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09.09.08 The Younger Generations & Their Corporate Impact  By Luis Suarez As we are starting to wrap up the summer and as I am getting started myself with another round of business travelling, I thought I would share a reflection that I have been pondering about during the course of the last couple of months and which keeps coming back. To my surprise and amazement, it looks like time and time again a number of different articles keep popping up on how the younger generations, while entering the workforce, are surely changing the way the corporate world operates and perhaps not in the best of terms. I am sure you may have been reading one of those articles lately which would possibly make you wonder where things stand with such generation and yourself (If you have got one of those links to those articles, feel free to go ahead and share it in the comments section! I would love to read some more on the topic!). Most of those articles seem to be portraying a real threat from such generation for the rest of the workforce, possibly including you and me, when I am actually thinking it is going to be quite the opposite. It's going to be a huge opportunity for us all. We just need to grab it and here is why. As a starter, however, I surely am glad to point out there are also a number of really good and thoughtfularticles, fortunately, that certainly hint how we can best get the most out that younger generation of knowledge workers and how we can engage with them from the first day they enter the workplace! Nevertheless, I am going to take another approach and share with you my story on how I have been getting involved with such younger generations as it would highlight some of that potential and amazing talent they bring with them!
If you have been reading this blog for a while, you would know how for the last few months I have been following a new reality of mine, which has been giving up e-mail at work, and instead use various social software tools to collaborate and share knowledge with other knowledge workers. However, very few people know, unless you have attended live one of the various conference events I have participated in over the last few months, that one of the main sources that inspired that blunt move were actually the several folks belonging to that younger generation that I have been working with all along. Yes, that is right! That younger generation inside the company I work for, IBM, that I have been exposed to over the last couple of years, taught me howit is ok not being obsessed with (Or addicted to!) e-mail (They just don't use it! At least, not as much as the rest of us have been doing all along!); how there are hundreds of other (Social) tools out there that make interactions happen much easier and much more efficient and effectively. And faster! They surely have taught me through the hard way, in most cases, how content is no longer key, more than anything else, because as soon as you hit that save / publish button it is already out of date! Instead, they have taught me how you can get so much more done by nurturing the relationships of those folks you connect with. Yes, those social networks, those communities that provide a strong sense of belonging, ownership and responsibility for getting things done in a proper way. They have brought a new meaning to the concept of social capital; perhaps the one that should have been there from the very beginning when Knowledge Management started talking about it over a decade ago! Yes, that kind of social capital that has been neglected over the years by most businesses. Continue reading this article. About the Author: Luis Suarez has been working in the fields of Knowledge Management, collaboration, communities, and learning for the past seven years, and is heavily involved in social computing and its adoption within the enterprise. Luis shares his insights on important KM issues of today through The Knowledge Management Blog and ELSUA.NET, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community. |
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