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Habits of the young
October 7th, 2005
There’s a big piece (a slice of the frontpage, a double-page spread AND a leader column) in today’s Guardian about the change in media habits of the current generation of 14 - 21 year olds. It’s an exclusive ICM/Guardian poll, so you can sort of forgive the sheer number of column inches - and the conclusions make for interesting reading as well.
The extent of the personal publishing revolution has been revealed by a Guardian/ICM poll showing that a third of all young people online have launched their own blog or website.Millions of young people who have grown up with the internet and mobile phones are no longer content with the one-way traffic of traditional media and are publishing and aggregating their own content, according to the exclusive survey of those aged between 14 and 21.
The implication of all this that isn’t mentioned in the article is that within the space of the next 10 years, this generation of the ultrawired are going to be joining the workforce. Their expectations of what technology can deliver will be radically different to us old farts - so while we’re going whoopies over the lastest Outlook plugin, they are going to be conducting business over blogs and IM. Where does that leave the corporate IT function?
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Corporate IT is sadly lacking in brains in my experience. They are fine for providing a box for the desk, and for keeping it working nicely, but senior management seem to think that they should control how people use their computers as well.
As an example, earlier this year, I was working at a company that gave me Lotus Notes to read my email. Most of my work was with people in other time zones, (Hong Kong, the USA etc) and email was the prime communication method.
The
program used
to cut out the HT
ML from all my mail
making the task
of reading my email one of my daily
nightmares and seriously hampering my
effectiveness and efficiency. They had a corporate policy of behaviour on computer issues, but using them on the company’s behalf was not a pleasant experience. IT departments are hampering computer usage in industry, not facilitating it.
I have seen companies where IM systems are used to communicate most effectively between offices in the same building, next door in fact, and conference conversations between countries. Somebody even ordered me coffee that way on one occasion.
You are correct though, expectations are going to be quite different, but I’m still trying to get my 21 yr old daughter to get over her mouse fixation with everything she does, as it takes up so much time.
Also, your RSS feed is lagging behind, and today I’m using a browser, not feedreader. Did you get somebody for that job I applied for?
Blogging is not the only sign of youngsters communicating more widely via remotely hosted applications.
Within construction project teams, for example, I have often found younger professionals - sometimes fresh out of college and very tech-savvy - to be keenest on using extranet technologies. Here, the application and all the data are remotely hosted, and can be accessed via any internet-connected PC with a browser. Indeed, some users - again often the younger ones - are even experimenting with hand-held devices, interacting with project information via web-enabled PDAs, etc.
Check your bank balance, book your holiday, update your diary/blog, and now do some work…. all these things can now be done via the web without having to carry MB of data around.