Chanelle Schneider | There From Here

Attend the Premiere Screening of “Walk With Me” at the Arena Stage

January 31, 2012 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Four years ago Tanisha Christie and Ellie Walton started on the path to creating a documentary fraught with inspiring tales of thoughtful, committed citizens who believed in their power to create change.

On Thursday, February 2, 2012 the completed project, “Walk With Me”, will have its first screening at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC at 8pm.

Against the backdrop of historical moments of social change, “Walk With Me” is an expressionistic documentary that follows three women who use theater to inspire, stir and animate our democracy. Journeying with them while they work in prisons, community centers and schools, we see how theater can ask and answer critical questions: How do we fight injustice? How do we reclaim our personal and collective history? And, how do we inspire positive change in each other? “Walk With Me” shares that the personal creative act is a political one revealing that one person – one artist – can make a difference.

This may be the first screening of this film, but these two ladies are not newcomers to this world. Ellie Walton recently received the Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts within the Washington, DC community. Tanisha Christie spent many years in the Washington, DC community as an actor-educator-director. She was formerly the Assistant Director at DC’s Living Stage Theater Company/Arena Stage. She now lives in New York. Both were inspired to make this film by their mentor, the late Rebecca Rice who is featured in the film.

Check out the “Walk With Me” trailer

Walk With Me Teaser from Ellie Walton on Vimeo.

Suggested ticket price is $20 but no one will be turned away. Please pay what you can.
Seats are limited, so please RSVP here to reserve a seat: ayaartsandmedia@gmail.com

Q & A will follow the screening.

The Mead Center for American Theater (Arena Stage) is located at 1101 6th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024 or the Waterfront-SEU Station on the Green Line.

Filed Under: featured, Random Thought Of The Day

“I Hate My Teenage Daughter”: A New Normal?

January 11, 2012 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

“I Hate My Teenage Daughter”, a new Fox sitcom, tells the story of two popular teenage daughters being raised by two mothers who were unpopular in high school and their husbands.

Nikki Miller, one of the mothers, represses what are presumably her feelings of low self-worth – feelings that make her feel inferior to her daughter – by eating. She was supposedly, “cured” of these feelings, feelings for which she was teased mercilessly while growing up.

A sample of dialogue from the show:

“Honey, please don’t be mad at me. I hate it when you shut me out. Can’t we just go back to being best friends?”

“We were never best friends.”

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean that.”

It’s normal to hate our mothers, right?

In the pilot the two daughters are punished by their mothers for leaving a wheelchair-bound classmate in a locked closet. Meanwhile, their fathers, seeking peace with their daughters, pay them each $100 to stop being angry with them.

The show approaches its end with a tender moment from Annie Watson, the other mother, to her daughter, Sophie. Sophie’s apology leads the audience to believe the cause of their argument was a moment of failed communication where the mothers punished their children without listening to their daughters’ side of the story. Both mothers lift the punishment.

The audience, now ready for a touching moment showing the daughters’ complexity and exposing them as well intentioned, are instead shown that the girls are, in fact, liars. Years of family sitcoms with tender teaching moments offered at show’s end might have trained our minds to expect and accept these endings. The show, in fact, ends with a realization that the daughters lied to have their punishments waived. Not only did they lie, but they also blamed their plight on hurtful comments received from the supposedly racist wheelchair-ridden student. Nikki, a Caucasian woman, is raising a biracial daughter, MacKenzie, the product of an interracial marriage now dissolving in divorce.

Instead of portraying the daughters as having the ability or the desire to grow and become better, they are portrayed as manipulative bullies who repeat the negative behaviors learned in their homes with their peers at school. Upon realizing the truth, that the wheelchair bound classmate is African-American and did not make racist statements, Annie notes they might simply have horrible daughters.

Is It Normal to Hate Your Daughter?

