Speaker 1: This is the first time in human history that there are no teachers for what young people are actually doing with their lives. Speaker 2: Are you an urban pioneer or an early adopter, or do you wait for everyone else? Today we're talking about the value of finding those people who are ahead of the pack. Welcome to our Creator Economy Entrepreneur Learning Series. I'm Diane Moca, a reporter at Talk Lab. I'm with our CEO, Jimmy Allen. We're here in Downtown Aurora where a lot of people complain that there's only a small group of people that are supporting downtown businesses. So how can creators really help to contribute to that community in a way that it will grow and thrive and develop a succession in order to reach critical mass? Speaker 1: Well, I think the playground is the key to it. Years ago, I remember talking, I think it was Cisco, at a board meeting and they were wanting to recruit interns and get kids involved. I think part of the problem even at that point, and this is more than a decade ago, is that so much of the infrastructure that we exist in day with business and just in work and life is so been buttoned down by all of those previous entrepreneurs that have created the great spaces. You don't go into a Starbucks and have that feeling of an earthy local coffee shop. It's very dialed in, it's perfect. The evolution of that perfection is now online. And so, we've got a whole generation of kids, they're the first ones to be on social, they're the first ones to have to overanalyze their identity. And the world around them is so perfect, the Kardashians, everything else. I go back to this same sentiment now and really think we need playgrounds. We need places where people can make mistakes, try things, experiment. One of those words that I use for that is production. So production's a playground. I think business owners and brands and everyone's going to start to realize that the phenomenon that's happening on YouTube with influencers, like the Mr. Beast or any other influencer on YouTube, they have experimented and played into the success that they have today. So if a local community wants to participate in what they're observing, they have to create a space, and not just a space, but a sentiment, a cultural sentiment of, this is a place where we experiment. Speaker 2: We don't see as much of that as we see the restaurants and the stores. That's what the city's been focusing on, "Bring those restaurant stores and the crowds will come." But they haven't come. So how are the workers in the knowledge economy and the creator economy going to make those crowds come and thrive and be something that people want to be a part of? Speaker 1: Well, I mean we do a lot of ribbon cuttings, and those are fantastic things. I'm editing somebody's portfolio right now and I see some photographs of a ribbon cutting. I can see the juxtaposition between the cultures. I can see the older culture interacting with the younger culture. We see that all the time. But do young people feel like they can come here and experiment? Is this a place where experimentation is honored, it's facilitated? And that's the key. Experimentation means buy-in, right? So you have to be supported and hired and you have to be a part of that ongoing development. I think even for me personally, I've struggled to get involved with the city many, many times. I've been told things that are... language that government uses like, "You need a seat at the table." And I'm an artist and a business person, I can interpret what that means, but it's not really how I operate. And so, to use the best side of me is to just involve me, involve people that are creatives in a way that brings the audience that you're trying to invite. We are doing it. People are going to do it. But if you're over all of that from a governmental standpoint, orchestrate it. Speaker 2: Why is this important to you, this whole issue here? Speaker 1: This is the first time in human history that there are no teachers for what young people are actually doing with their lives. There's no one guiding them. They are literally alone experimenting, and experimentation isn't 100% positive. It's probably highly negative, high percentage of negativity of people feeling like they're not worth anything. This research emphatically says that kids, they're desperately struggling to find who they are, and they can't figure out what reality is. Reality isn't all the successful people online. No one can follow that path. One of the points they made is that you can't be successful like Michael Jordan anymore. That ship has sailed. The next evolution of that is the Kardashians or Mr. Beast that has 100 million followers. You can't follow patterns anymore. That's what's so uniquely humiliating. Speaker 2: To this [inaudible 00:05:21]. Speaker 1: It's humiliating to the human spirit to not have anything to follow, to almost be completely alone except your social media. Speaker 2: Well, I just read a study that said one third of young people in high school aspire to be YouTubers, one third. And they don't even mention being a rockstar or an athlete or or an astronaut. Speaker 1: No. Speaker 2: Even younger kids, like kids in elementary school, they all want to be YouTubers. So that's what they see. That's