Are You Ready For The ReadyMade Millennium Mindset?

Yesterday was a wild ride on the stock market roller coasters.

By the time I got home from the office, I was all ready to kick back and catch my breath…and I hadn’t even taken my puppy out for her walk!

I really didn’t watch much television last night. The news segments all sounded like repeats from several weeks ago. Same “news” about the market and same “news” about politics.

Ended up reading the magazines that I found in my mailbox. One of the magazines was ReadyMade. As their tagline claims, it is all about… “Instructions For Everyday Life.”

ReadyMade Magazine is a cool place to dwell.

It’s the Millennium Generation’s Better Homes & Gardens married with Popular Mechanics.

This current issue contains featured articles ranging in topics from “Install your own click-tile flooring” to “Hang a crystal clothes-hanger chandelier” to “Seven pet projects for your furry friends.”

Don’t know about all of you reading this blog, but I find myself spending a lot of time in the search for stretching the dollar and doing cool things at a lower price.

Some of the pet projects are just downright cool. One of the projects is all about converting old luggage to a “Jet-Set Dog Bed”; another is about how to build a “Litter Box Hideaway.”

And by the way, I bet many will find it interesting to know that one of the featured projects in the Click-Tile Flooring article is titled “Shagadelic Headboards” in which you use the cheap tile carpeting as part of your bedroom furniture.

Is that cool or what?

The section titled “Home Fixes” is the one that I find most entertaining. It’s essentially the 2010 version of “Hints From Heloise.”

Here’s a couple of this month’s Fixes:
-- Freeze Frame… Getting wax removed from candle holders by freezing them
-- Vodka Tonic… Using Vodka to extend the life of razors
-- Peel The Heat… How to use orange rind to start the evening fires
-- Save Face… Removing the make-up with olive oil

Last week I lectured at Auburn University. I asked the students and faculty how many of them read ReadyMade Magazine.

Only a few raised their hands.

I also asked some top C-Level management at a corporate retreat about a month ago, how many had heard of ReadyMade Magazine.

Zero raised their hands.

C-Level management is quickly having to learn how to make dollars stretch. Maybe we should all launch a ReadyMade Magazine designed around company management!

If you have never paged through this publication, you really need to.

In this economy and with the bulk of the Millennium Generation graduating college, this is the mindset and design-set that is going to be driving the consumer wallet.

It is all about how they think and all about what they do. And brands that want to sleep with this generation of the marketplace are going to have to embrace it BIG TIME in REAL TIME.

After reading it last night, I actually got a good night sleep.

On one level, I figured I could still be hip and cool even if Wall Street collapsed. On another level, it confirmed what drives me to do what I do in challenging the very conventions of the tried and true.

Just think… ReadyMade could be you too!

Hey…go change into those jeans, pack a few Red Bulls and let’s get into my Mini and journey!

Cool!