Grown Up Digital

Hey Net Generation!
Please, please, please show this video clip to your parents and pick up a copy of Don Tapscott’s new book: Grown Up Digital. Do your parents a favour and leave the book around the house – spark some interest in their old unexercised brains. Educate them! After seeing the documentary Us Now, I tried to discuss with my parents the impact that facebook, youtube, twitter and delicious was having on the world at large… They thought I was speaking a different language. Here are two educated professionals that make good money and have no idea the opportunity that surrounds them. And as far as I’m concerned… they don’t care!

Workipedia: Office Wikis and the Collaboration Revolution

Check out this post from fastcompany.com. I’m thinking I should send them a resume!

Gone are the days of paper here at the offices of FastCompany.com. Virtually all in-house office communication is done electronically. E-mail is a given, as is teleconferencing. But what our office does, along with an increasing number of other streamlining-minded businesses, is employ wikis extensively.

The only paperwork I’ve had to do since I began working here is filling out timesheets and filling out W-2s. Having a paperless working environment has done wonders to decrease our carbon footprint while making project collaboration extremely simplified. We use Drupal, an open source content management system, to build our website. We use BaseCamp, a message board project management system as the primary tool of communication about upcoming projects instead of e-mail. No memos, no print-outs of drafts, and best of all no TPS reports. It’s all online.

Tools such as Drupal and BaseCamp make running a website simple and easy (most of the time). But it’s not just businesses that are using wikis to de-clutter their offices and streamline the way they operate: Newsweek reported late last year that the United Nations uses in-house wikis to help facilitate negotiation and debate about various issues of international importance. So too does the U.S. intelligence community; in fact, its collaborative sharing system among sixteen agencies is named “Intellipedia” (aren’t those government types clever?). The movement goes even further – some foreign governments are even using wikis to “involve constituents in policymaking.”

I guess the days of lawmakers hashing out deals in smoke-filled rooms are ending just as quickly as the all-night office brainstorm session. Two heads are better than one, especially when it comes to the kinds of services I talked about. Effective collaboration has always been the make-or-break factor with group projects. Wikis are just the way to do it.

Authors@Google: Don Tapscott

These past few days I have had some spare time at work so I decided to be productive (I have a sales job and am paid based on volume not time – I love it). I just finished reading Wikinomics for the second time. If you watch a movie like Fight Club or The Matrix the second time you will get so much more out of it. The same is true for Wikinomics. I took my time, researched what I had not previously heard of, and learned so much more. So I did some research and found a 50 minute video of Don Tapscott speaking at Authors@Google. Some interesting findings:

Don Tapscott on Democracy…

“We have a broadcast model of democracy that may have been appropriate for the TV watching Boomers but is not appropriate for young people today and that’s why young people are not engaged. It’s like “I don’t want to be broadcast to. Give me engagement!”

He continues with his views on American politics. “Hi, I’m a politician. Listen to this 30 second negative add where I attack my opponent around an issue that you could care less about and then you go vote for me and I’m going to broadcast you for four years and then you get to do it all over again. Well you wonder why young people are not involved.”

That by the way is the best and most cogent criticism of politics in America that I have heard too!

Although I too am Canadian, I did some research on the race between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. I found an interesting contest created by Eli Parisor and the people at moveon.org. In 2004, they designed a contest where everyday people were told to create a political video describing “Bush in 30 seconds”. Check out the 2004 winner Child’s Pay.

Moveon.org has created a second contest “Obama in 30 seconds.” Now it’s time for people of all ages to collaborate, innovate, and create. Incentive you ask? Moveon.org will air the winning ad nationally and the winner will also receive a 20,000 gift certificate for a camera and editing package.

This is what companies, politicians and governments need to do to young people involved. The days of twenty-four hours in front of the television are over. The Net Generation wants to create, collaborate, and edit. Check out the 2008 winner Obamacan as well as other honourable mentions at Obamain30seconds.org

Taken from Obamain30seconds.org and Authors@Google: Don Tapscott

The Net Generation

Hi, my name is Geoff and I am apart of the Net Generation. I was born between 1977 and 1996 and demographers call me the baby-boom echo. My generation is bigger then the baby boom and I will dominate the twenty-first century.

I am the first generation to grow up in the digital age and I am a force for collaboration. I am growing up ‘bathed in bits.’ Unlike my parents who spent about twenty-four hours a week in front of Andy Griffith, Bob Denver, Caroll O’Conner, and Alan Alda, I am growing up in a much more interactive world. I spend time searching, reading, scrutinizing, authenticating, collaborating, and organizing. One thing’s for sure, I can not image a life where people don’t have the tools to constantly think critically, exchange views, challenge, authenticate, verify, or debunk.

I am apart of a generation that scrutinizes. I am more skeptical of authority and often oppose censorship by governments and by parents however I do highly value individual rights. I am confident about my abilities. I am worried that my old-school-type-with-two- fingers-manager will not listen to my ideas about making the company better. I am excited about my future in this exponentially changing workforce and can’t wait to get started. I am always looking for something better and I don’t want to have the same job for 30 years. I want to collaborate, innovate and change.

From Don Tapscott’s best selling novel Wikinomics.