the world they live in. Speaker 1: I think the funny part, being over- Speaker 2: But isn't that the creator economy that we were talking about? Speaker 1: Yes and no. But here's what it is. As adults at our age, I think what we think is they want to be YouTubers to be successful, to do something. They don't. That is who they are. We used to be who we became. We became journalists. We became career-oriented. And before us it was school, education was set up basically for work, to be a fireman, to be a lawyer, to be a doctor, all those things. And to go from there to, "I want to be a YouTuber," isn't the equivalent. We're trying to follow that pattern. People are trying to figure out who they are in relationship to everyone else. And that isn't even physical, it isn't even happening. Part of this research is that the groups that people are identifying with are very, very small. They don't want to be part of mainstream. They want to find, basically, private groups where their interests are the same as the group they're in. And that direction we're headed isn't the direction we think we want to go. I mean, the one that we're talking about publicly, that the city might think that they're headed towards, the way that we handle everything within a city is changing under our feet and we don't even realize it. Because people are not wanting to participate, they're wanting to get out of the culture. They're wanting to find their own culture, and those cultures are very, very small niches. It's just intimidating to be somebody online. I think these things that we're talking about are really important for young people. I don't want to get into how Talking Cities might think about that, but I do think the event on the 29th on Thursday is important for us to acknowledge and to create the platform and support this 16 to 24-year-old audience and see what we can learn, actually use it as an opportunity to be reflective. It's a great opportunity to not be a part of it, to just be in the background and support it. Speaker 2: You're literally putting your money where your mouth is because you're paying for this. You're been saying for a while that young people are important, that they don't have enough support, and you're stepping up and doing it. So basically, what you're saying is you'd like to see more people doing that as well. Speaker 1: Well, I'm just doing what I would've wanted somebody to do for me when I was 16, because I can remember that, but I didn't have the added pressure of being the first generation that is putting my heart and soul out on social media and needing to be included in whatever they consider socialization today. I think it's very, very hard. I would not want to be that person. I mean, to be that vulnerable at that age, and that becomes who you are as you move forward, and then you're essentially being looked at as a consumer by everybody that isn't that age. So I think it's a time that we really need to continue to dig down into those things, but use what platform we have, whatever resources we have, and try to bring that community together with really, really solid brands and companies that want to support them and try to be a good matchmaker. Because ultimately, we do need our downtowns, we need our cities to prosper, but you have to have both sides of the equation. Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Can you talk about inviting an audience? So if people don't know about what's happening, even if it's experimental, then they're not going to be part of it. So how do you target that group, those early adopter type people? How do you reach them? Speaker 1: Well, I think that's twofold. One, so there has to be the revenue behind media spend. You have to buy the impressions. You have to target those audiences online and buy impressions. And you're going to buy impressions across all the social platforms. You're going to do advertising. But that isn't something that a business like ours can afford to do. We can produce content like this. You have other shows happening [inaudible 00:10:16] that can produce content that is getting at some of that experimental culture. But how's the world going to see that and is it being focused in any way to help support the city's efforts, like the amount of housing that we have online? We're going into an economic change right now. For me, I look ahead and I think, "Have we prepared ourselves to invite that group in?" This could be a great time even as things slow down to double down and invite more people in through advertising. But advertising what? And that's where the humility of conversation and getting into it and not having the answers. I think we're talking to a mayor of another community, and I love how he positions this concept of simply saying, "Government and businesses and individuals all have a certain level of expertise in something, but we don't all know everything." We really have to work hard to be in our lane, to do what we do best and respect and try to work together so that when things get difficult somebody doesn't just take their ball and go home. Speaker 2: And that's why we're inviting you in. We thank you for joining us on today's edition of the Creator Economy Entrepreneur Learning Series. For Talking Cities, I'm Diane Moca.