To: Jeffrey Katzenberg, (CEO of DreamWorks Animation)
From: Jingjing Huang
Re: Hooked-Up Review
Hooked Up, a really good and functional book for entrepreneurs, who take young people as their target consumers, at the same time, who are waiting for young talents to join them as new blood so that their corporations can make big through in the following challenges. Luckily, DreamWorks is one of this kind of companies. Hooked Up provides you a chance to get a better and further understanding of our consumers and future staffs in a very throughout perspective.
In general, this book is focus on a generation, which called Internet Pioneers by the author. The definition of Internet Pioneers is multiple since they have a lot of characteristics. But overall, they are those who were born between 1991 and 1995, hooked up to and dependent on the Internet for managing almost every aspect of their daily lives. In the first 3 chapters, the author, Jack Myers gives us the definition, importance, and characteristics of Internet Pioneers, among which, I think, maybe you have interest to know that they are very overloaded and wary.
This new generation makes use of media actively than any generation before them, because they were born in the year that internet became common in most families. They have been exposed to quite a lot of information from every aspect of the world, economy, politics, institutions, organizations, movements, trends and fads. Besides, they have been always getting in touch with different attitudes toward these issues. All of these result in a kind of young people that avoid of voicing strong opinions. In another word, they are comfortable with being neutral.
In the following chapters, Myers paid attention on two aspects of Internet Pioneers. First, how do these mentioned characteristics influence Internet Pioneers on different choices, such as politics, religion and education. And he also points out that how the future is likely to evolve as Internet Pioneers become the dominant strength in society for decades ahead.
I recommend you this book because of two reasons. First of all, you can find an appropriate way to manage our company since more and more Internet Pioneers come to our professional area. The second is that you can get to know our consumers in a comprehensive way, no matter current or future ones, which definitely helps you make the blueprint for our following marketing plan.
Taking Internet Pioneers as future colleague, we may need to know that the key difference between them and former colleague is the definition of success. This generation seeks variety in responsibility, social engagement and collaboration, relevance, and a knowledge that they are contributing to something larger than themselves or the business they work for. They value life flexibility more than wealth. I think if DreamWorks wants to appeal talents, we’d better convince our future staff to believe that there’s not only job or career, but most importantly, there has innovation, which can satisfy their desires of contributing a better world, at the same time, providing them a better family-focused life. For example, If we move our workflow into a cloud, every colleague would use their broadband connection to upload the source file into a storage space on an IP address and work on that file, instead of using storage resources at studio now, thus every stakeholder in this value chain having access to the data at the click of a button, which can make them even work simultaneously everywhere they like all over the world. This workflow gives our company a huge potential on attracting young talents, because it suits Internet Pioneer’s taste perfectly mentioned in Chapter 20: Jobs and Careers. According to one article on the Variety website, 89 percent of current college students report valuing flexibility in their work life as among the most important aspects of a happy work environment.
Besides, I know that DreamWorks has been expanding its global market, and gained a bright achievement, Madagascar 3: Europe’s most wanted ranks 7th in the 2012 International Grossers list within $527,400,000 foreign B.O. reported by Variety and DreamWorks also settled Oriental counterpart in Shanghai. I think these are really exciting for Internet Pioneers to know, because they are seeking variety in their careers, the book tells us that this generation values if they are contributing to something larger than themselves or the business they work for. Obviously, global impact can be one of the best aspects.
Except those I mentioned above, there’re a great number of precise analysis about Internet Pioneers in many different areas, which I recommend you to read so that it may help you lead DreamWorks, as a high-spirited and vigorous team, make more extraordinary progress in the future.
As I have learnt, at the heart of DreamWorks Animation is the desire to tell great stories and inspire audiences. Since our goal is to appeal audience by great stories and their underlying inspiration, how could we seldom understand our audience? Hooked Up provides people a broad spectrum of Internet Pioneers’s characteristics in various areas, like religion, politics, media and entertainment, culture as well as music and social networks. Known these, master the essential of each part, then apply them to our products, this process can not only make our story more appealing, but make our audience see themselves in the screen, see their inner power same as our characters in the movie, then get the inspiration from the world we tailor for them, I think that will fulfill our goal, tell great stories and inspire audiences, in a more thorough way.
Taking music as an example, Internet Pioneers consider music to be an integral, everyday part for their lives, which I think DreamWorks should pay attention on this aspect in the future production and marketing. There’re not a few motion pictures cooperating very well with the most heated pop music, like Alvin and the Chipmunks, or promoting their own soundtracks to obtain win-win situation, like Skyfall. But I searched DreamWorks websites all through and according to my viewing experience, there’s really few impression about what music or soundtrack in DreamWorks’ productions. Hope to hear and impressed by our future acoustical products. I can also give you examples that why this book, Hooked Up, could inspire you in consumer marketing strategy. The author tells us that Internet Pioneers are progressive on most social issues, actively opposed to military intervention, balanced on gun control issues, and moderate but confused on economic issues; They are active but not activists, political but not politically involved, engaged in issues but unwilling to actively protest for or against them. Having watched a number of DreamWorks productions, I think most audience would speak highly of their practical significance that closed related to current affairs. What we can do better, as a great storyteller, is that to provide audience a better world in our production, which goes along with their core value, a more global, peaceful, multicultural and harmony future.
Hooked Up, the book that gives you a multi-dimension perspective to help you understand a most important generation, who are the future main force in our society, and the consumer as well as colleague we will get along with. You can use it both in short and long terms for our company’s blue print, since those characteristics analyzed in this book are not limit in Internet Pioneers, but also reflect in pre- and post-Internet Millennials. This book not only proposes insightful views, it also based on a lot of scientific researches and a great amount of interviews, which definitely increase its authority. Actually, this is a really readable, logical and interesting book, you can enjoy yourself without considering those obscure definitions and interpretation.