What can we learn from the “Dumbest” Generation?

Last month, I spoke at the World Future Society’s (WFS) annual conference in Chicago. One of the most thought provoking talks I heard was the Opening Keynote about the Net Generation–the young people who are changing and will change our world in profound ways. This generation is comprised of the children of the baby boomers, aged 13-30, and are considered to be the first ever generation to come of age in the digital era.

The speaker, Don Tapscott, believes that this generation that has grown up with information technology may be seen as the “Dumbest Generation” by their elders, when in fact, he believes them to be the smartest generation and representative of a powerful force for change; a change that will contribute to innovation. Tapscott conducted a $4 million, 2-year research project, surveying 10,000 young people in 10 countries, and came to the conclusion that technology has changed their brain development. He learned that young people have different brains than their predecessors; brains that allow them to not just multitask but to switch between topics with more fluidity than older people, who didn’t have exposure to technology in their youth. Tapscott’s discussion goes deeper in his new book called Grown Up. His intro to this discussion is on YouTube and is a great teaser for what the book has to offer.

Because we work with innovation at SYLVER, this topic is highly relevant. We are interested in knowing how disruptive this new generation is. We want to learn how companies are leveraging the Net Generation to innovate and become more competitive. We are also interested in working with the Net Generation and learning with them. There are already some interesting examples of organizations that are embracing this new mode of work. Please take a moment to see how Best Buy and the Institute of Design are evolving with the help of the Net Generation:

–Best Buy’s Collaborative ‘Blue Shirt Nation’, is an online community of Best Buy employees that allows them to share knowledge, best practices, frustrations, aspirations and even jokes. While other companies are banning social networking, Best Buy is promoting a bottom-up approach to tap into customer insight. Their source for the insight: the Best Buy employee.

–Institute of Design’s Thinkering Space, is an Experiment in Exploratory Learning, addressing the challenge of making education more accessible outside the K-12 classroom. The ThinkeringSpaces project, was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and is comprised of  a system of interactive environments that seek to bring children together to tinker with things, both physical and virtual, reflect upon what they discover, and share their creations with others.

Tapscott’s research findings are also eye opening for countries that are lagging behind on education. While at the WFS conference, I presented the paper “Defining Long-Term Strategy Plans for Industry Sectors in Brazil” with the support of Dr. Claudio Chauke and Dr. Marcio Miranda from the Center for Strategic Studies and Management (CGEE), in Brasilia, Brazil. The paper presents a foresight methodology to define long-term strategy plans for six industry sectors in Brazil. Among all sectors we studied, there was a recurring goal: to significantly improve the performance of the Brazilian educational system. This is certainly the best bet Brazil can make today to be more innovative in the future and to unlock the vicious cycle of being a supplier of raw materials and agricultural goods. If you are interested in knowing more about the paper, please send me an e-mail (adriano at sylverconsulting dot com). I will send you a digital copy of it.

Categories: Emerging markets, Innovation, Strategy