We helped our parents, the baby boomers, set the time on their VCRs, showed them how to use email and explained to them that Twitter is more than a place to tell people what you are doing. They have had to adapt and learn to use this new technology. This technology has come into their lives at an alarming rate, bringing a learning curve and skepticism for it.

New technology brings new expectations. We expect we will never get lost because of the GPS in our cars. We expect that we will never be out of contact because our smartphones connect us to anyone with our phone number, email address or Twitter handle. We expect everything to move as fast as a Google search, but it doesn’t.

There have been numerous articles, from a variety of sources including CNN and the Harvard Business Review, pointing out the differences between the millennials and the baby boomers. The common thread between them seems to be millennials’ sense of entitlement. How we feel that we deserve things we have not earned. How we expect employers to cater to our needs. How we expect the perfect job.

Frankly, it’s bullshit.

First, let’s take a step back and look at how we were raised. From day one, our parents told us that we could be whatever we wanted to be. Games rewarded participants, not winners. Our parents said that good grades would get us into a good college, and a good college would get us a good job. In the system that raised us, the sky was the limit. They conditioned failure out of us.

Now, let’s fast-forward to the real world. Let’s look at today’s expectations and look at what employers expect from us. They want the same today as they wanted from our parents before us. Do more with less. Do more for less. Work longer hours than ever before. These expectations aren’t new to the workforce, but we are.

Hit face-first with the harsh realities of the real world, we are quick to find that the jobs we were lead to believe we’d have, aren’t there. There are fewer jobs than ever before and the competition for those jobs is fierce. This game only rewards winners; there is no prize for second-place. Because of this, thousands of us college-educated millennials are under-employed or sit without a job, gamed by the system that raised us.

A lucky few of us make the cut. We’ve worked non-paid internships and started careers at a reduced-rate, just to get into the game. Employers want more for less, and we understand that. It’s Business 101. Employers expect us to work long hours. We can do that too. We are enthusiastic, optimistic and ready to work, energized by the fact that we have a job.

With our smartphones, laptops and iPads, we can work from anywhere and at any time. We are always online, reading, researching and learning as much as we can. We are reaching out, connecting and networking with friends, peers and experts. These new connections give us new ways of learning and enable us to gain knowledge faster than ever before. This knowledge coupled with technology empowers us to make change.

Change not only our industries, but change our lives and change the world.

To bring about this change, we feel entitled to use tools like the internet and social media at work. It is our lifeline to our connections and the world’s knowledge. We’re always on, so we feelentitled to start later than 8am, because we are working far longer than when quitting time rolls around at 5pm. Our educational system taught us that everyone has a valuable opinion and we should work as a team. So we feel entitled to have opinions and to speak up with them. Examples like these are endless, but the bottom line is that our entitlement stems from how we were raised.

We were raised in today’s technology. We were raised in a system without failure. We were raised to think we are valued.

But, we cannot blame technology, the economy or a system for where we are today.

We have to blame ourselves, both millennials and baby boomers alike.

As millennials, we need to wake up. We have been living a lie for the past twenty plus years. There are no guarantees of jobs after college or even jobs at all. Don’t blame your parents. They couldn’t foresee where we are today. During their time, the sky was the limit and it’s what they instilled into us. That optimism is still there, and we can still change the world. It’s just going to be longer and harder than ever before.

Baby Boomers need to accept reality. We, as millennials, are just as they were at this age: young, eager and at times, reckless. They need to capitalize on our technological savvy, invigorate themselves with our fresh ideas and renew themselves with our optimism. They also need to be prepared to pay us for it. We can be just as loyal and hard working as the generations before us. There will be some catering and some concessions, but this isn’t millennial entitlement, it’s progress.

This post first appeared as a guest post on Stephanie Florence’s blog, “Real World” Pending… Student Always.

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” ~ Les Brown

You should always try to put your best foot forward in everything you do, but sometimes you fall short in meeting others’ expectations. It is bound to happen. We’re human – we make mistakes. Sometimes our mistakes really are not mistakes at all. You have to understand that you cannot please everyone all the time. Your perception of ‘right’ can be very different from someone else’s.

When a mistake does occur, you should try your best to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. Coach John Wooden said, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.” You do not want to rush a correction only to make another mistake in the process. Stop, recognize your mistake, correct it, learn from it, and prevent it from happening again in the future.

No one and nothing you do can be truly perfect, but that is not to say you should not strive for perfection. My father always told me, “Do something right, or don’t do it at all.” Why bother doing something that you won’t be proud of?

Putting your best foot forward every time, in everything you do, and learning from your mistakes is paramount to becoming successful personally, professionally, and in life in general. Do you want to be staring at the stars or be amongst them?

I do admit, when you first start using the application, the thrill of unlocking new badges and checking in can be quite exhilarating. You may find yourself checking in at every bar in an evening to unlock the “Crunked” badge or checking in at three Apple stores to unlock the “Jobs” badge. Nevertheless, the novelty soon wears off.

Bugs. Fourquare is buggy, as documented here. I am only going to share some of the bugs I have experienced on a first-hand basis. The first major bug I run into daily is friend requests stuck in limbo. MTV wants to be my friend and frankly, I want to know where to beat up the beat with the Jersey Shore kids. Sadly, I cannot because every time I accept MTV’s friend request it says friend request accepted and returns it to my friend request queue.

Never-ending Friendship Loop. I also use the business aspect of Foursquare and have run into the recurring problem of having a user from a different country being made a manager at my business. I have sent emails to the Foursquare team and have the user removed, but he keeps showing up when I check on the statistics on the page. I have been in contact with Foursquare and they said that they have found the bug in their database that caused this issue.

