Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants Part II

The title for the first (Part I) posting came from an article by Marc Prensky. Since then there was an excellent article: The Millennial Generation – A New Breed of Employees by Lorraine Cregar May 5th, 2008 International Association of Business Communicators. She calls Digital Natives, The Millennial Generation.
I actually like Millennials just as well. What’s in a name! They are just as digital either way. I have examined this topic even further to try and get to suggestions on how to deal with these digital natives when they hit the workforce with a college undergraduate or graduate degree and face mid- to upper management who may be set in an Industrial Age mentality or enterprise logic rather than the Knowledge Economy.

The title I have chosen for my talk where I explore this and other aspects is: “The Knowledge Worker in Today’s Economy” offered with this speaker service. I have dealt with this subject, first hand, for over thirty years and we not only have to recognize this issue of digital separation but do something quickly to correct this in order to maintain our competitive edge in a global economy.

This is a diversity issue that slips under the radar because it does not involve, ethnicity, race, language, religion, culture or national origin. I would argue it is not only a bigger issue but also more critical in many ways. In this case, all of us born before 1983 are the “immigrants”. As Ms Cregar suggests, there needs to be a wholesale restructuring of how knowledge workers are organized and asked to participate in value-creation with any business organization or enterprise. And, there needs to be greater sensitivity to the diversity represented by the Millennials or digital natives. Their mental as well as their emotional intelligence needs to be considered when value-creation depends on federated or distributed networks based on knowledge sharing for value-creation. Additional, we need to have an extensive discussion on the ever elusive intangible value exchange that no one wants to address.