Old & In the Way
MTV, the music video channel, has been adrift for the past few years.
Sure, they've got the Fall-of-Rome-evoking hit show "Jersey Shore," but it's been years -- maybe decades -- since MTV really captured the young and plugged-in generation. The problem with youth-oriented media companies, of course, is that they're inevitably run by old people.
Here's how MTV tackles that problem. From MediaPost:
In an array of initiatives spawned by President of MTV Stephen Friedman, top MTV executives are now being told what to do by the youngest members of their teams. Friedman coins the concept “reverse mentoring,” and the idea was that the only way MTV’s largely GenX management team would be able to get inside the mindsets of Millennials would be to put them more in charge.
Shore says it starts at the top, and that Friedman’s Millennial mentor has already has a profound influence on MTV and even its product: Friedman’s mentor came up with a new category in MTV’s vaunted Video Music Awards recognizing the “best video with a message.”
Shore says his own Millennial mentor “is not shy,” and recently asked him “why we don’t get to review you.”
In fact, he says an important distinction about Millennials in the workplace is that they actually want a “perpetual feedback loop.” Whereas Xers may have eschewed any feedback -- even an annual review -- Shore says, “Millennials are like, ‘Can you give me daily reviews?’ Their drive to self-improve is extremely high, and it reflects the world they grew up in, because they’re in a constant feedback loop.”
Does anything sound worse? "Reverse mentoring?" What could be more irritating than a lot of know-nothing twentysomethings bossing around the oldsters? And when they're not putting their bosses into skinny jeans and teaching them to love Young the Giant, they're demanding "feedback" -- read: unconditional praise -- and "daily reviews," just like in pre-school.
Is this the end of MTV? Or is MTV only the beginning? How long before the executives at Procter & Gamble get their interns to "reverse mentor?"
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Dec '11
Re: Old & In the Way
I dont have a problem with frequent feedback, its just a function of the fluid dynamic world we live in now.
Reverse mentoring is weird, it just sounds like in house demographic research. Not terrible to ask the opinions of people from the niche that you are marketing too, within that narrow context.
Feb '11
Re: Old & In the Way
How does/did Mattel or Lego do it? Same problem isn't it though age bracket slightly different?
And in TV-world, hasn't this been a problem for a long time? MTV is trying to appeal to the same demographic network television was trying to appeal to for a long time -- the 20 to 30-y.o. with cash sluicing about and who are going to form brand loyalty that will last the next 50 years for advertisers.
Edited on March 21, 2012 at 5:16pmJun '10
Re: Old & In the Way
I guess they could just play funny and raunchy YouTube videos all day.
Aug '11
Re: Old & In the Way
Or, and this is a wild idea, actually play music videos.
Jan '11
Re: Old & In the Way
I thought the original 3 Stooges shorts continue to attract that same demographic. Do people still watch Beevis & Butthead?
Who reverse mentored Steve Jobs?
This is hooey. Some blogger coins a phrase and tries to nurture it into a meal ticket.
Dec '10
Re: Old & In the Way
We do want and need constant feedback. We grew up on video games and in school. In both you are constantly getting feedback on well you are doing. It is incredible disorienting when you first get to the workforce and that feedback loop stops. That feeling is compounded by the fact that it usually arrives at the same time we are entering our quarter life crisis.
When we get placed into management its the same thing. We not only want to still receive feedback from upper management we want to get it from those under us as well. "Do you like your assignments?" "Am I making it clear what I want from you?" "Do you feel like the concerns you bring to me our addressed?" That type of stuff.
I have a hard time seeing whats wrong with that.
Mar '11
Re: Old & In the Way
"Best video with a message" almost made me spit out my coffee. I agree with Guruforhire that in-house demographic research is fine. But I can't imagine that Stephen Friedman is letting his 'reverse mentor' actually make any decisions.
May '10
Re: Old & In the Way
Follow the money: Millennials/Gen Y (children of Boomers) are now a larger group than their parents and range in age from 20-35. Soon they will begin having their own children and then we will all have to obsess about children under 5. Never mind MTV, it's time to take another look at Nickleodeon.
Dec '10
Re: Old & In the Way
Feedback is one thing. Making appropriate corrections based on that feedback is the hard part.
Given that the staff of MTV is somewhat left of Vlad Lennin, I think it unlikely that they can effectively use feedback from instruments as defective as Millenials (those that actually watch MTV) are likely to be.
