A new mindset to connect with the next generation of rewired brains.

We are living in exciting times. During the last 10 years we have witnessed how the first generation of humans raised in a networked society are changing the rules of everything, from commerce to communication.

Our birth ranges vary according to each category or region, but beyond the labels or birth years what matters is the fact that most of us are experiencing the same global events, almost in real-time enhancing the diversity of local cultures and reframing the meaning of youth.

The simplicity of traditional market segmentations is not enough to decode the complexity of our current society.

Now that we are truly living in the «global village» predicted by Marshall McLuhan, the assumptions of demographic or economic segmentation are outdated.

We need to reframe questions, develop dynamic pattern recognition systems to replace static classifications and, most importantly, we need to change our mindset in order to evolve and adapt properly.

In other words, we demand an Operating System (OS) switch, powered by three key elements: the speed of change, the hacker attitude and the remix culture.

The speed of change is going up and will go faster in the future. Ray Kurzweil, the inventor, futurist -and now Director of Engineering at Google- described the law of accelerating returns on his book The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) as «the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems -including but not limited to the growth of technologies- tends to increase exponentially»; turning the basic assumptions -tied to demographics- as obsolete as the DVD drive in your Macbook.

Access to technology is the key driver behind this paradigm shift, as it becomes more powerful, cheap and portable. Today, tools such as technographics become more relevant to identify patterns in usage and ownership of devices or web services rather than assuming that a group of persons will think and act in a similar way because they were born in the same year or place.

If there is one influential niche in this story it is the hacker community, the people who built the Internet (not the evil crackers portraited by Hollywood). Their mindset, well described by Eric Steven Raymond in the hypertext How to become a hacker, is the soul behind the revolution of different industries and systems. Their attitude is focused on hard work, problem-solving and sharing ideas through networks, leading to a diverse collective intelligence.

Youth brands now need to design relevant content and experiences for people connected by a wide variety of shared interests, instead of creating interruptions for large audiences.

Attention now flows in streams (Twitter) rather than linear blocks (TV) but both still coexist, demanding a deep understanding of values and behaviors using tools as network dynamics, social graphs or interests maps to build valuable relationships with smaller groups.

The relationship between the producer and consumer has radically changed. We are moving «from a read-only to a read/write culture» as Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, would say. A growing percentage of young people are building their own audiences, creating their own products and connecting to a purpose-driven economy.

The installation of the speed-hack-remix OS might be complex and will provoke some chaos, but we need to trust the process.

A simple way to start is to practice three vocabulary experiments:
• Change the task name from «How to classify youth» to «How to connect with youth».
• Unlearn the term «consumers» and replace it with «people».
• Reframe the traditional question «How old are you?» and ask more frequently «How young are you?».

As Pearl Jam said: "It’s Evolution baby!"