Three Dimensions of the Conversation - Millenials and Web 2.0
Catching up on some old links - all related to the impact of Web
2.0, and especially the incoming Millennials, on the workplace.
- At internetnews,
Kuchinskas has laid out a pretty
good summary of concerns about the philosophy of information sharing
on the public Internet - this doesn't translate well to many
corporate environments (see previously).
Most of the article frets about the inevitable introduction of
malware to the trusted network, but I think the hidden danger is the
possibility of sensitive corporate information getting out. Publicly
traded companies especially need to be concerned about this; the
distinction between copyrighted artistic expression and corporate
intelligence may be lost on those fresh out of college.
- Via Kottke.org,
an interesting concept from Kevin
Kelly; folks whose professions have been Turing'd (ie. outsourced via
computers / technology advances) are generally more open to working
with new technologies. This is a bit contrary to my previous
post, and it makes sense - they've already been hit by the train
once, and are certainly not going to get hit again. Besides, it's fun
to extend the list of theories you never thought could be automated
(like real-time driving directions) or eliminated (like newspaper
classifieds) ...
- ... which leads me to this
list (from SEOmoz) of things
that the Millennials have never seen. Variations
on this theme appear almost every year, the kind of world events or
social movements that incoming college freshmen have never
experienced. Nice to see one that puts the relative pace of
technology change in the same perspective.
- We're finally seeing corporations like IBM
and SAP
working to add Web 2.0 and mash-up
[clown-suit]
capabilities into their major products. Another article calls
out some research work that IBM is doing with current college
students. I thought it was cool because I did some work like that in
my senior year on a project
sponsored by IBM. We wrote a virtual disk interface for the IBM 370 (yes,
I had a PC XT with a mainframe for a floppy disk ...)
- In Computerworld,
Thibodeau writes
about the introduction of texting into the business world. I have
this functionality right now with my Blackberry,
and had it in the past running MSN Messenger on the iPAQ - so I know
that texting has value to business. However, I don't think you'll get
rid of IM for the folks still working at the desktop. I validated
this with my teenage daughters - they favor texting because they're
not in front of the computer as much as they are walking about with a
phone in their pocket. However, I do note that my oldest prefers
texting even when she's surfing the web in between social
engagements. At best, there will be a nice mix of these styles, and
hopefully we'll see e-mail traffic (and useless attachments, Reply
All, and unmanageable inboxes) fade away.
There was a recent Q&A thread
from LinkedIn
Answers on the general topic of managing the Millennials - a
representative sample of the three dimensions the topic encompasses:
- Millennials are new elements in a threat matrix
- Consumer technology entering the business
- Communication challenges between the generations