Privacy. You accept the fact that Foursquare shares your location when you sign-up for the service, as it is all part of the game. However, with a site like Please Rob Me showing empty houses to rob based on your check-ins and Foursquare’s recent privacy scandal, you begin to wonder if Foursquare, or any social media site, values your privacy at all. Even scarier, is the first potential case of Foursquare stalking.

Time consumption. Checking in is time consuming process, especially if you do not leave the application running. With battery life precious on my BlackBerry, I tend to close all applications after I am done using them. You have to wait for the connection check, login, and the application to load all your friends’ updates. Then you have to click check-in, wait for the app to find your location and local venues, select the venue, chose to check into the venue, add any details of your check in, hit check in one more time, and wait for it to set your check in. It all seems tedious to me.

No tangible benefits. Yes you earn badges and yes you earn points, but what benefits do you see from this? One could make a case for discounted coffee for mayors at Starbucks, or discounts at these select establishments, but I have yet to receive anything from being a mayor, checking-in, shouting, or adding a tip or to-do anywhere. Maybe I am not Foursquaring enough.

With all these problems, it seems as though Foursquare is more trouble than it is worth. I know plenty of people who feel the same way. Maybe they are jumping ship and going out with Gowalla.

Have you given up on Foursquare or are you an avid user? Share your thoughts on it below.

Monday night on Twitter, she shared 13 business lessons she had learned from the past two weeks. These were not only great business lessons, but also great career lessons as well.

Too good to miss, I compiled them into a list to share with you:

1. Those who work the hardest (and the longest) end up with more opportunities.
2. Always under promise and over deliver.
3. A good team makes all the difference.
4. If you wait until things are perfect, you’ll never get anything done.
5. You can’t forget to take care of yourself.
6. Priorities REALLY matter. You can’t always get everything done, but you better get the right things done.
7. We all make mistakes. It’s what we learn and how we change after that can redeem us.
8. Business titles shouldn’t determine who receives your respect. You may end up reporting to those people someday.
9. When you know your values, it’s easy(ier) to make big decisions.
10. You don’t become irrelevant if you go off-grid for 48 hours or more.
11. Recognize those who do an amazing job. There are many professionals who go above and beyond because they love their jobs.
12. Sometimes it truly is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
13. Fun ways to reward and recognize your team via social media can really pay off. A team who tweets together, stays together.

What lessons have you learned that you would add to this list?

1. Handle: Register your full name, even if you do not plan to use it. It is important to control your Twitter handle as search trackers heavily favor it (See a Google search for my name, here).

If you do not want to use your full name as your handle, trying branding it with the industry or city, you are trying to break into (i.e. JohnPR or JaneMPLS). If you have a branded handle, it is important that you include your name in your profile section.

2. Complete Profile: It includes your name, location, website, and bio.

Your name and location will help connect you to professionals. It is also beneficial when companies search for candidates via location. If you do not have your name listed, or vice-versa, you might never be found.

Your website should link to your personal website or blog, LinkedIn profile, Flavors.me account, or online version of your resume. Your link should be professional in nature and include a way to contact you.

Twitter limits your bio section to 140 characters, but like your elevator speech, it should be concise and packed with keywords. State your qualifications or education, what kind of job you are looking for, where you are looking for a job or if you are willing to relocate, some of your professional interests or industry keywords, and a personal touch to remember you.

3. Professional Avatar: Your image is everything online. You will want a professional looking picture as your avatar to show potential employers that you are serious about the job search. Remember your yearbook picture? Try to emulate it with your avatar. It should depict you, alone, professionally dressed from your shoulders up, and without a busy background.

4. Customized Background and Theme. What Twitter limits character-wise in your profile, it gives you free reign in your background. It has ample space to include information, pictures, links, or your email address. So show your personality and set yourself apart from the pack. For a great example, check out @mattChevy.

These are just a few tips to complete your Twitter profile and tailor it for the job search. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more tips on using Twitter to job hunt.

Do you have any tips for someone looking to customize their Twitter profile for the job search?

So you want to join or get more involved in social media. Where do you start? Before you go anywhere, you need to understand what you are getting yourself into. Social networking takes time and commitment on your part. Finding connections, building and maintaining relationships, and sharing meaningful content take time and it adds up… quickly. Do not get me wrong, you can commit as much or as little time as you want; but social networking is what you make of it. You will get what you put in.

So you understand the time needed to make the experience worthwhile and are ready to take the next step. Now it is time to understand the different networks available and how they are used. Some of the most common social networks include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Myspace (yes, Myspace). Before you join one (or all of them), I encourage you to look around these communities and get a feel for the people there, the content they are sharing, and what they are using the network for. If you find some like-minded individuals and like what they are doing, jump on in!

You have made the jump. You are really doing it! Now what? Now you will want to find a direction for yourself and understand what you want to get out of using this network. Do you want to keep in touch with friends via Facebook? Do you want to tweet your way to a job through Twitter? Knowing what you want to get out of using these social networks will help direct you to the people you want to connect with and the content or media that you are going to share. It is not an exact science and there is a lot of trial and error involved. After a few days, weeks, or maybe months you will find your place within the network.

Emily was intrigued with when I told her what I have learned, the great people I have met and connected with, and the opportunities that have come my way because of Twitter. After hearing about it, she decided to dive right in and try it for herself.

What advice do you have for someone who is looking to join or get more involved in social media?