Monopolies of tomorrow

This morning in the news, I read about the finalization of a merger - Men's Wearhouse acquiring Jos. A. Bank. In just the past few months:

• Facebook has purchased WhatsApp
• Omnicom & Publicis Groupe applied to merge 
• Office Max & Office Depot merged 
• American Airlines & US Airways are merging 
• Comcast is attempting to acquire Time Warner 

These mergers and acquisitions are not all focused in one line of business; they are across various industries.

What does this mean for business when today's workforce has seen every big company attempt to become a monopoly? Apple, Google and Facebook already dictate a lot of the Internet and data marketplace. What will happen when companies continue to consolidate into mega-companies?

Sure, mergers are not new. And we know the FTC spends plenty of time investigating regulation and business effects before passing these joint agreements. But today's workplace knows something new and different than the notion that if you are a startup, you are not successful if you're not acquired for billions. While that remains true, it now applies to large companies. If you are an established company and are not investing in smaller businesses, big-scale partnerships or buying companies out, you are also not successful. We'll continue to see how these monopolies affect our future as employees, businesspeople and consumers.

Referrals for the win

Referrals have to be one of the strongest business strategies ever used with Millennials.

Not only do they feed into our sense of competition, but they enhance the feeling of being acknowledged by offering rewards for recruiting your friends!

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Uber telling me that Uber was doubling its referral bonus for a limited time. When you referred a friend with your specialized code, not only would your friend get $20 in cab credit, but you would get $20 in credit too. I kept it in the back of my head that if someone didn't have the app, I'd recommend they get it and give them the code…but who didn't have Uber at this point?

The more emails they sent, the more competitively I became a brand advocate. I quickly learned plenty of people I knew did not have Uber. Friends who were home on break from college, my roommate and luckily enough, an entire group of Mizzou students who were visiting on a Mojo agency tour of Chicago.

After explaining how convenient taxi-calling apps like Uber are, let's just say I have free cabs for awhile :)  Now, I'm doing the same thing with new mobile apps that I download because I saw it successful with Uber. Referrals FTW (yes, that means for the win).