Fantastic news, Marion Salzman solved the problem of description even before it came up. “Cuspers,” go to it. You people born between the years 1954-1965, the group of not-quite-old-yet, you’re time is now. It’s true, people I studied in University are actually going to get into the game, politically. Now. What’s going to happen! Anything is possible. Researchers, writers and scientists who have been developing all of the ideas I find exciting and probable under the right circumstances are going to get to play. They get in the room, Obama got them the room, he and his team will share it. I’m excited! (Let the stock market with rise with my optimism.)
Bushies on up, old people just don’t get it. They can try. I mean, McCain learned how to email… But we go faster than them. (My laptop, my friend, if only spell check recognized the name Obama…)
And I reevaluate my former opinion, the hybrids of the wirearchy (the Millennials?) perhaps needs a bit more time to develop our skills, ripen if you will, with experience before we can do it all. I’m thinking of the hugely talented pool of young wippersnappers coming up at the moment. A few are there now, but many have a bit more to go. All’s well, we can still help.
gint2000 said,
January 26, 2009 @ 6:32 am
I was born in 1962 and never felt like a Bomer or an Xer, so I’ve been glad that our lost generation finally has a name: Generation Jones.
And not “cuspers”! Eccchh. Yuk. After all these years of being denied a collective name, the last thing we should get is name that defines us by our neighbors, ie. we should be defined by who we are, not who we aren’t. Cuspers implies we are not really our own generation, just a segment on the cusp between real generations. Moot point, since Cuspers has never caught on at all, while Generation Jones has already established itself as very popular with a national following. Google Cuspers and you’ll see that virtually nobody uses that term for the generation between the Boomers and Xers. Cuspers was proposed as a name for this generation 10 years ago when Boomers and Xers were the two dominant generations, but it never caught on at all, and anyway, doesn’t even make sense at this point, since now people between GenX and GenY, and those born between GenY and GenZ, are called cuspers.
By contrast, google the term Generation Jones, and you’ll see that it’s gained a big national following…it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from numerous top publications and networks (New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones. While literally no prominent voices use the terms cuspers or Generation Obama for this age cohort, a long list of prominent names regularly use the term Generation Jones for it.
I think the reason I’m passionate about this is because I care about our generation finally having our collective voice heard, and been so glad that we finally have a name that has caught on–Generation Jones–that I’m annoyed by this distraction of any other terms which obviously are not going to catch on.
We are Generation Jones, and let’s get on with the business of fixing this country.
Jon Husband said,
February 4, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
Hey there .. thanks for noticing the concept of wirearchy, much appreciated.
Re: your post .. I am almost old (born in ‘54) and I understand your point about older people not “getting it”, which as a generalization is true.
That said, I know a whack of people roughly my age (50 on up) who have been blogging and interconnecting and social media-ing since well before most teenagers knew what a blog was and before they could afford mobile phones.
There are huge changes yet to come .. and each age cohort has its characteristics .. the younger generation know much better than us oldies how to connect, collaborate and co-create .. and “manage” it all. But, like each generation that grows up, they don’t have a lot of context and / or experience in the “messy wicked challenges” of adult life to bring to the party.
In a highly-and-growingly fragmented world, making vast generalizations is a tricky business
But I am glad that the younger generations have a jones for jonesing the country, our societies, the world .. it needs a lot of help, big-time. Unfortunately, I hoinestly think there’s a good reason why there has been for every generation their own version of “Rage Against The Machine” .. it’s a frickin’ big machine, manipulated and managed for the betterment of a relatively few people, and they will not go graciously into that good night .. nor will the next generation’s equivalent, or the next, or the next. You’re talking about, or hoping for (via magic, probably) some observable and tangible rise in collective consciousness and the adoption of fundamentally new mental models. The only way I see that happening is if our collective crises become so large and onerous that we literally have no choice .. and even then, I’m not sure the odds are great.
But, as an oldie Barbara Marx Hubbard once said “It’s too late for pessimism”.
gint2000 said,
February 5, 2009 @ 3:23 am
Insightful comment. There was a really well-written op-ed this week in USA TODAY about Obama and Generation Jones by the guy who coined the term:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
sunlightmyfire said,
February 7, 2009 @ 8:17 am
Wow! Jon Husband himself found my blog!! I was turned onto your concept by a friend at the Banff Conservatory of Music, you did a lecture there and he mentioned me to you. What a joy that you found my blog. Your theory has changed my perspective! I love being classified as a hybrid, it totally makes sense! Cheers