I love my blog for two reasons – 1) It’s my space to do whatever I want in, and 2) I get to share that space with an amazing community. I’d like to start 2009 with turning the spotlight on to that community.

This isn’t a list of my favorite Gen Y bloggers, or the most established, or the best or even the most under-appreciated.  And I haven’t included a lot of people I really like. A lot. But looking into the Gen Y crystal ball, I see these fellow bloggers making waves in 2009. Here we go (in no particular order):

1. Politicoholic
Nisha Chittal is becoming rapidly well-known in the Gen Y blogging world. As an extremely talented writer, she easily won the Brazen Careerist blogging contest with this post.

2. Employee Evolution
Speaking of Brazen Careerist, the guys at Employee Evolution have had a tough time maintaining their blog since co-founding the company. But in 2009 that will change. Look for Ryan Paugh to split off and start his own blog here, and for Ryan Healy to re-commit to Employee Evolution with renewed energy.

3. The Schiff Report
Jaclyn Schiff illuminates Gen Y by discovering and commenting on interesting press clips, and more importantly, consistently providing a thought-provoking point of view.

4. WorkLoveLife
It would be hard not to include Holly Hoffman on this list. And it would be hard to imagine the Gen Y blogosphere without her snappy and sensational writing on oh-so-many revealing topics.

5.  FeverBee
Richard Millington talks about ideas for building online communities. I discovered him through Chuck Westbrook’s “Under-Appreciated Blogs” series. Look for Millington to become the Seth Godin of our generation. Seriously.

6. Personal Branding
The real power of Dan Schawbel comes not from his blog, but his incredible passion which makes him one of the hardest-working Gen Y bloggers around. Watch for his book Me 2.0 to come out in early April of this year.

7. I Hate HR
Both witty and wise, Rachel Robbins’ posts are a short and cohesive snapshot of the HR world, something that I could care less about, but that she manages to make interesting.

8. The Office Newb
I love that Jacqui Tom challenges my opinions and forces me to synthesize my ideas. No, really, literally. And while I don’t always agree with her, she makes appealing arguments as a clever writer.

9. Girl Meets Business
It’s been easy to overlook Angela Marino’s consistently practical and solid advice, but with the launch of her fun and innovative 2009 YP Rockstar series, I know she will gain well-deserved attention.

Wait, one more…
10. Modite
I’m totally cheating. I know. Putting my own blog on my own list is completely self-involved. But I hear you when you say you want me to post more. And I will.

And finally a note about…
The Almost Royal
Sometimes people do things I don’t understand and should stay out of. Like when Sarah Pare deleted her blog. But I want her to come back. She was a favorite. Come back, Pare, we need you.

Who will you be watching in 2009?

Rebecca Thorman (www.modite.com) gives career advice for the next generation of workers. Barely out of college, Rebecca job-hopped her way to becoming the Executive Director of MAGNET, an organization dedicated to attracting and retaining young talent in her region. During that time, she also began authoring the blog Modite, featured in several media outlets including the New York Times as the key community for Generation Y leadership. Rebecca is known for writing candidly from experience.

“I don’t know if I want to be with Zeus,” I say.

“If you don’t want to, then don’t,” my mother replies.

But it’s more complicated than that, and I tell her why. I tell her that I really do what to be with him - a lot - but I don’t know how. I tell her that I’ve been sabotaging the relationship, and I don’t know how to stop. I confess everything, and feel the weight dissipate.

“You do look for problems,” she says. “You push things too far. You test people too much. That’s not good. So now you need to figure out if you’re going to mature and grow up or not.”

I’m silent because normally my mother tells me how great I am, how I can do no wrong, and how all men suck. It is the Gen Y parenting creed. But tonight, I am not so lucky.

“Why do you think you’re picking fights?” my mother presses. “You must be doing it for a reason – a lack of confidence in yourself, or in him?”

I concede that I don’t feel like my life is together enough to be in a relationship. And that I’m worried Zeus will sell his company, get rich and dump me. Or we’ll get married, live happily and divorce at the age of 40. Or that he won’t remember to suggest we eat something when I’m moody. Because I get cranky when I’m hungry.

These are the things I worry about. I am a woman. And this is what we do.

Women need constant reassurance, and the only way we know how to get it is to fight, and push buttons, and push past the buttons all the way to the brink of breaking up, so we can see – will he be there then?

My mother argues men can deal with this at first, but it adds up and is like a brick falling from the sky each time. It builds and it is cumulative and eventually they have a wall, and they think I don’t need this. I don’t need to be unhappy, nothing I do ever works or helps, and I can’t make her happy. This isn’t the way I want to live, men think.

And there’s a limit to what a man can take, my mother says.

“And you - ” she continues, “you need to live for today and for you. You can’t know the future. And nothing about your past relationships is pertinent for today. You have to resist the urge to fight. Resist the urge to be angry in an instant over nothing, resist pushing to the breaking point constantly.”

Careers are like this. Maybe you have an idea, or you really want something, or all of your dreams are suddenly within reach. But you make up excuses of why you can’t get there. You prove every hypothesis on why it won’t work. You extrapolate the worst. You don’t call people when you should. You think less of yourself than you used to. You ask others to comfort your decisions. You trip over your own accomplishments just to see – are you on the right path?

Lucky for you, careers are often just as forgiving and patient as men in the beginning, but you have to grow up for continued success. You have to mature before the wall seems insurmountable.

