You've seen those Apple commercials on TV— the ones with the trendy younger guy and the older fellow in a suit. They're all over the place. The twenty-something personifies the Mac; the tries-too-hard and slightly overweight geek is the PC, and invariably the commercials demonstrate why a Mac is better. But underlying theme is what's really interesting: Macs are cool because they're young; PCs are not because they are old. The conflict is more than just which type of computer is better, it's generational.
That's not a unique theme today.
Earlier this month, an AP-AOL poll found a sizable gulf between kids and parents when it comes to understanding and appreciating instant messaging. Aside the fact that someone really had money to burn to commission a no-brainer like this one, the poll is actually a microcosm of the greater picture: The gulf between perceptions and attitudes of technology is often drawn along generational lines.
And that gulf becomes more acute as those 'kids' begin to force their way into mommy and daddy's territory — the workforce — and bring their whacky ideas with them.
All this comes as absolutely no surprise to Don Tapscott, a Toronto-based new-media expert who for the past decade has been pointing out that kids growing up in the digital age will see and do things differently than their parents. Mr. Tapscott is the author of Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation (1998) and is awaiting the publication of his new book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, which in large part looks at intersection of technology and demographics and the resulting conflicts.
His research consultancy group, New Paradigm, recently completed a massive $2-million study of the Net Generation, interviewing thousands of them from 10 countries and focusing on how their arrival in the workforce will affect businesses.
Now, we've already seen this once. Three decades or so ago the boomers represented the largest and most cohesive group ever to move en masse into the workforce. By sheer weight of their numbers, they spread their influence throughout all facets of society and have pretty much retained control.
The Net Generation is bigger. Also known as the Echo Boom and the Millennials, they are born between 1977 and 1994 and are just cresting the peak and starting to spill into their first real jobs. Four million of them will enter the market annually in North America from now on. By 2010, they'll comprise 40 per cent of the working public.
And already their influence — financial and social — has big business's collective attention. As a group they spend billions and influence their parents to spend billions more. But it isn't so much their size and financial clout that has Tapscott captivated. It's the way they think and what motivates them — things unique to this generation in large part because they have grown up with things like Napster, blogs and GameBoys. While the rest of us have had to adapt, they came pre-loaded.
According to New Paradigm's research, N-Geners are used to more choices in their everyday lives than previous generations, whether it's which of the thousand songs they want to listen to on their iPod, or which blog read. They thrive on the freedom to chose, yet are not naive when it comes to the boundless determination of marketers to sell them stuff. They are especially discriminating when it comes to evaluating companies and what they sell, and will not buy from — or work for — one with a poor reputation.
The traditional approaches to planning, decision-making and information transfer are painstakingly slow to this group reared on instant everything. They are incredibly well-connected and can tap into a huge network of their peers, either through their instant messaging contact lists or through social networks. Nothing stays secret for long. N-Geners don't take well to the hierarchical and authoritarian management style; they like to work in teams, collaborate, so that problem solving becomes a communal task. They expect to be involved in decision making.
And, get this, making money is not their top priority. Their concept of a happy career combines a number of things, including (gasp) having fun.
So, what happens when these expectations are not met?
There will be, as Mr. Tapscott describes, a clash between the irresistible force of the new and the immovable object of entrenched practice, one of the first of which likely revolves around the use of certain technologies — such as instant messaging programs — in the workplace.
Obviously, it's in an employer's interests to make this group happy. We have been inundated over the past few years with horror stories of the coming talent shortage as boomers retire, so employers making the investment to recruit and train employees with be fruitless unless if they can not keep them.
Instituting or advocating an open idea exchange is one strategy, as is providing unfettered access to higher ups. A business does not need to be as radical as Best Buy, the subject of a Business Week cover story recently, which has instituted a new work regiment that allows head office employees the freedom to chose when they show up at the office.
But a business does need to give it some thought so they look more like a Mac than a PC, so to speak. The Net Generation is coming. They are the future workforce and they will take over. It's just a matter of how painful the transformation will be.
And we really shouldn't need a poll to tell us that.
