I fully agree with you on all your remarks …

(sorry for the late reply but it was the town’s fair this w-e and I haven’t been online since last friday morning!)

But I am convinced that it’s not an age issue, and I argue that way because of two more reasons (in addition to my main argument of “keeping the knowledge of the retiring baby boomers”):

1. we shouldn’t wait for these people to change our organizations – we should do it for all our employees
2. some of these “digital natives” (OK, I’m using this term now, albeit reluctantly … ;/) might lose their edge, curiousity, adaptivity etc. after some years in stiff organizations, ie. our current systems of education.

And all those that get it (regardless of their age) might never bother to work for organizations that didn’t change in time.

I think that’s the point, it’s not important to know, understand and master collaborative (knowledge) work processes to earn your credentials. And this is both a major shortcoming in the competency portfolio of a 21st century knowledgeworker, and a challenge for organizations that want to change into Enterprises 2.0 (btw, check out my last post on Changing organisations via Enterprise 2.0 – pre-conference interview – Festo).

@Joachim I’d say that if “… it is not clear to many students how these tools can be used effectively within organisations.” it is most probably because most students don’t have any idea on how an organization operates …

The Internet is for the Net generation a part of the pattern of their day and integrated into their sense of place and time. The majority of young people have integrated the Net into mainstream activities that strengthen their connections to their real-world communities and enrich their social interactions with peers. A transfer of the required competences onto learning activities (still) seems to be very limited

For me this is a clear support for “… it is not clear to many students how these tools can be used effectively within organisations.”

So we may ask if that’s what happens to the playful, creative and curious people that enter our education systems after a while … or we may wonder if that’s a mere reflection of a goal-oriented and rational life-style – putting the elements of education aside that don’t have direct benefits, i.e. good marks?

Anyway, @Joachim, keep me in the loop and if there are no lifesigns for a while I will send in the search party – OK?

http://twitter.com/Mediamum/statuses/898979219

Have to test the situation with German students. Hope they will not lock me away!

I’m sure we can reach a sufficient number of people aged 15-25 and ask them to go through a short survey. Not a poll, one question is too short, and we need to profile them anyway (age, gender, country, and yes … level of education)!

With you and Frank being based in Germany, myself in Belgium, we cover two territory already, and I’m sure we can find contacts in other countries that would go with it …

??

This being said … in which Gen are you when you’re 35 and not nomad at all … ;o)

ps. don’t worry, some times I like to get forced

I agree with you that “Going Bedouin” (google that to see where Dell gets its inspiration …) will be no option for most workers and kinds of work for long – so no worries with that. Personally I get a liking to this Gartner term “Generation V” – I guess we’re both V-people.

ps. Sorry, for forcing you to post

Actually I got triggered onto this by a number of related things, one of them being Robert Basic’ extended take on “Web 2.0 usage numbers in Germany”, see here: http://tinyurl.com/5busok – which weren’t that impressive.

But in the end my problems with the ever-present promotion of “digital natives” stem from my overly suspicious mind – I guess that sometimes this focus and fascination is used to “buy time” as in “oh, we really have to change our organization as soon as all these people will enter our company (but that will take so many years, why bother now)” …

Actually I feel like being quite “digital” but compared to the definition I’m not a Digital Native. I’m even not one of those Digital Nomads ( http://www.digitalnomads.com/ ) I would like to be (at least my wife granted me an iPhone for Xmas ). I just published an article I had prepared and scheduled for this evening but this post here forced me to publish in now (in German): Die Digital Nomads kommen http://www.injelea.de/plog/blog.php/injelea/2008/08/22/die-digital-nomads-kommen

May be I’m one of those Generation V(irtual).

But may be I’m just one of those Digital Silvers (“Silver digitalis”) who has silver in his hair and bits in his bones

I guess it’s not a question of age or gender or other hard facts: for me it’s a question of lifestyle and work-life balance.

I totally agree with you on the fact that the millenials are not better prepared for E2.0 than the rest of the workforce!

E2.0 is for me still at the ‘early adopters’ stage, and is starting to make its way to the ‘Early Majority’ stage.

Coming back to Gen Y, I recently experienced something that made me realize that not all of them are that efficient with social medias;

I am part of a group of people who take in charge the organization of our village fair. This year we decided to organize a small festival; three bands are coming to play on the Saturday night.

We need a whole lot of people showing up at the event, but there are at least two other similar concerts in a 15 km radius (we learned about it too late), so we decided to make as much publicity as possible for our festival.

I created an event on Facebook, then contacted the Youth Organization from our village, asking them to register to the event on FB and invite their friends/contacts to do the same.

Most of them did … after having to register to Facebook, since none of them was present on it! And I’m speaking about young people from 16 to 22 years old, who use email, IM and forums everyday! But, they had no experience at all with social networks!