OT: Catering to millennials, 49'ers limit meetings to 30 minutes and give smartphone breaks.
This change could never have occurred under Harbaugh, so I'm sure Alex Boone is smiling. Interesting how rather than trying to improve young player attention span, or heavens, demand full attention for the huge dollars they pay, the 49'ers assume they can't handle meetings longer than 30 minutes. This is actually kind of an insult rather than accomodation.
On the other hand, I wish my work meetings had 30 minute limits so maybe this is ahead of the curve...
http://www.ninersnation.com/2015/6/16/8791565/49ers-research-and-adjust…
They are giving their players way too much time to google "Early Retirement".
although schadenfreude in too much quantity is fattening.
"Diet Schadenfreude." That's where you alternate big tears of joy at the pain of another, with genuine sadness. It's a 90-10 ratio...
The smartphone break thing is stupid but limitiing meetings to 30 minutes could be useful across all professions. I feel like most meetings that go past 30 mins are either just wasting time or informing people of information that does not pertain to them.
The longer I work as a professional, the more I think people who schedule long meetings or many meetings are trying to justify why they're in the building for 40 hrs a week
Rarely do I see the meeting that couldn't be accomplished with a memo and maybe 10 minutes to meet, discuss and vote. They are, unfortunately, one of the ways administrators justify their own existence.
Seemed to work fine for America to not have time limits on meetings for the past few centuries. I fear for the future of this nation - this generation can barely see the world in front of them because their faces are so buried in the electronics and narcissism. Switching jobs every six months because they weren't handed their dream jobs after getting their Psychology degrees and participation awards.
Absolutely no standards in journalism anymore. By far it is the industry which has taken the steepest dive. That Rolling Stone woman wasn't even asked to resign and her apology read like an editorial.
Back in my day, we had real journalists like William Randolph Hearst who reported FACTS and didn't do things like goad the entire country into a meaningless war solely for the purpose of selling newspapers.
Look, I get it. There are a lot of things about right now that seem shitty, but the problem is those things have ALWAYS been shitty. There never was a golden age of journalism, Woodward and Bernstein were an aberration in a murky and generally distasteful history. We just like to look back on those times and remember them with a wholly undeserved fondness. It's the exact same phenomenon behind how "pop music today" always seems to be so terrible. We remember the 40 best songs from any given decade and compare them 1-to-1 with the current top-40. Of course "music today" is going to lose, we're subconsciously comparing 6 months to 10 years.
Stop fearing for the future of the country, stop worrying that human interaction is disappearing. Every generation ever, since the dawn of the modern age, has looked at the generation that came after it and had the exact same compaints you're making here. Everyone thinks the people who come after them suck, and maybe they do, but not any more than those that they're supplanting.
I do worry about the fact that people younger than a certain age lack the ability to focus for long periods of time due to technology (STUDY), but that is becomming less and less important anyway. But, as a whole, yeah, life will continue.
And I'm firmly in middle age, for crying out loud.
Just because it "worked" in the past doesn't mean it was the right thing. The US got along with slavery for over 100 years and things seemed to "work just fine" when women weren't allowed to vote. Not all change is bad, no matter how long things have been the same.
Having said that, I agree about the addiction to electronics, and its effect on the attention span of the younger generation (I'm old). If you want an interesting analysis, check out "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr.
Of course it's a book so that means that most millenials won't ever look at it!
Jesus, is there anything more pretentious and obnoxious than the poster pushing the curmudgeon perspective of, "back in my day, things were better...rabble rabble rabble..."
They way people interact and communicate today is different than it was 20, 30, or even 50 years ago. Different doesn't mean better, but it also doesn't necessarily mean worse. And let me clue you in an inconvient truth that doesn't quite fit into your "young people suck" narrative; 30 minute meetings and regular smartphone breaks are not spreading across the professional world like wildfire to cater to the whims of millienials. I suspect that the 49ers initiative has more to do with entitled, rich athletes than it does with millenials in general. Give it rest, you're giving all of us middle-aged guys a bad rap.