As a GenY-er I wanted to be on the side of the daughters prior to watching this show based solely on its title. I cannot support their behavior. This show highlights one kind of young person, an individual that does not represent the broad and diverse spectrum of today’s youth. Daughters have long hated their mothers; it’s part of youthful rebellion. Is “I Hate My Teenage Daughter” creating a new normal in hating the daughter right back, publicly? Is there a possible lesson to be learned that will be revealed in time?

The title of this show leaves much to be desired. Given its popularity, though, the show might not be going anywhere for a while. In December it won its Wednesday 9:30-10pm time period among Teens and Men 18-34 and ranks #2 among Adults 18-49 and Adults 18-34. The ratings show the unpopularity of this show among women, perhaps driven by its title. What is drawing teenagers and men to the show? Is this entertainment?

Filed Under: featured, Media Analysis Tagged With: generation Y, GenY, parents

Broadcaster Tavis Smiley to Lead Conversation on #RemakingAmerica

January 11, 2012 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

An article written recently by Forbes contributor Gene Marks was shared over 90,000 times, garnering attention for its, seemingly, purposely sensationalist headline. Out of the thousands of ensuing comments a theme emerged: His error was in making the piece about race when it should have been about class. What this article achieved was to highlight the ignorance of the experience of poverty held by the inexperienced. Poverty is still an issue. In 2012. Across the world.

In an effort to call more attention to and find a solution for this crisis, Tavis Smiley, host of Tavis Smiley on PBS, The Tavis Smiley Show and co-host of Smiley & West from PRI, (Public Radio International) and a panel of prolific thought leaders and advocates will convene in Washington, DC on January 12, 2012 from 6:30pm – 9pm ET for “Remaking America: From Poverty to Prosperity.”

This symposium will discuss solutions for restoring America’s prosperity and dissect the findings from a recently released White Paper from Indiana University on ‘the new face of the poor.’ “Remaking America” will feature a list of distinguished influencers from political, finance, film and economic communities including: Cornel West, Princeton professor and author; Suze Orman, America’s leading authority on personal finance; Michael Moore, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker; Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed; Jeffrey Sachs, poverty expert and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University; Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist; Vicki B. Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America and others!

WHERE: George Washington University Lisner Auditorium 730 21st St. NW, Washington, DC 20052

ADMISSION: FREE TO THE PUBLIC on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 5 p.m. Self-parking is available on site. All attendees must register at www.TAVISTALKS.com/REMAKINGAMERICA

To participate on Twitter, follow the hashtag: #RemakingAmerica

Filed Under: featured Tagged With: hash chats

Generation Y: Welcome Back Home?

August 22, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 3 Comments

The following is a guest post by Cristin McGrath.

I’ve always been proud of my independence and ambition. I never thought I’d consider moving back home. My senior year of high school was the last time I lived with my parents for more than a few days. As of August I’m back for a return engagement.

Society has attached a nasty stigma to the notion of adult children living with their parents. After college it seemed most of my friends flew right back to their comfy, cheap nests when the job market was still poor, when their dream firms didn’t extend offers, when their chosen fields and expected salaries didn’t materialize. I, on the other, less frugal hand, took an internship that didn’t pay me nearly enough to afford my studio apartment in West Philadelphia (or life alone, in general). While I was technically living under the poverty line, I saw stars – literally and figuratively – during my stint as an intern with the Philadelphia Eagles. The brand recognition I earned from working with a professional sports team was too impressive to pass up.

After the internship’s honeymoon phase wore off, I realized student loans didn’t care about brand recognition and whether or not I saw literal or figurative stars. My loan obligations were steadily piling up while I earned less as a literal and figurative star-seeing intern than a Burger King cashier. Something didn’t add up. I decided enough was enough and began the stressful and disheartening task of finding a new job. The figurative stars later aligned perfectly as a contact I met via Twitter told me of an opening with an agency. I’d finally found a new job and a spot above the poverty line.

