I’ll be posting photos from Fashion and Finance later this week. In the meantime, I wanted to share this great TED talk.

In the video from the conference in Edmonton earlier this year, entrepreneur Cameron Herold argues schools are stifling, rather than nurturing, entrepreneurialism and offers some solutions.  Follow the discussion on this TED talk or share your opinions below.

I just heard from one of the presenters at our upcoming Fashion and Finance NYC retreat (there are a couple of open spots for the June 24-26 event, if you want to join us). Claire Meunier and her mother are going to do a joint session on the “Extreme Networking” it took for Claire to get established after earning an MBA from one of the top schools in the country. Their story is compelling and instructive. More than 16 percent of 20 to 24-year are unemployed and, short of a miracle, I am not feeling Pollyanna-ish about a big improvement anytime soon. The economy is undergoing a massive restructuring that no one wants to talk about. But more on that another day.

Not Enough:

At Fashion and Finance NYC (June 24-26) we about the "Extreme Social Networking" it takes to get great jobs now.

Claire and her mother are going to talk about what it took for Claire to land on her feet in a meaningful position, commensurate with her experience and education. It took Claire almost a year of relentless conversations, meetings, inquiries, reminders, letters, emails, more meetings, and outreach to everyone she had ever met in her life (You think I’m kidding; I’m not.) She understood she had to build a vast web of relationships—REAL relationships, not just Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections. She had to be relentlessly tenacious. She was and she succeeded. And her parents, used to a world in which hard work and a good track record are rewarded, had to adapt to the new environment their daughter faced.

Claire’s story is an important one because in many ways she had EVERYthing going for her: a great experience, top level education, supportive family, intellect, sense of humor, and social network that was already strong. Even with all those assets, her journey was challenging.

The implications for kids who don’t have such resources, or who are not prepared to attack the quest for meaningful, sustaining work are significant. Without Herculean effort, many young people will be left out of the pool for ‘great work’. And if they are counting on less challenging work where they can ‘get by’ they are still in trouble. Those entry-level jobs that used to soak up the energy of American kids are shrinking. Think of all the ticket booths, airline jobs, and retail functions once manned and womanned by actual people, now handled by bank ATMS, airline kiosks, self-service restaurants and electronic touch screens. The entry-level world that launched millions of boomers is vanishing.

Everyone coming to Fashion and Finance next week will enjoy the mother/daughter tale of how Claire got ‘launched.’ I plan to reprise my ‘Launch Webinar’ later this summer and will include stories from their presentation. This new economy requires that families manage their ‘human capital’ with a new attention to developing entrepreneurial kids with extreme networking skills and the capacity to build authentic relationships that will help them find a place in this new and changing economic web.

I got an email from a reporter the other day I thought I’d share with you all! Because I am preparing for the webinar on “The Launch” coming up later this month (email me for more info), his email triggered a small rant (below). I’d love your comments.

Here’s what got me started:

The reporter, Steve Fox, writes for SPAN, a publication produced by the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi with the objective of explaining America to a high-end audience of Indians–lawyers, doctors, legislators, executives, etc. He’s working on a piece explaining why, as he puts it, “we in the U.S. put such a high value on working voluntarily at an early age—the paper route, the lemonade stand, clerking in a store, helping out on the family farm or in the family business, that kind of thing. I’ve explained,” Fox continued, “that things have changed in the U.S. and that, in the current environment, with high unemployment and the prevalence of illegal workers, many jobs that might have been done by teenagers or college students are being filled by someone else.” But they [SPAN] want an article nonetheless, partially because the value system in India is much different—middle-class kids there would not be encouraged to work. So I wonder if you would be wiling to give me your thoughts. Is it the Protestant work ethic, capitalism, or values of learning self-reliance that make a difference here?

Because of the webinar and the white paper we’re about to publish on “How Great Families Launch Twenty Somethings,” I have spent a lot of time thinking about this question. This is what I wrote back to him:

The values you describe (work ethic, early work for success) are still core and active across dominant US cultures. And there is still an equation linking work with worth here in the US. Across all income groups, the idea that you do nothing and pursue idleness is anathema, embarrassing somehow. Philanthropy in the United States is another genuine form of meaningful work. But you’re right that the game has changed.

The work we’re doing on ‘The Launch’ phase of family development emerged from families asking us for help getting twenty-somethings ‘launched’ into independent, self-sufficient lives. Subsidy of adult children is a rising problem in this country, across all income groups and the drive to ‘help kids get on track’ is a reflection of our sense that work and worth are connected.

As I first started to work on this issue, I admit to having leaned toward the bias that we were dealing with ’slacker kids’ and overly protective parents (my own work ethic writ large, front and center). But I was wrong. Even very well connected families with kids who are quite accomplished are finding that entry into the work world—and even the volunteer work world—is pretty challenging.