Yeah, you are right about older people claiming that 'young people today blah, blah, blah... and therefore the nation is DOOMED" is sort of obnoxious. And it is also true that the 30 minute meeting rule is not just to cater to millenials (and also might be a good idea, at least if the meeting is not to negotiate world peace, which might take at least an hour).
But it is also true that young kids today are self absorbed, entitled, etc,, etc.... And so was my generation when I was in my 20s too... That is just part of being in your 20s, whatever the generation. Completely normal.
Previous generations had participation awards. They called them "careers" and they were handed to you after you stumbled out of high school.
Who invited EVERYONE'S GRANDPA EVER to MGoBlog?
Jed York = DB
Tomsula = Hoke (without any HC experience sans NFL Europe)
also-
To be fair at least SF was winning when this guy was clapping.
He wasn't their HC. He was an assistant.
Michigan was winning and winning big when Hoke was an assistant.
Ah but as an assistant Hoke pointed. He only went full on clap happy once he became the head coach. Come to think of it, maybe that was his problem all along.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Why then should meetings last longer?
Catering to millennals or figuring out their old system wasn't as effective as it could be?
The more I read about businesses "catering to young people" the more I think they've been leaving money (wins?) on the table for years due to nonsensical practices/policies that someone finally bothered to question.
[T]he 49ers turned the typical meeting, which on some teams can go for as long as two hours, into 30-minute blocks, each followed by 10-minute breaks that allow players to do what young people do. That is, as Tomsula puts it, to "go grab your phone, do your multitasking and get your fix" before returning the meeting.
We've actually tried to do this with some of the meetings / training we know will run long, although for us it is closer to about 45 minutes or so. "Biobreaks" as they are known in several corners of the company are usually just used by people to check their phone and e-mail and so forth. Of course, in a utility where there are jobs going and things happening most moments, people do want to stay connected to the action in their group, and breaking the meeting up keeps more interested and relieves some of the "I could be doing other things" anxiety.
Next step: less of those meetings. We're working on that too.
Harbaugh.
Maybe they'll let Mom and Dad helicopter around the meetings just to make sure their snowflake gets 1st team reps.
The department my wife works in put a ban on Thursday meetings. That lasted about six months. Sometimes the solution becomes a bigger nuisance than the original problem.
Rabble rabble.
Raiders.
Rabble.
Still in play.
/Rab.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Just another reason why they will absolutely suck nuts upside down this year.
Where will it end besides disaster? America is now full of whiny brats with short attention spans, entitled, hypersensitive and insane PC cops whose ludicrous demands are being appeased at every turn. Harbaugh said football is the last bastion of male toughness. The niners are starting to release themselves from this status.
Where will it end besides disaster? America is now full of whiny brats with short attention spans, entitled, hypersensitive and insane PC cops whose ludicrous demands are being appeased at every turn.
Says every old generation ever.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
The first rule of Gen X is don't talk about Gen X.
If you go about your business quietly, you can get away with anything.
I'll be right back, I need to return some video tapes.
But in all seriousness, the 49ers are going to absolutely crash and burn next year. That chump Jed York is going to realize all too late just how good he had it with Harbaugh at the helm. He may very well be forced out of his job in the next 2-3 years.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
some of you actually think that the average attention span during a meeting is no longer than an episode of the simpsons?
comparing dry work meetings to breaking down film for million dollar salaries is a bit of a stretch.
if this is actually true, I weep for humanity...
Dry work meetings are unbearable, but I also make a measly wage. If I was getting paid millions of dollars to play a childs game, I wouldn't leave the gym and film room until night time. The phone thing is really silly too. There is nothing more annoying than trying to have a conversation with someone who has their head burried in their stupid phone. I am not saying it's the downfall of humanity, but it is incredibly annoying.
What if you were a black man?
or are you just implying that because things were extemely bad in one regard in the past that it must mean that every change, in this case meeting times and lack of attention in adults, must therefore be good, as well? I'm only making that assumption because the OP was talking about attention spans and not saying something like, "boy, things sure were great in every way in the 1950s. We should go back to those times and adopt every single aspect of that period in time."