Three unpaid college internships and countless student loans did their damage, however. My new salary and benefits still don’t allow me to save money and continue with my lifestyle, already something less than extravagant. Asking my parents for help was the last thing I wanted to do, as my independence has always been important to me. Fortunately, they both recognized my struggle with poverty-ridden pride and offered the move home as a temporary solution (the “temporary” is my addition).

I have established a January 1, 2012 deadline to move out (again), to reestablish my independence. By then I will have a nest egg and be ready to kick myself out of my parents’ nest. A timeline for my departure is the only way I can mentally prepare myself for my return to the nest. I wanted to do it all on my own, and will, but us GenY’ers must know when our time in the wild has proven too dangerous to continue alone. The global economy is in distress. Debt – the country’s, our parents’, ours – is threatening our ability to take flight. So don’t be discouraged if the nest beckons. It’s warm and welcoming there.

The preceding was a guest post by Cristin McGrath.

Cristin McGrath is a creative and passionate communications specialist with experience across both traditional and emerging media. Her young but vibrant career has focused on building brand images for impressive organizations across the music, entertainment, technology, and sports industries — her expertise in the fields of social media and events management has enabled her to successfully aid in the operation of press departments with the Philadelphia Eagles, Sony Music Entertainment, MTV Networks and Dell. Most recently, she has transitioned into the world of agency PR with Vault Communications.

Cristin graduated in 2010 from Temple University with a BA in Strategic and Organizational Communication. She will be living (temporarily, of course) in the Poconos with her parents until January 2012.

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Stories Tagged With: generation Y, GenY, linkedin, living at home

What’s the ROI on that Degree Now?

July 25, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 2 Comments

The following is a guest post by Liz Funk (bio below)

We’ve all felt buyer’s remorse. That lime green sundress that looked great in the fitting room looks putrid in the natural light. You decide to splurge on a dinner out, ordering an $18 entrée. When you finally eat it, it’s good, but not $18-good. You buy a bag of clearance clothes from the Gap, get home and deeply resent spending $60 on non-refundable clothes. It happens to everyone, every now and then, and you move on, because hopefully your buyer’s remorse isn’t on items worth more than a few hours’ pay.

But, what if you have buyer’s remorse for a major investment you made that will take years of income to pay off? And, without the resources to pay off such an investment, it seems like it was a terrible idea?

The “crap economy” and the devastating impact that the 2008 economic crash has had on young people has caused widespread unemployment among 20somethings. Because young people don’t have jobs, a) many young people don’t have the money to repay their student loans, and b) many young people are wondering why they went to college in the first place, if they’re unemployed!

While some “quarterlifers” miss college and want to go back to a simpler time, others are thoroughly resenting their college experience. Here’s how to reconcile this:

How to find value in your degree

1) First and foremost, be nice to yourself. Before 2006, there were relatively few people who had an idea that the economy was going to go so far downhill, and odds are good that you weren’t one of them. There’s nothing you can do to change the fact that you did go to college (i.e. a time machine), so be compassionate and nice to yourself and don’t beat yourself up.

2) Write down everything positive that you got out of college, whether it was a few really good friends who you still keep in touch with, some awesome memories (write each of them down!), or classes where you read some life-changing books.

3) Be critical of the system. There is definitely something messed up in that our society encourages entering college seniors to take out loans to go to the best college they were accepted to, but many take out a Range Rover’s worth of student loans, picking majors that will not help them pay off these loans. This isn’t to say that you should major in engineering if you aren’t interested in it. Rather, we should encourage students to consider alternate paths. Rather than rushing from high school straight into college, students should consider taking a gap year or two to work, travel, or intern so they have a stronger sense of what they might want to do professionally. Then, if they do take out student loans, they’ll be investing in an education that will help them pursue their passions, rather than going to college because that’s what you’re supposed to do, without much of an endpoint short of graduating. On that note, give yourself a break from job hunting, worrying, and stressing. This will ensure that you have some mental and emotional energy to brainstorm both where you want to go from here and how you can tap into what you learned in college to help you carve out a career!

