
The Generation Gap in Your Office - jaybol
http://blog.socialcast.com/the-generation-gap-in-your-office/
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WillyF
As someone who runs a startup in the entry level careers space, I am so tired
of people talking about generational differences, Gen-Y, Millennials, etc. I
think the vast majority of it is crap.

I don't disagree with the conclusion that we will see a shift in workplace
technology, but it would be stupid to disagree with that conclusion. Workplace
communication technology is constantly evolving and improving. Workplaces
aren't going to adopt new technology because of the attitude of "millennials,"
they're going to adopt it because it enables more productivity (or because
they took on a stupid contract with a terrible provider).

~~~
OliverSmith
As someone who just graduated from college and now working in a large company,
this generation gap is extremely apparent. I understand that as a whole
workplace technology is evolving, but it definitely takes a bit too long to
catch on at larger companies with older people in management that don't
understand the newer technology. The only way I can see to fix it (fast
enough) is to start new companies and let the older ones fail.

~~~
WillyF
I find that the reason that older people in management are slow to adopt new
technology has little to do with their generations. It has more to do with the
fact that their time is extremely valuable and they don't have a lot of it.
Investing time in learning new technology just isn't worth it for them.

I've seen plenty of older people who are unemployed adopting social media and
other new technology. Their time isn't that valuable, so they make the effort
to learn the new stuff. They're same generation as the folks in management,
but the value proposition of investing time in learning technology is very
different.

~~~
OliverSmith
So when I go to management and let them know that I've spent my less valuable
time and figured out a way to speed up our process, they should then either
trust me and let me implement it, or spend the time and evaluate for
themselves if I'm correct. When management says their time is too valuable to
learn how to do their job more efficiently, they're just bad managers. It
would be like a programmer entering a bunch of data by hand over and over
again because it might take too long to figure out how to automate it. It may
not pay off immediately, but it will in the long run.

It seems to be a misconception of older people that a manager's time is too
valuable to learn new things. I don't know why that is... it just always seems
that way to me. Maybe you can enlighten me...

~~~
ynniv
You might be wrong in thinking that your "faster" way is better. Given no
details I can't really elaborate, but a fresh perspective often omits
important subtleties that management values.

For instance: paper forms becoming web forms / database tables. Great for 99%
of enterprise situations, but there is a loss of flexibility in edge cases.
You can't write notes in the margins, or enter "invalid" but actually correct
data.

Adoption will be seen differently by different people - those who have seen no
edge cases (aka you) see the common case become substantially more efficient.
Those who have more experience (aka management) might see the frailty of the
new system and worry that important business will be lost.

So, people who value their time (doctors, lawyers, etc) still use older
systems (often paper) that are more mature and flexible. Heck, I find myself
(a "Millennial" early adopter) moving towards free text systems as I run into
random inflexibility.

~~~
OliverSmith
exactly... inflexibility to change an old process because of 1% or less of the
use cases could be justified or not. If a new process makes 99% of things take
10% of the time and 1% of things take 1000% of the time, you still win. I
would argue that edge cases should rarely be a reason to hold up improving a
process.

~~~
abstractbill
...except that those 1% might be incredibly critical to the business. Perhaps
if you break them, the fallout will be bad enough to kill the company.

Whether or not you should try a new process is entirely a function of _what
kind of company you're in_ , not what generation the various players grew up
in. If you're in a startup, you should definitely try any new process you can
think of that might give you an edge. If the company is basically milking a
cash-cow, be _incredibly_ risk-averse when thinking about "making things
better".

------
emarcotte
I'm in a very small company. I am the youngest employee. I'm not certain of
the exact age difference, but I suspect I'm on the order of 25 years younger
than the next youngest employee.

This company was founded by people who all worked at another place and started
their own show. They are all doing things they would never have dreamed of
doing 3 years ago, let alone 10. There is blogging, talk of twitter, talk of
facebook... social media is one of the new favorite words of the president.

I don't think the generation gap really drives the technology change. Sure,
young people may be able to change faster, but old people can still get it
when it makes sense to.