Here’s why: whole industries are shifting and collapsing. Publishing, which use to swallow up thousands of entry level kids hardly exists as we once knew it. It’s social media now and at the entry level it doesn’t pay. Finance has consolidated and replaced low level jobs with technology, law firms are parking associates in non-profits until things ‘pick up’, taking up non-profit slots entry level kids might have taken. And as manufacturing collapsed, ‘middle class’ and working class adults are moving into what would otherwise have been entry level jobs.

The work ethic is very much alive. How to exercise it is getting more challenging. Meanwhile the department of labor just issued guidelines on internships, making the unpaid route to your first job harder. They had to, abuses were rampant. But still, getting a foot in the door for kids who can AFFORD to work free and want to work is even harder.

Which takes us to my new mantra and the new cry you will be hearing more of (and that we’re working with families on): “You can’t assume your kids will be able to take a job; they will have to learn how to MAKE a job.” Slacker kids will in fact have an ever harder time getting established, but the worry is that kids with a driving work ethic will be struggling too. Everything we’re doing with young people these days is aimed at building their entrepreneurial skills, supporting their most tenacious drives, trying to buttress that connection between early work and experience and later engagement in purposeful, meaningful lives (this is not JUST about the money, it’s about building great lives).

It may be that out there in the future I cannot yet see there is a more laid back, less work driven vision of existence that the next generation will morph into. And maybe that’s a good thing. For the moment at least, the best I can say is that we are ‘in transition.’

What do you think? Is there a new work ethic? Is our thinking unique?

The headline was chilling to firms and families alike: “Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say.”

In a market offering fewer opportunities for high school and college-age students to acquire life skills once developed as part of a summer job experience, internships have become a significant source of experience and an important part of the launch process for the next generation. But abused by some employers who overuse kids as free summer labor, many companies will become wary of government oversight and may back away from offering internships altogether.

This will be bad for kids—and for companies. Young people will have fewer opportunities to observe and experience the culture of a variety of workplaces, and companies will have fewer low risk ways to vet potential employees.

But there’ s no cause to panic, for either intentional families or good companies. This is an easy—and an important—challenge to manage. The U.S. Department of Labor published [PDF] six criteria for determining if an internship is legitimate or just a thinly disguised means of getting free labor. And the internships we’ve been involved with at IMI meet all these requirements without a stretch.They are:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational institution. This means that the internship setting must treat the intern as a trainee and provide actual instruction. This is what you want anyway. Young people should be able to observe and try activities that are part of a real learning plan. The student can work with employers to create such a plan (much like an independent learning project). Companies can design these as well.
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees—or intern. While companies certainly benefit from having a chance to observe potential future employees, MOST legitimate internships are too time consuming and expensive to be of much help to the intern host. Free labor is a lot less ‘free’ than most people understand but when the terms of the internship are explicit, this aspect of the criteria is easier to meet.
3. The trainees (interns) do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation. Since most internships we’ve been involved with only last from two to eight weeks, there is little danger interns are displacing real employees. But this is a workplace accountability issue and one that can be clarified at the start of the internship.
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded. Indeed, most internships are done as an act of generosity on the part of the employer. Hosting an intern takes up valuable time and resources. Because an intern can hardly understand the environment in less than three months, let alone make a meaningful contribution to the workplace, employers are making an investment in the future when they offer an internship, not gaining immediate advantage.
5. Trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period. Particularly if an intern is still in school, this is not immediately relevant. But IF the intern goes back to school, or on to another internship and later returns to apply for a job independently, there is no foul.
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training. This is the easy one as most internships are established as free experiences. In some cases the family pays a third party or the employer for young people to gain exposure to industries, professions, and environments they have some interest in or curiosity about.

Internships are vital as vehicles for helping the next generation integrate into the social network of an entrepreneurial culture. Giving kids access to role models, specialized language, and industry knowledge is key to helping them launch into adulthood. Now is not the time to panic. It’s time for next gen members and their families to plan and propose an internship for the summer experience of choice.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor “ADVISORY: TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT GUIDANCE LETTER NO. 12-09”

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, but we’re back with another brief Camp Start-Up announcement: in the spirit of never being too young to start something great, campers at our Massachusetts location will be going on a field trip to a family-run jewelry company started by a 13-year-old entrepreneur.

Where are we going?
Campers will  head to East Longmeadow (about six miles away from home base in Wilbraham) to visit Colorful Creations Bead Company, Inc. Emily Rose started “The Friendly Place to Bead Together” with her family in 2005 after making $3,000 selling $4 bracelets at local craft fairs. Today, the retail store hosts classes and events.