But, overall, be nice to yourself because you can only move forward to a place that’s more positive if you’re really rooting and advocating for yourself!

Your turn! How do you come into your own when the first years of your adult life are marked by joblessness, instability, angst, and incessant money problems?

Coming of Age in a Crap Economy is the brainchild of Liz Funk, a New York-based freelance writer, author, and college lecturer. Liz has written for USA Today, Newsday, the Washington Post, New York magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, CosmoGIRL!, Girls’ Life, the Baltimore Sun, the New Jersey Record, the Albany Times Union, Lemondrop.com (AOL), and the New Humanist (UK). She is the author of Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, a non-fiction look at how today’s young women feel that they must be constantly improving themselves if they want to be loved. She regularly speaks at colleges about how young women can overcome perfectionism and about breaking into journalism/publishing, and she has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, New York University, Boston University, Emerson College, Rice University, Whitman College, the University of Iowa, the University of Missouri, Mississippi State University, the University of South Florida, and Penn State University, among many other colleges.

She graduated from college in 2009 with high honors in English literature and has yet to be extended a single full-time job offer. She lives in upstate New York with her collie, Buddy (who she’s pretty sure has figured out the meaning of life), and her parents, of course.

Filed Under: Gen-Y Goal Stars, Guest Posts Tagged With: career, generation Y, get there from here, linkedin, living at home

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part III

July 15, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 1 Comment

The following is a guest post by Benjamin Daniel of WriteRight Publications. Benjamin is really big on education research, measurable metrics, improved education outcomes and education reform. He has successfully lobbied for increased funding for early childhood education funding, done field work and led teams as a community organizer. Benjamin also led nonprofit and community development initiatives in underserved communities.

This post is continued from A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

Motivation

These three groups suffer from what I’ll call a lack of collective communication and advancement. They have different, though related, reasons for wanting success (we assume they all want success) but none seem to have anything to do with one another. Does it make a difference if they want the same thing for related reasons, you ask? Why yes, it does!

Say a teacher wants to earn more money by helping her students produce better results as measured by their performance in the classroom and test scores. Students need to understand how it helps them to perform well. Scholarships to colleges for good classroom performance or paid training for careers that don’t require a college degree are strong incentives for success. Teachers and students now have a shared financial incentive to perform well.

Parents who aren’t certain about why they should motivate kids to excel or who don’t care whether a teacher buys a bigger house also need incentives. Circumstances will dictate the kinds of rewards they receive but low-income families, for example, might receive vouchers to local grocery stores to purchase food (in addition to whatever aid they might already receive). Schools can form partnerships with area businesses to help promote improving education for students and teachers and, by extension, the lives of everyone involved. It’s also a great opportunity to promote the idea of community-based education, where everyone involved has an incentive to ensure the other does well.

I Know How We Can Change

Ultimately, people will probably act in their own self-interest. The trick is to make their self-interest behave in such a way that it promotes and supports the other people’s self-interest. Here’s how:

Parents: get your kid to school on time, attend your parent-teacher conferences and come to an assembly when you’re asked. You can earn yourself perks and rewards at local businesses.

Students: work with your parents and teachers to do well in school, respect authority and earn money for college or vocational education.

Teachers: get involved in your school’s neighborhood, learn something about your kids’ parents and families, work with them to improve classroom performance and maybe earn the kind of bonus that could mean a remodeled kitchen, a longer vacation or a new house entirely.

Collectively working to advance the other’s agendas, then, is a great idea for everyone involved and can dramatically improve per-student performance, teacher success and parental involvement.

Your turn: What do you think of this proposed solution? Can it work? What can work?

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: motivation, service, smcedu

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part II

July 14, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

This post is continued from A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

So, what does work? How do we fix our middling American education system? I’ve often wondered if we haven’t given the Soviet Communist collectivist model a bad rap. If you’re aware of the “it takes a village to raise a child” saying, you know where I’m headed with this.

