First Globals Understanding, Managing, & Unleashing the Potential of Our Millennial Generation

Veteran pollster John Zogby teams up with leading Millennial Management Consultant Joan Snyder Kuhl to provide a detailed analysis of why Americans born between 1979 and 1994 are truly more globally aware and sensitive, how they want to make their workplace and planet a better place, and how we begin to understand them and position them better to play out their destiny. First Globals are a transformative group and Zogby and Kuhl provide a clear road map for managers, marketers, change-makers, parents, and First Globals themselves.

So much of the literature written and blogosphere discussion about Millennials has been about their self-centered-ness, even outright selfishness, immaturity, deferred adulthood, and laziness. To a great degree this is simply ahistorical and out of context. For nearly one hundred years (think the "Roaring Twenties" era of flappers, fraternity pranks, bathtub gin, automobiles denounced as "houses of prostitution on wheels") twenty-somethings have been generally focused on themselves. "Hooking up", staying at home until married, low-end startup jobs (especially for young women) are not really new at all. Over the past three decades, parents have structured the lives of First Globals and raised their (and our) expectations too much, just as we have (until 2007 at least) proffered too many choices that were bound to be unfulfilled. With so many going to college and accumulating so much student loan debt, it is not surprising at all that there is a lot of impatience, disillusionment, and deferred (even lost) dreams.

Our book is a revisionist examination of who First Globals really are, what they have to offer, and how they are the best equipped of all to thrive and solve the problems of our shared world today and tomorrow. It is a call to action, a handbook for those who lead and want to lead, and a more holistic depiction of an outstanding group with so much potential.

It doesn't do any good to bash an entire age cohort. They are destined by their sheer numbers and outstanding talents to lead the world. Let's get busy.

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Endorsement from John Kenneth White, Professor of Politics, Catholic University of America and the author of Barack Obama's America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era. amzn.com/0472033913

"John Zogby and Joan Synder Kuhl cannot predict the future, but they have given us a firm understanding of today's young people who will shape it. Today's First Globals are survivors of two calamities-the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the financial crisis of 2008. The first made them more global in their outlook and less susceptible to material rewards. The latter created a subclass that Zogby and Kuhl label College-Educated Not Going Anywhere (CENGAs). Despite it all, today's First Globals are determined to seize the future and make it their own. They think horizontally, not vertically-i.e., wanting relationships that shun hierarchy and get the job done. They no longer have the assurance of a job that span decades, but they are willing to stick with an employer that eschews outdated rules and grants quick advancement. In politics, they have twice supported Barack Obama by large margins. But Democrats cannot take First Globals for granted, and Republicans have lots of work to do to win their support. Politicians will want to read this book to divine the future. Employers should read this book to market themselves to a generation that has been singed by tragedies, yet remains optimistic that the future is still theirs. And everyone else should put this at the top of their reading list to see how the twenty-first century will unfold."