I’m not ashamed to say it. My generation was the first “seriously cool” generation. We are post-boomer, and yep it’s true: We had it all figured out. Everything made sense to us, we seemed to come along at the right time.

Fast forward a few (semed like quite a few) years and as we were getting settled that Gen X arrived on the scene. The X kids weren’t anything truly special as a gen — young adults who worked all day, drank at night, talked a lot about what they deserved, and happened to know how to use a computer. Dirty little secret: Our group was much less boring than those dudes.

Then there’s today. What now? We have a bunch of twentysomethings who look everything up on Wikipedia b4 the question is asked. Sure, all this open source is great, but it can’t teach you what you need to know about the humanist side of things.

Generation WTF is, according to you, unstoppable. Lest I sound like a crotchety old man (ROFL. That’s an acronym thrown in for the kids!), let me say I DO know several WTFers really well, and work with them on a fairly frequent and not un-fun basis. The WTF phenomenon is not a passing phase, either, as it seems to stick to many new grads.

The new gen’s We Came First stance is also partially deserved. A ton of tech/social change has been proliferated during your short adulthood and you guys grabbed it and owned it full-stop. However, in the rush to instant expertise, WTFers often forget that the inventors of the stuff they use everyday were born in my time. Ahem.

Yeah yeah, you know it. All these ramblings arrived in me while wandering the streets of downtown Austin at SXSW (”South By”). So the next time you call me sir, Mr and Ms WTF, how’s about breathing a bit of context into your next kind of smarmy Tumblr update?

Can you do that kid. Can you?

New Yorkers have always had an interesting relationship with Senator Hillary Clinton. We weren’t quite sure what to make of it when she moved into our state apparently for the sole purpose of running for one of our senate seats, and we really didn’t know what to do with her during the now famous race against Rick Lazio. We do know now – on the eve of 2009 – that for the mostpart, we like Senator Clinton, and that she has done an admirable job in her role. She is battle-hardened enough to satisfy even the gruffest of City dwellers, yet thoughtful enough to be genuine. We wish her well as a member of President Obama’s cabinet.

With Senator Clinton soon to leave the legislative branch, Gov. Patterson has to perform a Constitutionally-mandated duty of choosing the much-discussed newbie. This is an awe-inspiring and worthy task, uh isn’t that right, “Governor F-Word”? One prospective name that seems to be circulating is that of a certain Ms. Kennedy – daughter of the last Obama. While Kennedy certainly meets the legal requirements to become a U.S. Senator, I have to wonder if she is up to the task of being one of New York’s crucial legislators.

New Yorkers (like me since birth) strongly dislike non-authentic types. We don’t do bullshit. If you aren’t going to talk straight, we wish you’d get out of our way. There are millions of people in our state and surely someone will give us what we need. That said, when Ms. Kennedy gave an interview to the New York Times, she repeated the phrase “you know” an astounding 142 times. One hundred and forty two! I mean… Palin may have been a public catastrophe, but she has to be cackling now.

Ms. Kennedy, we don’t know. We want to know what qualifies you to be in the Senate as opposed to, say, a public servant at a lower level. We want to know why the interest to become a political figure? All of the sudden? Why after 50 years of “leave me alone and let me raise my children in peace”-iness. Mostly though, we want to know why you don’t deserve comparisons to our dear friend from Alaska, who was ridiculed even by those who did not doubt her.

Objectively speaking, Mrs. Palin has infinitely more political experience than La Kennedy. Palin has been elected to municipal office and statewide office, no small feats, and was (still is) widely lampooned as “not experienced enough” for a shot at Washington. If she lacks experience, what does Ms. Kennedy have besides the President-Elect’s vote to escape this double-standardized criticism?

Look, Caroline (can we call you Caroline?)-we like Teddy. He’s a good man We loved your Uncle Robert. We adored your dad, and because we, like she, epitomized New York, we were beyond infatuated with your mother. We want to like you. But we’re smart and see through the noise.

Please give us something of substance. And add a decent public speaking course to your resume. Or your argument stops at “Gee, my name is Kennedy… you know?”

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” -Peter Drucker

In Outliers, the outstanding Gladwell book about the real way we get successful, there is a terrific section at the end on societies who take more time with their work; they “have to care” immeasurably about what they do – or they simply FAIL.

Which leads me to this: Since the year is over (and all we learned in ‘08 was that smugness does not pay) I’d like to ask one question:

Does anyone care about what they do these days?

I’m not trying to bitch here -OK, maybe a little – but it’s obvious that the U.S. has sunk to a new low, money wise, and as someone who’s been running a company for almost 19 years, and has studied the economies of the last two decades while researching to write a book or three, I can promise that our economy isn’t going “UP” anytime soon. So, when I look around I see a lot of people “simply happy to have a job.” Being employed is great, but mere satisfaction with a weekly check is not the way we are going to get out of this massive mess we’re in. Offices filled with people being content to be somewhere are sucky workplaces that serve as Petri dishes that cultivate the germs required to kill off a lot of heretofore strong entities.

Face it: with people spending less and waiting to see which industries will die harshly, no fields besides banking and automobiles (and particularly not marketing) will be “rescued” anytime soon. To survive through this mess you’re going to have to have balls. And you’re going to have to be fiercely un-mediocre in a time of sameness and safety. Our businesses will have to be the ones who affirm to clients, vendors, partners and employees: I (or we) will not do any work that I don’t believe in. We will follow our instincts. We need to take a hard look at the negative ones around us who wish to do whatever it takes to, umm, get the job done, who want to use clichés, be irresponsible in their communication with others, act as if devoid of anything substantial (”no value add”), and we shall not allow them to guide us to failure. As my preamble said, it all comes down to caring-like Asians and rice fields that Gladwell ponders with precision -so I say this to you who are in your job to bide time: Be ready to become a nonunion barista in a post-Starbucks environment.

Those who think service businesses will uniformly rise above the morass over the next few years and become something hugely successful, remove your head from a place that is both dusty and dank. No miracle cure is coming-nothing is going to make any of us money unless we swiftly change the way we do business. Too many marketing professionals – particularly in the noisy, underperforming PR arena – are letting their clients and bosses tell them what they want when in fact our roles have done a complete 180 over the last several years. So how the heck can those we work for tell us how to succeed at our jobs? Could they know more than us? IS THAT REALLY POSSIBLE?

To survive – not, you’ll notice, thrive – it is about being on, truly wanting to succeed with passion and verve, but being able to do it in a way that’s not been done before. And if you have people around you who are in it to get by, you need to shove them out the door-or arrange for their exit-and/or cut them off at the knees. Yes, Virginia, that includes clients.

Finally, what is the lesson usurped from 2008? That being a wimp (yep, a lot of us were ‘woos’ character studies this year) is no way to do business, particularly when you’re hired to be a public communicator of messages that are distinctive and that you believe in! Risk-taking is everything in a society where apathetic people don’t care like they used to. So what’s a risk these days? Anything that makes you gasp when put on paper and smile to yourself when accomplished for real.

I, like most of you, wish a speedy good riddance to 2008. Here’s to Number 9, when all those who enter our lives in the workplace start to care.

I can hope.