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February 21, 2007
A Contradiction in Terms
Tom Mohr, former president of Knight Ridder Digital, is talking in the CEO session about the changing business of online newspapers. He keeps using a phrase that's driving me crazy when talking about opportunities to attract young "readers" - "Gen Y consumers." Generation Y, he acknowledges, has grown up entirely digital, but he isn't talking about the fact that they don't see themselves as consumers. They're producers, not to mention bloggers, remixers, gamers, vloggers - but they are not consumers in the way previous generations of business execs have defined the term. They are not sponges - they give back to the Net and expect us to respect that essential nature of their personality. Until we come to grips with that, we're doomed to keep making the same mistakes.
The consumer is dead, long live the producer. -andy
Tags: business | consumers | digital natives | Generation Y | ima2007 | Knight-Ridder | newspapers | producers | Tom Mohr
Posted by acarvin at February 21, 2007 11:28 AM
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