We (Don’t) Live Together

One of the biggest and most difficult problems we need to overcome in education is that often each of the actors involved (teachers, students, parents) brings different agendas to the classroom. Teachers have a curriculum they have to follow; the state and school requires that a lesson be taught in a specific time frame. These lessons help teachers prepare students for both the next grade level, long-term, and mandatory testing, near-term. These tests, if students perform well on them, help schools earn congratulations from other educators, parents (hopefully) and legislators which, in turn, could mean more money or, perhaps, a successful bond issue for another school in the district or improvements to existing schools.

Some districts are paying teachers more money if students perform at a certain level both in the classroom and on standardized tests. There’s a financial incentive to get as many students as possible doing well enough to not only pass classroom and standardized tests, but to pass them at a certain level. These bonuses can help teachers pay their bills, buy a bigger house, improve their existing homes, buy another car or take vacations. Of course they want to do well.

But wait, you say. What about students and their parents? Students are getting a couple different kinds of lessons in school: intellectual, or thinking, lessons (we’ll call them practical since they’re supposed to put kids on the road to college and a college degree which, in turn, is supposed to help them earn more money over the course of their lives than they would without it) and moral, or personal, lessons. Codes of conduct, rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior and for good and bad classroom performance are designed to teach personal lessons. Students, then, depending on the school and its reward/punishment structure, have an incentive to do well and behave. Their reasons, however, are not the same as or even in line with those of teachers.

Finally we have parents. It’s easy to say, “That kid’s mom and dad obviously don’t spend enough time with him/her. See how poorly he/she does in school? Look how disrespectful toward other students and teachers he/she is!” This, of course, both oversimplifies and reduces a parent’s role in a child’s education. Some parents send kids to school to learn, to have opportunities for better jobs and to stay out of trouble. Other parents don’t care how their kids perform and just want them away from the house for the time they’re in school. Parents, then, don’t have the same motives for helping their kids be successful students as the kids or the teachers.

To read what will motivate us to change, please come back for Part III to be published later this week. Until then, please leave your comments below.

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: family, motivation, service, smcedu

A New Soviet Model for American Education Part I

July 13, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider 2 Comments

In a quiet suburb of a large, major American city, on streets with loud, laughing, child-filled environmentally friendly parks and whose homes feature two-car garages, whose two-parent, racially-diverse, middle-class, college-educated mothers and fathers make sure to recycle paper and plastic and use energy-friendly lights for lamps, who water well-maintained, landscaped lawns during off hours to help conserve water and who have between two and four well-read and attentive children, there is daily, violent fighting. The fighting is political and, therefore, personal. The fighting is over the present and the future of American public education. But I’ve skipped a step or two.

By 1918 every state in America had passed laws requiring children to receive an education. America was changing from a country where most people were farmers and worked schedules tied to planting and harvesting crops to a country where most of the people worked in factories and were moving to heavily-populated cities on its coasts. Education was becoming increasingly important in these cities.

Unfortunately, the education laws put in place in 1918 set varying, inefficient guidelines. The new laws did not specify what kind of education children should receive, what was important to learn, why it was important to learn it, and, depending on the state, set different limits on how long children had to attend school and how old they had to be upon starting and finishing. Until the United States Department of Education was formed in 1980, states set their own rules that involved a lot of guesswork and were based on different kinds of research with no unifying ideas about effective policy. America still lacks a clear and effective national education policy and hasn’t agreed on a national curriculum. Many of the countries now found ahead of us in world rankings have instituted universal education standards and policies and done well as a result, improving education outcomes for students across socioeconomic and racial strata.

Still, for a long time we managed as the stick stirring the global education and innovation pot. America was ranked at or near the top of so-called “first world” countries for education. Now, however, America ranks as “average” according to the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). On a 1,000-point scale, America rates around 500 in reading, math and science. OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), meanwhile, says that, of the 34 countries studied, American 15 year-olds rank 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math, in the middle or near bottom.

