Another world?

So, what’s all the fuss about ‘online’ and Web 2.0? What has changed? The World Wide Web (WWW) has fundamentally shifted up a gear in terms of what it can do now. Web 2.0 has changed the online experience from being ‘talked at’ to being able ‘to be in conversation’. It is perhaps this ongoing concept of interaction that is most distinctive. Web 2.0 has opened the door (for example) to Collaboration (Wikis/ Blogs), Recommendation (Tagging/ Digg’ing), Convergence (MySpace/ Second Life), Casting (Narrow/Wide/Video/Pod), and VOIP (Skype). What impact does that have on the average business in the real world? Take for example the ‘futuristic’ (but nonetheless, here today) world of Second Life [created by Linden Labs (http://lindenlab.com/)]. Just wasting time? Well, not so for Rob Hof of BusinessWeek who went ‘in-world’ and discovered a whole new parallel world with an economy that genuinely crosses over into our ‘real’ world. Hof (a Baby Boomer) found creating his avatar (Rob Cranes) very involving. He describes the ability to have a ‘...social experience. You can do almost anything… Create homes, buy islands and create a resort...” “ This is not just a business phenomenon… it’s entertainment at its root [but] there is an economy developing here…[Linden Labs] not only let people create their stuff (e.g. clothing)… they have ownership of the intellectual property they create [inworld]… they can sell it… it gives them an economic incentive to create it…” and they can turn it into real product outside ‘Second Life’, explains Hof. There is an internal online currency that is in fact exchangeable into real world money. The currency online is ‘Linden dollars’. The rate to exchange it into real dollars is roughly 300:1 (Lindens to USD). Money is exchanged back and forth through the creators ‘Linden Lab’ and Hof reports some people are taking out ‘thousands of dollars a month’. People could do this for a profession! Too far-fetched? Well, you aren’t alone – not everyone is a fan.

Next time: What about ‘real’ businesses? How is this relevant?

The Power of Online

So, Can any of this online 'stuff', blogging, discussion, have an impact on anything like the scale of a multinational corporation. Well it seems so. Aided by the eternal 'opinion-based valuation' nature of the stock exchanges, a group of 'cyber coolies' (young graduates in call centres across India) have set up an 'e-union' that promises to attack clients and investors of their companies in response to the sacking of 400 of their graduate peers. By threatening to release information from inside the business to investors, they hope to incentivise firms to re-employ or compensate their peers. They claim the information would sabotage the share price of these firms significantly. The BPO ('Business Process Outsourcing') union claims that members of the Indian BPO industry were unlawfully sacked and should receive compensation or be reinstated.

It seems as though some of the loyalty to an organisation has left a generation and their loyalty to the management team has left too. Can it be restored? Watch this space.

Love Generation

Baby Boomers have been noted for their love and involvement with Generation Y. Termed ‘Helicopter Parents’ (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3734696.ece) Baby Boomer parents have developed a ‘love blanket’ for their children. Generation Y have grown up on praise. Every (Gen Y) child is a winner according to their parent (watch the reaction if anything is suggested to the contrary), and is taught they are able to make a difference in their own right. Gen Y grew up on compliments and validations as if it were oxygen. Any surprises, then, that they come across as a little over-confident? Enter Gen Y into the world of work… they see managers or Managing Directors about the age of their parents and expect the same acknowledgements will come. But, alas, there is money involved now. With nobody to validate their achievements – as generally they will be living away from home – and nobody to nurse their wounds if they are criticized, or to go back to their ‘teachers’ (managers/ boss) to challenge feed-back. So… they went ‘Online’. In search of likeminded individuals with whom to share their grief. Generation Y are notoriously bad at being internal processors – they externalize their feelings, and express in digital language! They talk online. No fears about sharing company information, there is no pride involved – just an expression of the injustice to them – and so within a few moments they perceive the grass to be greener somewhere else. Unfettered and disenchanted they move, to realize the same is true in ‘pastures green’ after all. But… the information is still out there – it forms a record in the online world and a reputation begins to develop. An exponential reputation. Information is published, shared, discussed, linked and noted. It becomes… like a ‘truth’. In some senses it is a truth - an ethnographic account of what happened from an individual’s point of view, just… expressed differently to the (Baby Boomer and X) generations before them.

So, what (if anything) can we learn in the middle of all this hype, subjectivity, pride and (essentially) just another point in time? Crucially, no judgment of any other Generation. Allow for individualism. I have been asked, “will Gen Y’s just become like Gen X’s and Baby Boomers eventually?” ‘If some Boomers have resignedly become the organization men and women they once mocked, others have unleashed innovative and entrepreneurial energies that in the long run may provide enough growth and opportunity for them to realize their dreams after all…’ (TIME Magazine, 1986).

So, that depends… on you (as a Baby Boomer managing X and Y’s; X-er in the middle; Y responding to Baby Boomers and X-ers).