Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, e2.0, Collaboration Technologies, Social Computing, Social Networking, Social Software, Social Media, Web 2.0, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Sharing, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Social Networks, Communities, Learning, Tom Davenport, Andrew McAfee, Innovation, Org. Change, Business Transformation, Generations, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Mentoring
At this point Andrew mentioned how most of the social software tools currently available within the enterprise are just in their infancy and it may well be far too early to judge how useful they would be. Well, this may well be the case, but there is no denying that some of these technologies have been there for over a decade and therefore have got more consistency than initially thought. I think the main issue is not so much the tools themselves, but how people make use of them. Again, the focus on the people is key. They are going to define how mature a technology is or not and adopt it accordingly or not depending on how receptive they may well be towards that particular tool.
I also found interesting how Andrew mentioned that things may well change drastically when the younger generations enter the workforce and I must say that although it would be nice to see how it plays out, there is nothing out there that would indicate that social networking, for instance, is just meant for the younger generations. As an example, most of my social networks have got folks that would probably not consider themselves younger any longer (Yes, you know who you are!), and they still keep using them every day.
I doubt it would be much an issue about age making use of them, but more a culture thing. Would a mature workforce want to change the way they have been working for years, even if that would make them more effective, as opposed to how comfortable they are at the moment in their own settled working environment? I doubt it. There would be folks who would, but there would be a majority of them that would reject changing their habits. So I am not sure it is an age issue in here any longer. Plus there are plenty of solutions available out there to tackle this problem, like mutual mentoring between the younger and baby boomers generations (Something that I may weblog about it some more in the near future).
(To be continued …)
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