That said, I wish there were some younger people around... it's hard to relate
to their discussions about kids, houses, etc...

~~~
tiffani
Indeed, I'm the youngest person at this particular office and I dread going to
group lunches and having to hear about husbands, kids, mortgage payments, and
other stuff I just don't deal with at this point.

The biggest thing for me is having to pretend...this false maturity is tiring.
Definitely not a good sign, but yeah. At least, around folks your own age you
can let loose a bit.

On the other hand, having older folks around (who are the same ages of my
parents in my case), gives me room for lots of great advice about the stuff I
don't care about now like kids, houses, cars, etc. from folks that aren't my
parents.

It's a balancing act--be sure to keep up with folks your age outside the
office. And when you're at work, if you can, catch up with somebody who's
like-minded, even if they're older...they're not mutually-exclusive.

~~~
abstractbill
_Indeed, I'm the youngest person at this particular office and I dread going
to group lunches and having to hear about husbands, kids, mortgage payments,
and other stuff I just don't deal with at this point._

I remember thinking this, exactly!

And then I remember a few years later, having to pretend I was still
interested in younger peoples' stories about drinking, clubbing, getting high
and dating - when I really wasn't at all anymore. Strange - once I _loved_
that stuff and couldn't imagine not loving it... and then it just got boring.

Still later (right now actually) my wife and I have made a big effort to
branch out and maintain friendships with people everywhere from a decade
younger to a decade older than us. I think it's been a pretty big positive
change in our lives fwiw.

~~~
aliston
_...younger peoples' stories about drinking, clubbing, getting high and dating
- when I really wasn't at all anymore. Strange - once I loved that stuff and
couldn't imagine not loving it... and then it just got boring._

Do you think those things got boring as a result of doing them too much? i.e.
do you subscribe to the idea that you can "get it out of your system" while
you're young? Or do you think it's more a result of age? Once your friends
start getting married, you feel the need to settle down too?

I'm asking because this subject has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm 25 and
don't really feel like I've "gotten it out of my system. On the other hand, I
feel like I've kind of started down the "settling down" road in such a way
that I can't really be 21 again. Any thoughts or words of wisdom?

------
donaldc
From their graph, looks like Gen X got screwed even as to the number of years
their generation covers. Boomers and Millenials are both allotted 19 years,
while Gen X only gets 13.

------
astine
_Historically, shifts in enterprise communication happen every 20 years, and
with the millennial generation, this shift will be from email to activity
streams._

As a 'millenial', for actual business communication, I strongly prefer email.

~~~
OliverSmith
I think as long as you have separate streams, they can be much more powerful
and useful than email. Think about github and trac. Both have a type of stream
to condense information that would be too much for email. Obviously, no one
wants to actually integrate facebook with their business communications.

------
dkarl
Activity streams? Like being on your dev group's build queue and CVS commit
log email aliases?

Being easily bored and ready to work anywhere, anytime -- like every
enthusiastic college student or young hobbyist programmer ever?

Sounds like not much is changing.

~~~
angelbob
People like that making up nearly half the office would be a significant
change. What you describe is highly useful and productive, but also a small
minority.

~~~
kscaldef
The (probably false) assumption there is that the oldest millennials will
still feel the same when the youngest start working and they've got 15-20
years of work experience.

~~~
dkarl
There's also an assumption, again probably false, that typical individual
millennials actually embody the new trends associated with their generation.
Just as the hippie generation didn't have very many hippies, the millennial
generation probably doesn't have many individuals like the hyper-networked,
hyper-social individuals that serve as its poster children.

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edw519

      EnterpriseAdoptionDate = EarlyAdoptionDate + 5 years //  that is all
    

[EDIT: Changed "OpenSourceAdoptionDate" to "EarlyAdoptionDate". Thanks,
coderdude.]

~~~
coderdude
Is that how they figure out when to buy new copies of Windows? The article
doesn't mention open source software.

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sosuke
Ack! The green shade pie chart is almost impossible to read.

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zeynel1
The article makes some good points but ignores one essential factor. As much
as this "millennial" bored-again-generation will change the enterprise (the
big corporations) these big corporations will change them even more. The
author as a millennialist does not realize that those retiring boomers are
really the "hippie" generation. They had no less revolutionary intentions when
they infiltrated the enterprise in the late 70s. When the millennials will be
retiring the enterprise will not be much different (they may have updated
their current XP Professional set up though) but the revolutionary millennials
will look not much different than today's retiring boomers.