May '11
Re: Old & In the Way
Mr. Long,
Will you be implimenting this on your new show? Are you going to bring in some fresh, just out of college English majors to punch up the script? :)
Jan '11
Re: Old & In the Way
You know you're old when the generation behind you is reckoning with the generation two or three behind you.
My dad had a constant feedback loop for me: "get up off your dead a$$." I don't recall him being receptive to my feedback for him.
Mar '11
Re: Old & In the Way
"Reverse mentoring" sounds like one of those phrases that the 5 really out-of-touch corporate people (i.e. those who email "Thanks. Sent from my i-Phone" at 3AM) kick around in their self-contained meetings.
And the other 400 employees say "Reverse what? Bah... who cares... is it 5:00 o'clock?"
Feb '12
Re: Old & In the Way
I don't see "feedback" as being a pseudonym for "praise." The request for regular feedback might represent an insecurity fostered by years of unconditional praise on account of our "self-esteem." I find that I have to go out of my way to get someone to tell me something I can improve on or any other negative thing.
Also, as was brought up before, the millennial generation was effectively raised by video games. If I don't get a breakdown of my stats and a score at the end of something, I have no idea how I did and no idea how to improve. We want to know we're "winning" so to speak. So, better or worse, we treat life like a video game and have similar expectations.
The "reverse mentoring" thing isn't as bad as it seems. We have "student evaluations," and I know most universities have permutations of this. It's just the idea that a subordinate's feedback is useful to some degree to the superior. This can get out of hand, but personally I find it useful (and sometimes hilarious) to read student's comments at the end of a semester.
Edited on March 21, 2012 at 6:21pmJul '10
Re: Old & In the Way
Idiots killed the video star .......
or
MTV is having a Kodak moment .....
WOW cultural relivance is hard!
Jul '10
Re: Old & In the Way
This sounds like a horrifying way to create content...but "Awkward" and "Teen Wolf" were surprisingly good last season. Well. "Awkward" was surprisingly good. "Teen Wolf" wasn't really the kind of thing anyone was watching for the writing. Including myself.
Apr '11
Re: Old & In the Way
Gen Xers get the short end of the stick here... as young 20- and 30-somethings making their way in the world, they received constant evaluation and direction from their boomer superiors... now they've reached that great middle-aged pinnacle where they can be evaluated and instructed by their younger subordinates. They might be the first American generation to never call the shots:-)
Edited on March 21, 2012 at 7:21pmMay '10
Re: Old & In the Way
Whether or not young employees are more familiar with the aesthetic, social and technological expectations of their own generation, running a major corporation is a whole other matter. Getting their input makes sense. Giving them authority without a history of results doesn't.
Are you sure about that? About half the Gen Xers I know don't have any kids and the other half think 3 kids is a big family.
May '10
Re: Old & In the Way
As one who is very much old and in the way, I don't see a difference between this and both the Left and Right wannabe pundit class all over the country.
Everywhere I look I see 20-something journalism grads whose ambition is to be in Washington, Write Significant Opinion and Appear Regularly On TV. And some have interned as gofers for opinion magazines, or opinion writers, maybe occasionally for some executive or spent a little bit of time on the Hill.
But, almost to a person, they a) went to an elite school, b) never held a job where they actually had to do or make something besides words, and c) know everything about everything, and d) are in a hurry to Get Big. Think Ezra Klein; I will avoid identifying Right Wannabes.
I see stuff about health care from people who never touched a patient, about business from people who never met a payroll, made or sold something. or raised investment capital, etc.
The MTV guy is doing market research internally. But I think everything would make more sense if every opinion-maker had to hold a real job for a while before writing for public consumption.
Aug '10
Re: Old & In the Way
Forget it Rob, it's cable.
Mar '11
Re: Old & In the Way
I thought Teen Wolf gave MTV the highest rating they had gotten in over four years?
I think they really need to change their business model. How can reverse mentoring help them change to a successful business model for picking and creating shows?
Rob you know the entertainment industry way better than I do but based on my experience I have no idea how this could work. What do these young people really have unless they have well thought out ways to change the creative/decision/marketing process that might result in more successful TV shows. What evidence do the executives have of this? Should they not do a polite program first to see if this idea actually produces better results before implementing it company wide?
Me thinks based on Teen Wolf success they need to change their business model to Serialized Dramas targeted to teens/college kids. However, I don't see how that would be any different than ABC families business model? The only thing I can think of that might work is a copy ABC families business model with-out the Soap Opera quality their shows almost always have.