“It is work,” my mother concludes. “It’s a lot of work. But if it’s truly in your heart, you have to do that. You have to work to make it happen.”

Motherly advice.

Rebecca Thorman (www.modite.com) gives career advice for the next generation of workers. Barely out of college, Rebecca job-hopped her way to becoming the Executive Director of MAGNET, an organization dedicated to attracting and retaining young talent in her region. During that time, she also began authoring the blog Modite, featured in several media outlets including the New York Times as the key community for Generation Y leadership. Rebecca is known for writing candidly from experience.

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I really like alpha males – Hercules is the latest and perhaps greatest example in my line-up. Johannes is another. But these male leaders are not only a dying, but now an unnecessary breed.

Evolution from an industrial to a knowledge economy realizes the day of Hercules – known for strength, dominance, and authority – as fleeting. “Men could become losers in a global economy that values mental power over might,” Business Week argues. The age of force is over.

Issues of dependence and independence, dominance and subordination are largely irrelevant to how emerging young women see themselves, Harvard psychologist Dan Kindlon argues in his book Alpha Girls. “Generation Y is the first generation that is reaping the full benefits of the women’s movement,” he says. “Women corporate leaders blend feminine qualities of leadership with classic male traits.”

Gen Y women have both masculinity and feminity, developing as the best of both worlds. We balance the typically female feeling part of ourselves with the typically male thinking parts. We are powerful hybrids integrating “the intuitive and rational, the tender and hardheaded, the self-sacrificing and self-serving.”

We utilize a “transformational approach that focuses on building a team. The team approach is less hierarchal than the traditional business model. A girl’s primary goal is not to win but to maintain relationships,” Kindlon says.

The way of the alpha girl is the rallying cry for Generation Y. We disdain complex rules and authoritarian structures.

In contrast, men and boys “base their reasoning on how established rules or laws should be applied, rather than on the feelings of those affected by their decisions,” Kindlon reports. “Male children learn to put winning ahead of personal relationships or growth, to feel comfortable with rules, boundaries, and procedures.”

Men and boys with such personality types are not naturally in tune with other people’s feelings, a key to success in the new economy. Leadership that marshals and directs is often observed by young women as part of the dinosaur age.

Gen Y women will lead the new generation to positive and meaningful change. The ascent of women in the workforce will be unprecedented in history, and promises to have far-reaching implications.

We already see more women than men attaining bachelor’s degrees. In 2005, nearly 59 percent of undergraduates were granted to women. By 2050, it is projected that the degree gap will grow drastically.

Jobs are no different. Business Week reports, that “from last November through this April, American women aged 20 and up gained nearly 300,000 jobs, and American men lost nearly 700,000 jobs.” Research also shows that women who are in management make companies more profitable, even among the Fortune 500.

Roles traditionally filled by men – that of lawyers, doctors and managers – are seeing an influx of women. Other male-dominated industries such as manufacturing and construction seem to be perpetually in downturn, while women are found concentrated in upcoming and thriving industries such as education and healthcare.

As men are being hemorrhaged in blue-collar, white-collar, and gold-collar jobs, young women are picking up the slack, becoming both the providers and the glue for families.

The new economy is largely dominated by young women who have unique skills, not by men who have been taught to follow the rules.

“Men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate,” reports Peter Coy in Business Week. “Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power.”

Young men then, seemingly devoid of the meaning and opportunities that once defined them, are left in a prolonged state of adolescence. And this limbo doesn’t bring out the best in young men, columnist Kay Hymowitz argues.

“Men feel threatened by female empowerment,” Hymowitz states in one theory, “and in their anxiety, they cling to outdated roles.”

Today’s young men are “following the line of Peter Pan, ‘I don’t want to grow up.’” Hymowitz argues. “Plus, who needs commitment when there is a fantasy football team league to dominate, the possibility that a gaming product better than the Xbox 360 could be on the horizon, and your live-in girlfriend will have sex with you whenever you want?”

Young men today “suffer from a proverbial fear of commitment,” and this may be the biggest problem – “a tendency to avoid not just marriage but any deep attachments,” leading to a life that is as empty of passion as it is of responsibility, Hymowitz says. For the contemporary guy, it’s “easy to fill your days without actually doing anything.”

The solution? Not a new career, but marriage. Marriage, she says, turns boys into men.

Kindlon agrees. Married men are more successful in work, getting promoted more often and receiving higher performance appraisals than single men. Married men are much less likely to engage in risky behaviors such as drinking heavily, driving dangerously, or using drugs. They are more likely to work regularly, help others more, and volunteer more. Married men also have better immune systems, and are half as likely not to commit suicide.

But women don’t need men like they need us.

“Marriage is generally more beneficial to men than women,” Kindlon reports. “Research found that women who stayed single in their lives seemed to have good mental health, while men who stayed single all their lives did not. Choosing to be single seems to be good for women but not so good for men.”

Role reversal.

This post also published at Brazen Careerist. 18 more comments, opinions and viewpoints there.

Rebecca Thorman (www.modite.com) gives career advice for the next generation of workers. Barely out of college, Rebecca job-hopped her way to becoming the Executive Director of MAGNET, an organization dedicated to attracting and retaining young talent in her region. During that time, she also began authoring the blog Modite, featured in several media outlets including the New York Times as the key community for Generation Y leadership. Rebecca is known for writing candidly from experience.