I’ve been studying the Millennials for the past 5 years to see what makes them tick. My selfish motive is to better understand the Millennials in my own family, but apart from that, I am fascinated with how their perspective on and love for technology will change the way marketers construct loyalty marketing value propositions.

At the very least, we have to embrace digital channels to deliver offers and to support program servicing needs. Going a little farther, we should be delivering offers, promotions and triggering incremental purchase behavior in a way that benefits merchants and program sponsors without adding a “creep” factor to the lives of Generation Y. As we’ve come to learn, this group might be the quickest to disconnect upon noticing incoming creepiness.

At some point, I concluded that “studying” might be the wrong approach. Why not skip the removed, third party observations and take the bold step of talking with them. After all, everyone wants to be listened to and human beings, regardless of generation, love to talk about themselves.

I am lucky to have a Mystery Millennial who has agreed to share her experiences with brands, retail and otherwise, and to share her candid experiences with Loyalty Truth from as the mood strikes.

Here is a short tale of interaction with Urban Outfitters that makes a very clear point. Read it and let me know what lesson you take away.

Mystery Millennial Goes Urban Outfitter

I have a large purse, I do, and I love my oversized bag. It has been very useful for collecting the small pieces of my daily life that don’t have a specific home, like receipts. It sounds crazy, but I’m toting around hundreds of little papers recording my retail history over the last month or so, a persistent reminder that I have not been diligent with my record keeping.

The other day I had a shopping experience that left me particularly happy at the checkout counter. I was updating my fall wardrobe at Urban Outfitters and, while making my purchase, was asked if I wanted to receive my receipt by email! I believe my response was a bit generous for the situation, but my enthusiasm was genuine. I was more than happy to hand over my email address for the sake of not adding to my already embarrassing collection of paper waste in my possession.

To top off my delight I had my receipt easily accessible right where I record my budget- on my computer. There was no digging through the infinite abyss (my purse), organizing by date, trying to read crumpled receipts, etc.

In a day and age of marketers pursuing the pocketbook of Millennials, I would say this is a positive step by a big retailer. They might have been motivated by “green” causes or just have been mercenary in pursing my email address. Either way, they made a positive impression by not wasting paper, and saved me time as well as space in my purse.

Editor’s note: I’ve got to ask our Mystery Millennial if she shops at CVS Pharmacy and is a member of ExtraCare. The program has taken a lot of heat for its long paper receipts, only one or two of which would choke Ms. Millennial’s purse.

I read some really great year end posts during the week leading up to New Year’s Day. Amidst the “Top 10/50/100″ lists, there were thoughtful, humorous, and motivational takes on how to evaluate 2009 and approach 2010 with energy and enthusiasm.

One or two that caused me to take my finger off the mouse and pause for a second read-through had to do with the pace at which we work.  The net-net message was that those people who work around the clock, never take their eye off the ball, and keep their energy switch constantly in the “On” position, will achieve the highest level of success in today’s always-connected world. One post went further, bragging about the pace they were keeping and implying that if the reader isn’t doing the same, you could count on falling, not only out of the race, but off the competitive map.

While there have always been overachievers and workaholics in our midst (and I admit to being in at least the first category), this year’s version of the “never take your foot off the pedal” message was heavily influenced by our steady adoption of social media. After two solid years (or 3?) of absorbing social media serum into our blood stream, we are a people possessed. Possessed by activity, by multi-tasking, by to-do lists, and by immediacy.

My take on how we interact with social media and other technologies – and how we advise our clients to interact with them – is that we have to remain constantly vigilant about who is in charge.

• Do we own the blackberry/iPhone, or does it own us?
• Does a ringing phone cause us to drop eye contact with a prospective customer to see who’s calling?
• Can we manage our social media presence as part of our work day, or does social media become our day?
• Are we creating another reason to procrastinate on tasks more closely correlated with revenue generation than SM so-far?

Don’t get excited, I’m not walking away from continuing to build social media communication strategies as part of my client’s customer strategies, but I am advising people to keep things in balance. If you’re not convinced, I have two resources to share with you, one older and more current.

The more time that goes by, the more I applaud the brilliance of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Covey encourages people to prioritize the “critical” tasks of the day ahead of the “important”. In plain English, I am always going to complete and deliver a promised deliverable for a paying client before catching up on my Twitter email or posting to this blog.

The second resource is evidence of a growing body of evidence that multi-tasking is just not good for us as human beings.

• I saw the first commercial from a wireless company discouraging texting while driving over the holidays. Congratulations to Verizon on that ad which you can see here.
• The Harvard Business Review published an article during 2009 on “The Dangers of Distraction” and I have read other summaries of research that indicates we humans do our best work in linear, not multi-threading style.

With all the attention given by Marketers today to Customer Engagement, the issue of attention spans is critical to understand, dissect, and integrate into our communication plans. Our success in reaching and building loyalty with Generation Y (the Millennial Generation) is highly dependent on our commitment to addressing this key issue.

In my opinion, we need to build some space into our own lives if we are to successfully design and execute effective strategies for our clients. Building space into our lives means that we need to create some “margin” in the day. You know the one inch or so of white space around the typical page full of copy? Well, we need to put a version of that into our calendars, drop the to-do list to the ground, and reside peacefully there for enough time that it takes to refocus on the strategic, the critical, and the longer term view.

I’ve got lots more to share on how to drive Customer Engagement in an over-stimulated consumer environment.

Stay tuned.