What will we learn?
Emily found her first success differentiating her jewelry by including cards that described the healing and protective properties of each stone she sold. As a teenager, she spent time traveling around the country to meet her suppliers. Expect to learn about entrepreneurship, managing supply chains, the challenges of working with your family, and cool ways of marketing your product.

Want to know more?
Check out the company’s story in its own words or their values statement to get a sense of what they’re about. You can become a fan on Facebook or check out this video of a model train that’s in the store.

The day begins like the one before. A dog barks. Bird sounds come through the open window. Our routines kick in, offering a reassuring start to the morning: shower, coffee, newspaper–whatever floats your boat and provides a sense of stability. Then suddenly, unpredictably, disaster. The world is shattered and the sustenance of routine, the most basic assurances of life: safety, shelter, food are ripped away.

That was Haiti on Tuesday, Jan. 12. “Desperate” is the adjective most often associated with Haiti. Deforested, poor, exploited, it has been a desperate place. “It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to stalk Haiti and the Haitian people,” Hilary Clinton said, adding that the outlook for Haiti had been slowly stabilizing before the quake. “We had private business beginning to make investments … There was so much hope about Haiti’s future. Hope that had not been present for years. And along comes Mother Nature and just flattens them.”

Events of such biblical scale evoke: 1) Horror and compassion for those directly affected (the Twitter is still swamped); 2) Relief and guilt that ‘it wasn’t us’ (for Californians a real sense that ‘it coulda been us’); 3) At least a momentary reflection on ‘what would we do if ‘ or ‘what can we do to…?’ comes and goes in a moment.

This last response is too horrifying to linger on long. Focus somehow gives awful possibilities a concrete reality we’d prefer to avoid. But in that flash of a moment where we can be mindful, consider talking with your kids about disaster.

They see and hear the news—if not from you then from friends and media. Someone has a relative who lives, works, has traveled to Haiti. Kids as young as 6 or 7 KNOW things. By the time they’re 10 they may know more about some things than their parents. And kids have an active fantasy life, so you may not be able to bear thinking about the possibilities of disaster, but they may be dreaming or imagining stories of family disaster.

As I scanned the news and pictures on various internet sites, searching for information about friends and colleagues who travel and work in Haiti, I was reminded of how total devastation can be in a heartbeat. There are some things for which all the ‘prep’ in the world is insufficient. The water stored, the extra batteries and flashlights tucked in cupboards and corners around the house, the dehydrated food packets are all insignificant in the face of a Biblical scale disaster.

But we need to prepare anyway, because those acts COULD make a difference. And because kids need adults to model forethought, consideration, and preparation. Kids need to see that strength is about more than assets well secured in a diverse portfolio and insured bank accounts. Strength is also about the discipline to plan ahead and the fortitude and inner strength to pick oneself up and pitch in to survive and rebuild in the face of devastation.

So tonight, ask your kids what they’ve heard about what’s happening in Haiti. Empower them to reach out and help children there.

Then talk with them about how your family prepares for disaster and how you expect one another to behave in the face of family disaster. Practice helps kids master anxiety. Let them know that the devastation they see on the news and hear about from friends is not the same as the end of the world.

The devastating news from Haiti will, like the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, launch thousands of new recruits to philanthropic action. This is a good thing as the world needs all the humanitarian soldiers we can get.  And it’s good news for that stricken country. Until the 7.0 earthquake struck, Haiti was the second poorest country in the western hemisphere–the quake could move it into first place. They have extraordinary needs.

So what parent, faced with the heartfelt plea of a teenager (“I want to use my spring break to build shelters in Haiti,”) or the well-reasoned argument of a college student (“..taking a semester off to help rebuild the country will be good experience,”) could/would turn them down?

Hopefully not many. But this sad moment is a teachable moment. Encouraging humanitarian concern doesn’t have to be accompanied by a willful suspension of critical thinking. “Yes, I support your desire to make a difference,” can be followed by questions and criteria that will make the aid effort, whatever it is, more effective, while reducing some of the risk that comes with a plan not well considered.

Five parental requests will help high school and college students make a real contribution to disaster relief. “I support your intention,” the wise parent responds. “And if you respond to my needs with the same care you hope to respond to the needs of the [Haitians, homeless, etc.], we’ll do our best to support your plans.”

