Sunday, May 21, 2006

Flip-Flops at the White House

No, I am not talking politics or Tony Snow’s appointment to replace Scott McClellan as White House spokesperson. 
I am talking flip-flops – the rubber kind -- and about members of Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team who showed up for a photo op with the President in footwear best suited for the beach.  As some of you may have recall, it created quite a media stir last summer.  

 Whatever your feelings for the President, I know I would have dressed more formally.  After all, I grew up in a time when my mom made me wear a blue blazer when boarding a plane.  (Full disclosure:  I still do.)
Now the point of all this is not to sound like some 40 something old fogey decrying the moral failings of today’s youth.  This blog is about recognizing change and learning to deal with it. 

Flip-flops like iPods and MySpace are indicators of what is coming to the workplace.  New rules, new attitudes, and new technology are forcing us old folk like myself to sit up and take notice.  And the pace of this change will only accelerate. 

It used to be that older generations told the newer ones about the ways of the world.  And it used to be that technology in the office shaped technology in the home.  Today those conventions are being turned on their head.

So as we sit around discussing how to “leverage” new media and whether our clients and senior management are really ready for bottom up, customer-driven online conversations, the young are living it. 
  

Really smart author Steven Johnson hits this point home in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.  Elaborating on this book, he opines in a Time Magazine Viewpoint column, “Today’s kids see the screen as an environment to be explored, inhabited, shared and shaped.”  The generation that is entering the workforce is “mastering interfaces, searching for information, maintaining virtual social networks and multitasking.”

And here I am proud that I am using IM more regularly and sharing photos online.  

 We are reluctant to embrace change because a) it is not what we are accustomed to or value, b) it is not what our senior management is accustomed to or values c) we don’t have a clue what’s out there or where to find it.

Makes me think of a scene in the movie Diner where the Mickey Rourke character, a hair dresser, encourages a sixty-something client who has come in for her regular appointment to change the hair style she has had for dozens of years.  Her answer was along the lines of “maybe next time.” 

 So what do we do?  We certainly can’t sit back, but what can we learn from the PR “young’uns” that are entering our ranks?  What can we teach them?  How much technology do we really need to know?  How can we stay current?  How can we translate their experience into something meaningful for us? I suspect we will have to adopt their way of thinking and not the other way around.  That is the technological imperative of today’s youth centric culture.

But that is ok. I certainly don’t want to be put out to pasture before my time.   

So as I continue to listen to my favorite alternative rock station on the left side of the FM dial, read the print edition of Kevin Maney’s technology column in USA Today, and look at CNET for product reviews, I am also stumbling with tagging on del.icio.us, asking the kid next to me online at Starbucks about FaceBook and drilling the techies at work about techmeme and xanga.  Have to make the effort.

Let me get back to you.

Posted by Dan Greenfield at 21:27:15 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |
Comments
1 - Interesting. Technology for technology's sake teaches nothing. Adopting the technology that fits with our lifestyle is the key. We have a Tivo sitting in the basement of our house, unopened. Why? Because it just creates an environment to watch more television and adds no value to other areas of our life. Sure, it would be cool, but it doesn't fit the lifestyle my wife and I want to lead. So my question is, though it is great to know, what does it do for you? For these kids today, well, it isn't very much different than some of the things you had. Kids two generations ago (however you define it)? They were the first to get a car as a teenager, how did that change their social culture? Or a generation ago? It was swapping Atari games and getting together to play laser tag or video games. All of these aren't the same as you explained, but they are part of the social fabric of those generations and changed the way youth interacted with each other and their environments. We worry today about kids doing all these cool things online, and not actually interacting with anyone in the real world. It's cool to use delicious or FaceBook, but are their parents ensuring they develop other skills...like opening a door for the ladies or pulling out a chair...or wearing a blue blazer on a plane? (Comment this)

Written by: Jerry Grasso at 2006/05/26 - 00:32:43
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