By Teresa A. Martin
My, my, my, I didn’t have go Out & About anywhere to figure out that I touched a nerve last week!
If you remember, I wrote about the Cape Cod Young Professionals and the notion that an important part of changing the perception of our region is for us to stand up and be counted – to show that we have a diversity of ages, a diversity of skills, and a diversity of potential - i.e., we aren’t a region with naught but cranberries and beaches.
Of course, I do like both cranberries and beaches very much, but we all know this region is also home to IT professionals, high-level business consultants, nationally known digital artists of many stripes, creative entrepreneurs, developers of sustainable energy technology, patent holders of environmental technology, senior managers for global corporations, researchers, scientists ... you get the point: there’s a lot more here than meets the eye.
We also know that demographers ID this region as having a very high concentration of retirees – but we also have Baby Boomers who are in the peak of their careers. And recent college graduates. And everyone in between.
We are far more interesting than many people think we are – and that’s why we need to stand up and be counted!
I received a great deal of email with cheers for the formation of the young professionals organization. It is clear that there is a hunger for finding out that others have chosen the Cape as a place to build a career and life, and for not feeling isolated in that decision. Stand up and be counted!
I also received a number of messages from fellow Baby-Boomers who expressed a strong level of frustration. Each message expressed, in various tones and language, a sense that they were the left out ones. The shared experience is of deciding to make a life change but of still wanting to have a professional life – and finding that the Cape didn’t want them.
Ow! The message I heard over and over is one of lost opportunity, that despite trying over and over, these folks just haven’t been able to connect their well-honed skills and strong talents with the organizations who say they can’t find these very skills and talents within the region.
Clearly something is misfiring.
In the reading these emails I also came to realize that generational issues may be another elephant in the room, one that’s more sensitive to talk about than anyone realized. So, that means we really need to turn a spotlight on it and figure out what it’s all about!
I’ve always believed that life is more about stages than ages. Are you in start-up mode launching a new company? Are you in wind-down mode after selling a company? Are you in career changing mode, exploring what you next move might be? The stage of professional experience is, for me at least, a stronger affiliation than the year in which one was born.
So why is a large wave of Baby Boomers in our region feeling disconnected from the professional scene? Is it age or stage? And, more importantly, what does it take to add these talented folks to the roster of interesting and diverse people standing up loud and proud?
Some of the suggestions look the roundtable model – would a CIO roundtable connect and show critical mass of IT talent? What about a CEO roundtable? Or a consultants spotlight? Email us if you like any of these ideas and want to make them real. Or, if you have other ideas! The collective thought process of us all is where we’ll all find the solution.
No generation is more important than the other. Each brings something special to the mix and having a mix is what makes a region vibrant, interesting, and full of potential.
Life among others who are exactly like us is pretty limiting. Even Squidward learned that.
OK, I’m going to confess that I have, from time to time, watched SpongeBob. Just in case you’ve missed this chapter of popular culture, SpongeBob Squarepants is a Nickelodeon cartoon show. One of the characters is Squidward, who is described as a mean, whiny, stick-in-the-mud squid who thinks he's better than everyone else.
In one episode, he gets tired of being the next-door neighbor of the perpetually optimistic and earnest child-like SpongeBob. He moves to the neighborhood where the other squids live and he’s delighted because he’ll finally get to be with others who are just like him. Hah.
In short order (well, it’s just a short cartoon episode!) he’s miserable. Life is boring. By the end he’s returned to the old neighborhood where he can grouch at SpongeBob but be alive in the diversity.
It’s great to have a watering hole -- or five or fifteen of them. We need to celebrate them all, create more of them, and let the world see that our Cape and SE MA region isn’t filled just with Squidwards or just with SpongeBobs, but with a mix of these and more. And that through that mix, we are building an interesting and diverse human and professional ecosystem.
And that is definitely worth standing up for.
Become a Member