1. You have to do a thorough due diligence. This is a skill that will serve a lifetime of needs (from supporting philanthropic causes to taking a job or investing in a new company). But if they’ve never been involved in a disciplined process of investigating the capacity of an organization, they will need direction. Send them to the web to read “Exercising Due Diligence for Disaster Relief.” Written in 2004, it’s an excellent brief on what to look for in a ‘helping’ organization.
2. Show me what you know. [about Haiti, the homeless, etc]. The video feeds are powerful and YouTube will be running footage that fuels an understanding of how dire conditions in Haiti are. But a blind impulse to help, untempered by an understanding of context and on the ground conditions will put everyone at risk. Help them find a few knowledgeable adults who can provide background (you have a wide social network, now is the time to tap it). Send them back to the Internet to gather data on issues that were active before the quake. Encourage them to confer with teachers or professors who have expertise in Caribbean and/or Latin American politics and issues. Ask them to consider urgent needs versus long term needs.
3. Give me a budget. This is another way of helping them understand what they’re getting into.  They will be working with people, many of whom make less in a year than the cost of sending kids to the front lines. Require the work of tallying the cost of tickets to the site, accommodations (no matter how humble), food, and out of pocket cash needs that may come up while they are there. Which do they think will make greater impact: their presence or the money they would have spent to get there? The answer may be ‘both’ but walking them through the consideration may be an eye opener.
4. Inventory your skills. Kids who are caring, smart, and brave enough to volunteer for disaster work typically have plenty of human capital to contribute. But it will be better directed if they can articulate what their human assets are. Energy and physical strength may be obvious, but ask them to create as comprehensive a list of their contributions as possible. Help them think about the basics: Can they cook? Do they know how to assemble things? What experiences have helped prepare them for this task? Do they have first aid skills? Do they speak other languages? Granular skills: the ability to communicate, move things, solve problems, sustain life, are critical in the aftermath of a disaster.
5. Show me a plan for your own safety net. In other words, who do they know who will also be there, what networks can they tap in case of a personal emergency? What provisions will they need for their own sustenance? Do they have medical issues that will be compromised? What can they expect in terms of climate, resources, etc.

If your young humanitarian demonstrates preparedness, you might want offer more than a blessing and resource support. You might decide to go with them. Our list is a great start, but kids interested should take a look at this list from Take Part  to get an idea of the breadth of organizations offering help.

Our very own Scotty Claus (a.k.a. Scott Martin), founder of The Living Christmas Company, has just been featured in The New York Times.

Our 2009 campers had the chance to meet Scott, tour one of his tree nurseries, and talk with him about the ins and outs of starting his own company. It was a Camp Start-Up highlight and one we hope to repeat next summer.

Americans say they want to become more financially confident, but they’re not providing their children with the training for economic self defense, two surveys released last week suggest.

We’re as skeptical as any sensible reader about broad claims from surveys, especially when come out of financial institutions that offer the services the survey just happens to discuss. Still, read in conjunction, these two paint an interesting landscape of the world of parents and financial preparation in 2009 and 2010.

Via Northwestern Mutual

In a survey of users of its financial literacy website TheMint.org Northwestern Mutual Foundation found a gulf between how adults and kids perceived the impact of the economy on their families. Almost half of those 18 and over (47%) said “the economy brought their families closer by working together to change their spending habits and priorities.” But only around one in four children aged 17 and younger (27%) agreed. In fact, about a quarter said family members had “drifted further apart.”

Another statistic may make some sense of the disparity: 50% if children said their parents didn’t discuss the family budget or do anything differently.

We’ve talked about this time and again: it is essential that families discuss finances and the family economy openly.

Even if families were not been directly impacted by the downturn–and with everything from employment rates to university endowments taking considerable hits this last year, few were completely unscathed–they need to talk about it with children if only to inculcate Money Skill #5: How to Talk About Money.

Silence communicates, however inadvertently, that all is well and these are not issues for their concern. These are issues of their concern and will become much more important as they transition to adulthood. A reasoned discussion will help to calm fears and establish context.

Another study adds an interesting, if conflicted, note to this. In telephone survey of 1,000 Americans age 18 and over, Fidelity Investments found more Americans are considering financial resolutions. According to the survey, 43% said they were “more likely to consider financial resolutions,” an increase of 23 percent from the year prior. Seven in ten said they want to increase their confidence level in their finances. People want to get this stuff.

Again, a skeptical reader should take any of these press release surveys by institutions about products and services they provide with a grain of salt (e.g. ‘National Salt Institute Survey Finds 85% if Americans prefer salt on their popcorn!’). But even with dubiety, we can glean something from these surveys:

Americans want to become more financially savvy, but they aren’t taking the critical steps to extend that to the whole family.

If 2010 is to be the year that changes anything, let alone the year that changes everything, as some have suggested, Americans will need to step up and learn to discuss finances with their children and give a clear and consistent message.

So cool we just had to share it. This video shows different ways people in different countries count their money. Watch with the kids to spark another money conversation. [via VSL]