Dear Old People Who Run the World…

… my generation would like to break up with you.

That’s how a blog post titled “Generation M Manifesto“ begins to explain a social shift to the leader of the G8 that many of us already realize is underway. Umair Haque penned this provocative post on the Harvard Business Review blog last week and I”ve gone back to re-read it a few times since. After you read this post, go read the full Manifesto post… there is more in there than I cover.

What is “Generation M”? Haque moves it out of the marketing demographic terminology that defines it as youth born since 1990 and explains it like this:

What do the “M”s in Generation M stand for? The first is for a movement. It’s a little bit about age — but mostly about a growing number of people who are acting very differently. They are doing meaningful stuff that matters the most. Those are the second, third, and fourth “M”s.

Gen M is about passion, responsibility, authenticity, and challenging yesterday’s way of everything. Everywhere I look, I see an explosion of Gen M businesses, NGOs, open-source communities, local initiatives, government. Who’s Gen M? Obama, kind of. Larry and Sergey. The Threadless, Etsy, and Flickr guys. Ev, Biz and the Twitter crew. Tehran 2.0. The folks at Kiva, Talking Points Memo, and FindtheFarmer. Shigeru Miyamoto, Steve Jobs, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Sachs are like the grandpas of Gen M. There are tons where these innovators came from.

Haque does a great job concisely extracting the key differences between the traditional institutions and the emerging social movement. Among my favorites…

You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.

You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.

You didn’t care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.

You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.

You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.

You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.

You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful.

As much as the discussion of new communities and the denunciation of consumerism struck strong cords with my own values and goals, that last statement was the home-run statement for me… We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful. What is meaningful? What is needed? What should we REALLY be focusing on?

Call me an idealist, call me a dreamer, tell me I’m aiming too high, but I have to agree with Umair on this one… I am part of this Generation M and I hope to make my children part of it too. Something like this isn’t about age, market segmentation, or “the new movement”…

Here’s what it looks like to me: every generation has a challenge, and this, I think, is ours: to foot the bill for yesterday’s profligacy — and to create, instead, an authentically, sustainably shared prosperity.

Anyone — young or old — can answer it. Generation M is more about what you do and who you are than when you were born.

I think I am going to have this in my head for a while, so expect some more directly or indirectly related posts as I splash around in this little brainpuddle.

• What about this “Generation M” idea resonates with you?
• What would you add to the differentiators?
• What do you agree or disagree with?