Sensing
Some very interesting, and I think important ideas and insights can be found in this video by Professor Mike Wesch of Kansas State University.
Here are some video responses:
And this one is a bit slow at the beginning but this fellow says some very interesting things and is worth listening to.
One especially interesting comment on Professor Wesch’s blog is the following:
“Extraordinary. Best Web 2.0 explanation I’ve seen, and I’ve been looking for quite a while. Unfortunately, the leap at the end from ‘us’ creating the web to the impact on various aspects of our lives is a little too quick. We need to break all of these down. We need to understand that different parts of the world will experience it differently, and we need to understand how people will interact with the services and information on the web, which devices they will use, and so forth.”
Why do I post this material? I encourage you to just watch and sense for yourself. Different generations will see and sense this material very differently. If you happen to be at your office perhaps you might gather some people from different generations, preview these videos and have a chat about them. Let the perspectives help you understand how “generation” operates in the workplace.
Without meaning to prejudice your interpretation, to me there is enormously rich material here pointing to a fundamental insight about generations at work. Millennials, I have argued, experience the phenomenon of collaboration and teamwork differently than people who did not grow up creating the content now found all over the web. Boomers and X’ers by and large are not the folks creating and sharing all that is now available to us on the web. It is the Millennnials. You might be of the persuasion that ‘this is all much ado about nothing.’ I am not of this persuasion. This is important. And it is my sense now that this new world of collaboration and creativity is changing, and will continue to change, our work places forever. That’s my sense.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Great blog you’ve got going on here. I’ll admit to being a lurker for the past couple weeks. Really been enjoying.
Right, comment…
I’m an X-er (1976) and totally agree with you that our generations fundamentally understand collaboration much differently than say our parents and their parents. I believe what we are currently seeing online in “Web 2.0″ is purely evidence of that.
I’m a social-systems buff and the words I’d use to describe the phenomena are: self-organization, non-hierarchical, self-managing, shared leadership, high productivity, high cohesion…
I feel that in a work setting, our generations are looking for:
Personal Needs:
1. Elbow Room: to have the opportunity to make just the right amount of decisions.
2. Learning
a) Setting Objectives
b) Getting (the right amount of) Feedback: in a timely way
3. Variety: having just enough variety in the work they do - not too much and not too little.
Organizational Climate:
4. Mutual Support & Respect: from co-workers specifically in relation to task accomplishment
5. Meaning
a) Understanding the Whole: of what they are doing. A redundancy or parts model where no one understands the big picture just won’t cut it.
b) Socially Useful: work that has an impact in the world in which we live.
6. Desirable Future: where one sees a path ahead of them and opportunities to grow and move.
These are the six criteria for effective human activity and take a socio-ecological perspective to work. I love ‘em. They are part of Open-System Theory developed by Fred and Merrelyn Emery. Once I get my act together, I’ll start blogging about this stuff.
Until then, take care and keep up the great content!