The Purpose of an Education

We’re fighting over American education because we can’t agree on what an American education is. We’re fighting over American education because too often a quality education depends on how much money a family earns and where that family is allowed to live. We have a mismatched group of education policies that are different for each state and, in fact, are different within states. I was raised in a state, New Jersey, where the quality of education varied wildly within a 10 square-mile radius. Politicians and educators are proposing solutions from vouchers to small classes to paying children to get good grades. None of these work consistently, if at all.

To see what solutions will be offered, please come back for Parts II and III to be published later this week. Until then, please leave your comments below.

Filed Under: Advice, Guest Posts Tagged With: motivation, parents

#GenYChat 6/22/11 Guest Host: @UndecidedBook

June 22, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

Topic: Indecisiveness

Is it better to think with your heart or with your head? When trying to come to a conclusion about a heart-wrenching decision, the moment of pause always comes immediately after you’ve set your mind on a solution. “But what if…?” “And, if I do that, then…?” You ponder and ponder and ponder only to decide to do…nothing. Why is it so hard to make one decision? Not every decision is heart-wrenching, of course. However, the ones that are make coming to one set resolution very difficult for a variety of reasons.

“When asked if they had decided NOT to buy a product or service in the past year because they disagreed with the social or political values of the company that provides that product or service, roughly a third of Millennials (35%), Gen Xers (34%), and Boomers (36%) say they had boycotted a company in the past year.” Source: MILLENNIALS: A Portrait of Generation Next

Making a decision is always contingent upon a choice. Choice implies two or more distinct possibilities for a resolution. More often than not the choice is between a rational and an irrational resolution – the decision you should make versus the decision you want to make. In cases where more than two options are present, decision-making becomes that much harder.

Is it really this hard, though? Are we just making excuses in order to justify taking a longer time to get to the decision we knew we were going to make? Do we really have to try on every pair of taupe high heel in the store?

Where do we learn our decision-making skills? Is someone at fault? Did Boomers and Generation X raise children (Generation Y and Generation Z) who are tragically indecisive?

“Millennials often prefer to make no decision than the wrong decision. I think it has to do with fear of closing doors on possible opportunities more than indecisiveness, per se.” Source: Bah, Humbug! Why Are Millennials So Cheap?

Guest Host!

Shannon and Barbara Kelley co-authored “Undecided“, a book that explores the role choices have in our decision-making. Shannon will be serving as guest host in #GenYChat tonight at 9pm ET where we will discuss the following questions:

Q1. What steps does a woman take to make a decision versus the steps a man takes? #GenYChat

Q2. When making a retail purchase, what impacts your decision-making? #GenYChat

Q3. Have you ever decided to do something against your better judgment? What was the result? #GenYChat

Q4. How do societal or cultural expectations of you affect your decision-making? #GenYChat

Q5. How are your decisions affected by what impact they will have on future generations? #GenYChat

Q6. There is knowing better and doing better. What is scary about doing better? #GenYChat

Q7. How do you decide it’s time to either forgive a friend or let them go? #GenYChat

Q8. How does teaching a child that they can have it all affect their decision-making as an adult? #GenYChat

Q9. Is there anything that you can chase that will make you happier once you have it? #GenYChat

How to Participate in #GenYChat on Twitter

If you haven’t participated in the chat before, but have insights to share, please do the following to participate:

If using Twitter.com:

Type “#genychat” into the search field
Reply and ReTweet but add “#genychat” onto your tweets in order for everyone participating to see your tweets

If using TweetChat:

Sign in through OAuth. (note: Please read this information about using OAuth to give third party applications access to your account)
Type “genychat” into the search field (The “#” is already provided)
Click Go
Reply and ReTweet. TweetChat puts the hashtag in for you so you don’t have to

If using TweetDeck:

Click the + symbol to add a column
Type “#genychat” into the search field. A column will appear as the last column in your TweetDeck
Using the left arrow button, move it next to your Mentions column to better see and respond to your replies while in the chat
Click the Settings button
Click on the Twitter tab
Click on Auto include hashtags when replying
Click Save settings
Reply and ReTweet. TweetDeck puts the hashtag in for you so you don’t have to. (Note: You still have to add “#genychat” onto your own tweets in order for everyone participating to see your tweets)

#GenYChat begins at 9pm ET! Get in early for introductions and mingling. See you there!

