by Jon Husband
November 3, 2008 at 1:31 pm
· Filed under Collaboration, Communities, Distributed Work, Enterprise 2.0, Talent Management, Web 2.0
Many of us have written about the spread of social media and social computing, Enterprise 2.0 platforms and the emerging designs of capabilities for collaboration, the calls for management innovation and the realization that much of the changes yet to come relate to culture and the dynamics of interaction.
Here’s the Toronto Globe and Mail’s early look at the new book Grownup Digital, which outlines the huge impacts on the horizon as social computing dynamics continue to spread and penetrate more deeply into the workplace.
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Digital boom is about to hit the workplace
If Barack Obama is elected U.S. president tomorrow, it will be a spectacular display of power by a new generation of young Americans. They overwhelmingly support Mr. Obama, of course, but their clout is far greater than the number of their votes.
Their real power lies in the way they use digital tools that give them unprecedented abilities to spread information, work together and organize.
Young Americans have used these tools to rewrite the political playbook in the campaign to elect the first African-American president.
Just wait until they start using them to shake up the world of work.
I call them the Net Generation, because they’re the first generation to grow up digital. These are the children of the baby boomers, young people turning 11 to 31 this year. They’re the biggest generation ever – even more numerous than their baby boomer parents. For them, digital technology is like their parents’ fridge: It’s not technology to them, but simply a normal part of life.
Young people who have grown up digital use technology in a very different way than their parents do. Here’s just one example: Watch the way they use mobile phones. Parents use them to talk and check e-mails. Net Gen-ers think e-mail is old-fashioned. They’d rather use the phone to text incessantly, surf the Web, find directions, take pictures, make videos and collaborate.
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Jon, interesting piece and no doubt the arrival of millenials is a challenge to organizations, However, I think the impact is neither as obvious or predictable as we might think. For example, a standout presentation at Enterprise 2.0 Boston for me this June was by the CIA team , Don Burke and Sean Dennehy reponsible for building and expanding use of Intellipedia.
http://snurl.com/56f51
The presenters were asked about who participates in Intellipedia. Apparently the most active contributor is 65. It was observed that young people entering the CIA are often so focused on becoming part of the organization, that they focus on their jobs so do not necessarily contribute as one might expect of digital generation members.
The Financial Times “Digital Business” section provides another nugget about Millenial expectations. Under the headline “New skills: good, bad – or both? ” Peter Whitehead makes the case that:
“the Millenials are growing into fabulous users of technology but are hopeless at creating or developing it.”
The article is recommended reading for the implications that follow , if this assessment is true.
http://snurl.com/56fgv [us_ft_com]
Jenny, I agree completely with your expansion / elaboration.
One of the things I have long said in my writing about “wirearchy” is that as there is increased integration / plug-and-playness of applications, widgets and platforms, and as there is continued focus on usability and simplicity, there will be more, deeper and wider use of the overall digital infrastructure and its millions of prismatic activities .. by people of all ages, cultures, sizes, shapes, inclinations, purposes and areas of expertise.
I am also skeptical about the younger generations having enough context, wisdom and experience to show us all how the world works. I remember being a young and assertive know-it-all whippersnapper; now I am an older, slightly wiser for 30 years of experience almost-know-it-all who can’t handle either a whip or a snap.
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