Bricking IT? -

coming to your workplace soon; the "you tubers" ?

Steve Moore — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:35:02 +0100

Last week I blogged a piece about the Business Week article on the echo boomers. The FT have given Lee Raine from the Pew Internet Project front page coverage on their fortnighlty Digital Business *supplement today to develop an essay on the arrival of internet natives in the workplace. It argues that the typical 21 year old graduate fronts up for his first day at work having clocked up 5,000 hours of video gaming, having exchanged 250,000 e mails, IMs and mobile texts, 10,000 hours of mobile use and 3,500 hours online ! This 'You Tube' generation Raine argues are likely to challenge the conventional practices and structures of typical organisations. Well we will see...

All the examples and the case studies here are inevitably from the US. I particularly like the reference to these millenials living in a state of 'continuous partial attention' . I am sure even my very late internet migrant generation was accused of this. Fascinating stuff though!

* it isn't up there yet so you may have to fork out a quid to read but the supplement is good and there is another good piece in the New Britain series today

A tale of two valleys

Steve Moore — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:32:36 +0100

The FT is running a great series of pieces this week on New Britain todays illuminating - if somewhat depressing - report by Chris Giles suggests that the rewards of globalisation are not evenly spread (which is, I guess, hardly a surprise). Contrasting economic growth rates in two valleys the Tees and the Thames he consludes that the lessons of the last nine years is that '21st century globalisation favours the well connected and the well- heeled over the distant and the deprived'

And get this; Slough boasts more European HQs than Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales combined! Check out the interactive map of Britain on the site

Video interviews and pictures from the event

David Wilcox — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 14:15:09 +0100

I've now posted pictures from the event and a set of interviews. There are three from our opening speakers:

India: so much more than call centres - Derek Wyatt MP
Passport to security - be adventurous - Kevin Steele
What's the solution? That's up to us all - Leon Benjamin

Other people also kindly gave me a minute or two to report back on their conversations:

A key challenge: balancing structure and flexibility - Jay Mercer
Wanted: people who will tell the boss what they think - Rachel Gilmore
Technology must be one of the basic skills - Theresa Kinnison and Anne Cantelo
Why young people need more than basics - Jackie Beere
How art can work in the workplace - Yemisi Blake and Jahan Cedenio

When you reach the item, click the thumbnail or 'play'.... and do, please, continue the conversation with a comment or a fresh item. I have linked all names to profiles, where you can use the contact tab to send a private message. (excuse the nudge... if you haven't completed your profile, please do. Instructions here.)

Thanks again to everyone who managed so well to come up with such coherent ideas, briefly put, amidst the buzz. Any queries or problems please contact me.

Pictures from the event

David Wilcox — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 17:41:41 +0100

I've posted some pictures on Flickr which you'll find here. I'm editing the videos and will have those up by Monday, I hope. Meanwhile one interview with Kevin Steele

A Whole New Mind + wet stuff

Steve Moore — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:31:19 +0100

What a great event yesterday. There was a great buzz throughout. Well done everyone. I am sure this is not the last 'flat world' social conference....

a number of you asked if I could send a link to Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind and also check out his blog he is on to something. On similar things I urge you to have a look at the Cool Reads section and download Ken Robinson's TED speech. you won't regret it....

Finally, only in America could www.mywetstuff.com be the response to the new security measures at airports. You'll go a long way to find a better example of entreprenurial alacrity. Not sure about the brand though....

"Echo boomers" anyone?

Steve Moore — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:40:20 +0100

I probably should have come across the term 'echo boomers' - the kids of the baby boomers - before but they are featured in this Business Week piece on the best places to launch a career in the US. Interestingly, Disney take top spot followed by Google, Teach for America and other more traditional firms JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs et al.

But the article goes on to cite the impact made by the generation raised on web.

the Millennials are eager for feedback and impatient to make an impact on their new organizations and on society at large. Networked in a way previous generations were not, thanks in large part to Internet phenomena MySpace (NWS ) and Facebook, they come equipped with many of the skills required by big employers, such as computer fluency and a knack for teamwork. But the same social networking skills and consumer smarts that make them valuable employees also make them acutely discerning job seekers.

