millennials

Google “Millennials” and you’ll find more than 11,000,000 results. A lot of them will claim to tell you what this group of young people is interested in, what motivates them and their attitude toward everything under the sun. Why should we care? Well, they’re the largest generation in the U.S., the first one to have had access to the Internet during their formative years, and their impact on the economy continues to grow. All of those things will also impact our associations and how we attract and engage them.

I’m definitely not a Millennial (I won’t reveal my generation here), but I work with them, live with one, and, in the role I play with our clients, I need to know what attracts them to associations and events. I want to hear directly from them and I had the opportunity to do just that when I attended a recent panel discussion.

The entire panel consisted of Millennials and they shared it all: how to get them to join an association, what they need from you in order to get engaged, how their career and workplace should make them feel and what motivates them to attend an event. I’ll focus on meeting attendance here because that’s where I found the most food-for-thought when planning for the future.

When it comes to meeting attendance, all panelists agreed that it wasn’t the price, location or keynote presenter that drew them. Here’s what does:

Millenials – is what I’ve shared true of you? Other generations – chime in and let me know what you’ve found when trying to engage them.