Driving home from cricket with Olly last night – we turned on the radio -“what’s that crazy music” I mumbled to myself
“James Brown , Payback Dad – it’s 8 minutes long – do you want to buy it?”
“How do you know that Olly?”
“I’ve got an app”
Get home, turn on the computer – there’s a mail from my friend Matthew who’s out in San Francisco. Turns out he’s written a paper on Generation C. This is how it starts.
In the course of the next 10 years, a new generation—Generation C—will emerge. Born after 1990, these “digital natives,” just now beginning to attend university and enter the work-force, will transform the world as we know it. Their interests will help drive massive change in how people around the world socialize, work, and live their passions—and in the information and communication technologies they use to do so.Having owned digital devices all their lives, they are intimately familiar with themand use them as much as six hours a day. They all have mobile phones andconstantly send text messages. More than 95 percent of them have computers,and more than half use instant messaging to communicate, have Facebookpages, and watch videos on YouTube.
If you want a copy of this paper, you can donload the PDF here – Booz & Co is a management consultancy not an off licence .
Matthew and Booz’s point is that kids like Olly will inhabit not just the real world of football and school and college and work but a “cloud world” where he and 2-300 of his associates will hang out in a state of almost constant connectivity.
I say “will” though I think this has already happened for my son. He’s had an iPhone for nearly a year, he runs countless Facebook campaigns. As Head of the School Council he canvasses opinions on what his schoolmates want for dinner, timetable changes – even teacher performance.
He can speak authoritatively on how he and his friends feel about certain songs, videos, films simply by posting a question via Facebook.
We (I mean the HR and pension professionals who I work with) say we want to communicate with our staff – tell them stuff about pensions, get their views on HR matters, understand where we as business managers are going right or wrong.
We will be competing for their interest with a whole bunch of others trying to get some space on their cloud.
That’s why I think that “education” is the wrong word – we don’t educate kids like Olly, they educate themselves. All we can do is try to get the things we feel important in their line of sight.
In the battle to catch their attention we need to go to school to learn about search engines and how to do this.
Related articles
- Raising Digital Natives: “Do Grandma and Grandpa Have a Blog?” (newcommbiz.com)
- Call Me When Technology Bestows Eternal Life (customerthink.com)
- Kids stuff – what HR and Pension professionals can learn from Generation C (henrytapper.com)
- Kids Stuff – What Hr and Pension Professionals Can Learn From Generation C (beyondrisk.wordpress.com)
- Welcome to my (Facebook) world (henrytapper.com)
- “You’re on your own in retirement” claims blue-blood at Pension Play Pen lunch. (henrytapper.com)
- Couldn’t have put it better myself (henrytapper.com)
Hi Henry,
I fully agree with your observations.
I don’t know what they call the generation born in 2004 but my 7 year old grandson has me in a state of awe when I observe him manipulatig 3 – 4 digital pieces of software simultaneousely.
My own professional view in the field of finance of the implications of your points is this.
In the delivery of complex knowledge and information in any discipline those professionals who communicate collaboratively in real time will ‘win’ i.e. gain a clear exponentially competitive advantage in their marketplace and those who do not will ‘lose’.
The accumulation of intellectual capital within a knowledge based enterprise differs from that of one which produces disposable or replaceable commodities. To increase this form of HR capital exponentially there must be ongoing real time collaboratively genuine interactive communication in any such enterprise. The supply of such behviour is generally inadequate, in my opinion. It requires a temperament which I refer to as that which is demonstrated by ‘net givers’ (vs. ‘net takers’.) Your blog is a great example of this attribute.
Thank you for your thoughtful articles.
I would very much appreciate receiving a copy of the Booz & Co. paper.
Kindest regards.
Dan.
Daniel H. Zwicker
B.Sc. (Hons.) P. Eng. CFP CLU CH.F.C. CFSB
Certified Financial Planner
Chartered Life Underwriter
Chartered Financial Consultant
Chartered Financial Services Broker
Professional Engineers Ontario
Investor Consultants
Capital Risk Management
Bus: 416-726-242
Email: LinkedinDanZwicker@rogers.com
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danzwicker
Blog: http://www.dzwicker.blogspot.com
read ‘manipulating’
add ‘simultaneously’ – must be the hour of the morning.
Bus: 1 416-726-2427 – last typo
The technology is irrelevant. This is no different to the discussions which take used to take place in the village around the pit. They are just now e-enabled.
What has changed is the volume of information the group can process and their ability to sift facts. Put another way, HR must either avoid spin or be total masters of the art. Problems arise because HR tends not to be a particularly self-aware department and are poor at assessing their own strengths and weaknesses. They need the observations of a trusted adviser. The trouble is that those advisers, certainly within the pensions space, tend to ignore things like group dynamic and what is essentially anthropology. That’s the gap.
Henry thanks for letting us know about the paper – had a quick look, really interesting.
Apolagies to Dan for my poor moderation of his comments and thanks to Mark and Kate for some great feedback!
I found the photo of me and olly in my inbox three days after the match. An on-line communication that took three days to arrive!
Hi,
I got in contact last week notifying you of an upcoming change in ownership of our domain name: as of last year, the booz.com domain has been redirected to strategyand.pwc.com. I wanted to remind you that in a few days – on March 31st – the redirects from booz.com will cease to work when we lose ownership of the domain, meaning you will end up with broken links on your website. You can update your incorrect links as follows:
Find: booz.com
Replace with: strategyand.pwc.com
Google is reporting that this page of your website still has links pointing to booz.com:
henrytapper.com/2011/06/18/kids-stuff-what-hr-and-pension-people-can-learn-from-generation-c/
Please let me know if you require any assistance updating this link.
NB If Google has yet to update its cache on this page/these pages and you have already made the appropriate changes then please disregard this email.
Many thanks,
Luke Rees
Strategy&, Formerly Booz & Company
Direct: +44 800 019 6813
Email: luke.rees@contractors.strategyand.pwc.com
PwC Strategy& (UK) Ltd.
7 More London, Riverside, London SE1 2RT
Hi,
I wanted to inform you that the redirects from booz.com have now ceased working as we lost ownership of the domain, meaning you have now ended-up with broken links on your website. (The booz.com website has permanently moved to strategyand.pwc.com). You can update your incorrect links as follows:
Find: booz.com
Replace with: strategyand.pwc.com
Google is reporting that this page of your website still has links pointing to booz.com:
henrytapper.com/2011/06/18/kids-stuff-what-hr-and-pension-people-can-learn-from-generation-c/
Please let me know if you require any assistance updating this link.
NB If Google has yet to update its cache on this page and you have already made the appropriate changes then please disregard this email.
Many thanks,
Luke Rees
Strategy&
Formerly Booz & Company
Direct: +44 800 019 6813
PwC Strategy& (UK) Ltd.
7 More London, Riverside, London SE1 2RT