Digital native uprising

Marc Prensky over on strategy-business.com (Booz Allen's strategy website) provides a fine article on Capturing the Value of "Generation Tech" Employees. Marc starts out by citing some Microsoft employee lore about selling Bill G on the Internet and recent experiences of soldiers going online to provision themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan. He gets to the core of the matter with an apt and accurate assessment of the next generation worker raised on Gameboys and Instant Messaging. And then tears a page out of the Jack Welch "How to run the world's best company" manual that encourages managers to listen to younger workers about insights into their world. It is an interesting, thought provoking read and he correctly observes:

This generation is better than any before at absorbing information and making decisions quickly, as well as at multitasking and parallel processing. In contrast, people age 30 or older are “digital immigrants” because they can never be as fluent in technology as a native who was born into it. You can see it in the digital immigrants’ “accent” — whether it is printing out e-mails or typing with fingers rather than thumbs. Have you ever noticed that digital natives, unlike digital immigrants, don’t talk about “information overload”? Rather, they crave more information.

At least, it produced these thoughts: the next generation will multitask, parallel process and be absorbed with all manners of information. They will have a wider array of tools and technology to choose from than any previous generation. They will make decisions faster and they will be information sponges - how could it be otherwise? This is their digital DNA expressing itself. From their experiences, they will have different expectations about products, technology, life-style, services, communications, work, sales, transactions, marketing, transportation, real estate, science and all manner of business interactions.

That doesn’t make them unique. They exhibit novel characteristics, just like every other generation that is coincident with major technology introductions and/or momentous environmental shifts. The telephone, TV, automobiles, aircraft, computers, pharmaceuticals, the Internet and space flight all ushered in new ways of doing things and thinking about problems, people, products and services. Global events including wars, depressions, famines, mass migrations indelibly mark the generation that grows up in those times.

Each generation seems to evolve their own vocabulary and style. It is reflected in their dress and in their taste (or lack thereof) in music and entertainment. It is pronounced in their mores and politics. They will participate in new sports. There are new toys to play with and new tools to employ. The very way they think about their place in the world changes as they become more aware of events and conditions that no longer require global proportions to be significant. Technology they take for granted gives them more capabilities and more choices. And the breadth of information available and easily retrievable will increase dramatically each day.

The larger question, though, is how do these insights, proclivities, multitasking attributes and digital DNA endow the digital native generation? What energy or time will be directed at raising kids, keeping a job, participating in politics, maintaining a household, leading groups, religion, problem solving, organizational dynamics, innovation and entrepreneurship? The things that drive our broad information based economy and our multicultural society.

It is indubitable that new tech natives will make faster decisions, but will they make better decisions? Multitasking is synonymous with easily distracted. When you can't write a simple declarative sentence but can key 256 character messages in 20 seconds with your thumbs and cell phone keypad - C U L8TR. The current educational system produces college bound kids who must spend the first couple of years in remedial math and dummy English. Topics teachers should be expert at after a 100 years of practice. How will teachers deal with a generation that doesn't read, doesn't need math, communicates many to many with odd iconic message structures and can't sit through anything that doesn't fight back, can't be represented by an avatar or require special powers?

Don't misunderstand, it is all good. In fact, it is stories like this that keep me optimistic about the special nature of our system and society. That the unfettered creative destruction is not just tolerated but actively promoted which allows the development of not a few quirky individuals, but rather entire generations. Environments that enable entire generations to easily and seamlessly integrate new tech, new ways of doing things and new information. An entire generation that collectively will develop innovative solutions to problems, better ways of thinking about life, work and improving our human condition. I'm curious, hopeful, amazed and perplexed about the digital native generation, but not worried. I am more jealous than I can express. The digital natives will live what I can only ponder.

Comments

[David Foster]

Would one of these "multitasking" highly-distractable people actually be able to invent anything new, whether a new software system or a major new business process? Or would they be too eager to flit on to the next thing?

Operating systems sometimes get themselves into a state where they are too busy changing from task to task to actually do any useful work. ("Hey! Task A needs attention. Better dispatch it. Nope. C7 is higher priority at the moment. On the other hand Q4 hasn't had any service for quite a while...") It's called "thrashing." The same happens with people.

[JD]

Great questions. I don't have pat answers. Many entrepreneurs take three or four or more times trying to create a business before they succeed. Would more but briefer iterations reach that point sooner? Or would it postpone success by extending the time for many more trials to find that quicker success? A major source of innovation is mixing, blending and matching different products and even technologies into new products - ringtone downloads and cameras in cell phones are recent examples from the telecommunications space. Upon reflection, they are obvious - as many simple, good ideas tend to be. Perhaps multitasking with all different sorts of comm, game and computing toys would lead to those sorts of innovations.

Thanks for posting your thoughts, David.