no no no I'm depicting a group that happened to be more accepting of other cultures leading with that that will be noticed by them yes my final question is just about you polling other age groups about what they think about millennials have you polled baby boomers because I'm optimistic about being a part of being a global citizen and being a millennial and I work in a big company and have my own ideas and put that out there but I want to know what other people think about us do they think that we're just throwing everything out there constantly and wanting to change the world in one big swoop are they excited with us what are your thoughts you're right it's one not two they don't understand that's one of the reasons I wrote the book yeah they don't and the book is written as much not simply to encourage you but to answer the question the way I answered you which is embrace first and foremost embrace because we're stuck in a mode of thinking we're stuck in a mode of decision making and I'm going to end where I started back to the 23 year old trooper go to work you know I'd beat him with a two by four and send him to work what are you crazy who wants to go to Mogadishu anyway I mean for God's sakes but with that said working in teams making quick decisions thinking strategically making tactical changes you know who's the fellow Bloom who wrote everything I learned I learned in kindergarten no everything I learned I learned through playing video games and I say embrace that too thanks