Filed Under: GenYChat Topics

#GenYChat 6/15/11: @CoachJennie Discusses Living Audaciously

June 15, 2011 By Chanelle Schneider Leave a Comment

“Who would have thought the kids would start taking over so soon? Or that they would even want to? They were supposed to be slackers, cynics, drifters. But don’t be fooled by their famous pose of repose. Lately, more and more of them are prowling tirelessly for the better deal, hunting down opportunities that will free them from the career imprisonment that confined their parents. They are flocking to technology start-ups, founding small businesses and even taking up causes–all in their own way. They are making waves on the Web, making movies in and out of Hollywood, making money, spending money.”

Read more

The article goes on to say: “Slapped with the label Generation X, they’ve turned the tag into a badge of honor. They are X-citing, X-igent, X-pansive. They’re the next big thing. Boomers, beware! It’s payback time.”

Read more

Thought that was about Generation Y, didn’t you? Stepping back into the archives of Time magazine will show that each generation is described in much the same way. Each generation is lazier than those prior; each generation is more dedicated to living the lives their parents didn’t live; and, each generation is wont to cast off the stereotypes put on them by previous generations.

The proliferation of these stereotypes causes the eye-rolling, the *sighs*, and the “get off my lawn” mentality that prevent healthy communication. When we are trying to determine who we will become in life, the people we should speak with are those that have been there. Jennie Mustafa-Julock (@CoachJennie on Twitter) understands how healthy communication can spur ambition. The Audacity Coach, Jennie helps people who “…know what [they] want, but this ain’t it.”

Jennie, often a participant, will be serving as guest host in tonight’s #GenYChat. We will discuss the following questions:

Q1. What do you want to be when you “grow up”? Is that what you do now? #genychat

Q2. What’s your top-secret/so-not-telling/seriously-don’t-make-me-say-it AUDACIOUS DREAM? #genychat

Q3. Is having an AUDACIOUS DREAM an example of #GenY entitlement? If so, is that okay? #genychat

Q4. If money/time/family pressure/gravitational forces were NO object, how would you achieve your DREAM? #genychat

Q5. If your friends or family provide support along the way, do they get a say in your choices? Why or why not? #genychat

Q6. What excuses do people make that sabotage their DREAMS? #genychat

Q7. Which is scarier: Fear of Success or Fear of Failure? Why? #genychat

Q8. How do you push through the procrastination + fear to actualize your DREAM? #genychat

Q9. How can you show that you are ready + willing to do whatever-it-takes to achieve your dream? #genychat

How to Participate in #GenYChat on Twitter

If you haven’t participated in the chat before, but have insights to share, please do the following to participate:

If using Twitter.com:

Type “#genychat” into the search field
Reply and ReTweet but add “#genychat” onto your tweets in order for everyone participating to see your tweets

If using TweetChat:

Sign in through OAuth. (note: Please read this information about using OAuth to give third party applications access to your account)
Type “genychat” into the search field (The “#” is already provided)
Click Go
Reply and ReTweet. TweetChat puts the hashtag in for you so you don’t have to

If using TweetDeck:

Click the + symbol to add a column
Type “#genychat” into the search field. A column will appear as the last column in your TweetDeck
Using the left arrow button, move it next to your Mentions column to better see and respond to your replies while in the chat
Click the Settings button
Click on the Twitter tab
Click on Auto include hashtags when replying
Click Save settings
Reply and ReTweet. TweetDeck puts the hashtag in for you so you don’t have to. (Note: You still have to add “#genychat” onto your own tweets in order for everyone participating to see your tweets)