what do they think

Adrants has a post about a panel -- led by Guy Kawasaki -- about young people's media habits. All of the young people on the panel are white and they're all from the Bay Area and they all have mommies and daddies with credit cards, so it's hardly scientific. In fact, it reminds me of conferences that I have been to in the past -- indie media conferences, advocacy conferences -- where young people are carted out to speak on behalf of their entire generation and the audience walks out, convinced that they know a little more than they actually do. And, of course, the organizers of the conference feel good because they were "inclusive".

(Ask me how I feel about focus groups sometime.)

Nevertheless, there are a few interesting comments -- justifying the number of text messages they send, blocking advertising and their lack of use of RSS feeds. I wasn't as mesmerized as Guy about the fact that they don't watch TV and he should really be embarrassed that he doesn't know who PEREZ Hilton is (not Paris).

The message has been confirmed: marketers and advertisers have some work to do. Back when I worked at Rock the Vote, I often reminded people that disengaged young voters won't all necessarily grow into being engaged adult voters, just as young people who manage to avoid ads will be adults who manage to avoid ads. This is about generational change. Their world is different than ours was.

By the way, I LOVE Veotag -- which is where you can watch the video of the panel. It enables you to incorporate clickable tags into online video, breaking the video into chapters and topic areas.

Did everyone else already know about this?