Technology Shapes Generations

Generations are shaped, in part, by the technologies which surrounded them as they grew up. The boomer generation grew up in a time of “one-way” technology, better known as, broadcasting . In fact, the technology most associated with the baby boomer generation is television. The boomers were the first generation raised on television and mass consumerism. Read Television was UsTube to get an understanding of the value of television to baby boomers.

This leads, in part, to the idea of hording or keeping knowledge to one’s self. This is job security. Knowledge is Power. The TV announcer knew everything and enlightened you at the end of the day. The only three sources of news was your neighbor, your newspaper and the nightly news broadcast.

On the other hand, the Gamer Generation has grown up on video games, the internet and electronic gadgets where knowledge has to be shared because one person cannot possibley know everything. News and information comes 24/7 from the web, cell phones, tickers and thousands of other sources (Google, Wikipedia, web sites, etc.)

The Gamers, a majority anyway, are comfortable with web-based technologies and seem to be constantly connected to one another. Read Who are the Millennials AKA Generation Y or Net Generation or, as I like to say…Gamers, to get an understanding of some of the values of this digital generation.

The question learning and development professionals face is “How to take the knowledge and values of the boomer generation and instill that knowledge and those values into the Gamer Generation?” Corporations need to do this to be successful.

Friday I am speaking to a financial services organization about how to incorporate more informal learning tools like blogs and wikis into their organization. Why? Because if knowledge is not shared, it is lost.

Some ideas:

• Reverse mentoring (hook up a boomer with a Gamer)
• Create knowledge sharing communities(technology is only an enabler)
• Encourage short, quick learning segments (online mini-lessons)
• Use Gadgets to convey knowledge (Visual Job Aids or Visual SOPs delivered on iPods)

What ideas can you think of to help capture and share the knowledge of the boomers with the incoming gamer generation?
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