Confronted with this demanding generation, also sometimes known as Generation Y or the Echo Boom, companies are scrambling to attract and retain the most talented among them. Some executives say they are offering entry-level employees more variety and challenges, providing senior-level mentoring, and even giving them opportunities to work for causes they believe in. Granting more competitive pay and benefits, faster career advancement, and more responsibility means taking big risks with the greenest employees on the payroll. Says Claudia Tattanelli, chief executive of Philadelphia research firm Universum Communications, which surveys Millennials: "The challenges are a completely different set than they were two, three, or six years ago."

We can but speculate about whether the 150 million networkers cultivated by MySpace, BEBO and Facebook will bring with them new and valuable skills when they enter the workplace en masse but it is worth considering in what Jonathan Schwartz the CEO of Sun Microsystems writing in today's FT describes as the 'particpation age'...

Can technology help us collaborate as well as compete?

David Wilcox — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:12:25 +0100

The other day I blogged a piece about the challenges of global warming and energy deficit, based on coversations with my futurist friend David Greenop: When friends say "we've got problems" you listen harder . I was trying to make the point that we take most notice of those we know and trust.

It prompted David to email me: "This is the thought / question that has been puzzling me. Let's say we are hit by an energy & climate change perfect storm which cripples global trade etc. and creates a 1930's style depression at home. To what extent will Internet technologies, in particular knowledge transfer, change the nature of this emergency? I can think of both positive & negative outcomes."

... which prompted me to look more carefully at the links flowing through my newsreader? on methods for collaboration, and round up a Face-to-face and online collaboration mix.

Technology is behind many of the commercial and competition-based processes of globalisation. Can it help us collaboratively address the challenges produced? Techies will say - of course it can. But do we have the motivation and attitudes to match?

worth reading ...Telegraph section 7/9/06

Walker Janey — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 12:17:48 +0100

"keeping the edge" is a section in today's telegraph about Britain and overseas competition."

"As a country we are great technophiles." We always want to develop newer and better ways of communicating with each other, be it voice to voice, or spinning a story in television drama. Ed Shedd, Deloitte.

"Wherever you look, be it back to our history as great inventors, or to the disproportionate success of our music industry, we like coming with new ideas and exploiting them - it fits in with our national psyche."

Playing for Time?

Oli Barrett — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 16:42:47 +0100

Here's a link to a recent blog by Steve Pavlina listing 10 reasons why you should never get a job:

Steve explains;

"Getting a job and trading your time for money may seem like a good idea. There's only one problem with it. It's stupid! It's the stupidest way you can possibly generate income! This is truly income for dummies.

Why is getting a job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you're working. Don't you see a problem with that, or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking it's reasonable and intelligent to only earn income when you're working? Have you never considered that it might be better to be paid even when you're not working? Who taught you that you could only earn income while working? Some other brainwashed employee perhaps?

Don't you think your life would be much easier if you got paid while you were eating, sleeping, and playing with the kids too? Why not get paid 24/7? Get paid whether you work or not. Don't your plants grow even when you aren't tending to them? Why not your bank account?

Who cares how many hours you work? Only a handful of people on this entire planet care how much time you spend at the office. Most of us won't even notice whether you work 6 hours a week or 60. But if you have something of value to provide that matters to us, a number of us will be happy to pull out our wallets and pay you for it. We don't care about your time” we only care enough to pay for the value we receive. Do you really care how long it took me to write this article? Would you pay me twice as much if it took me 6 hours vs. only 3?"

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If there are equally skilled people in India and China, who will work just as hard, just as well, for less money, then is it time to begin plotting how we can create real value, fast?

Gates trumps Mao or does he ?

Steve Moore — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 10:48:43 +0100

The New York Times reports that 'socialism is reduced to a single, short chapter' (1 of 57) in the new Chinese High School history course. A focus on the cultural revolution is being eschewed in favour of one focused on the information revolution and colourful tutorials on economics, technology and globalisation. This experiment is being conducted initially in Shanghai where local authorities have freedom to change the currriculum.

Also the BBC News focused last night on the 100 million Chinese who can now afford to take foreign holidays.

Meanwhile BBC's Bill Hayton in Hanoi reports on economic growth in Vietnam and huge popularity of a new exhibition which in the capital which focuses on what life was like under the old communist regime. The first thing visitors see on arrival at the Ethnology Musuem is a mock up of a food queue!

How things change, or do they? Tom Peters points to a new new book which conveys the harrowing story of the 900 million you have yet to see discernible benefit from China's 'economic miracle'.