["don't be efficient"]
David Eaves has a great post on gen y-ers using (or attempting to use) social networking tools to be "more productive" but ending up shot down..."Take for example my friend who wanted to use survey monkey to send out a questionnaire asking 10 public servants across their department about potential dates and times when they would be free to meet. The survey took 5 seconds to complete and would quickly identify the optimal date for such a meeting. However, her manager let her know very quickly that this was unacceptable. It was more important that each person be emailed - or better, called - individually, a process that gobbled up hours if not days. Time after time I hear stories of young people who, after doing what they do at home, quickly feel the full weight of the department descending on their cubicle. I won’t even mention an acquaintance who related a story of trying to set up a wiki (not even on accessible to the public!)."
I've read quite a bit about bringing these kinds of technologies into educational environments or at least educating people about their possibilities and there are certainly a lot of people out there working on it...I just assumed that businesses etc... would have already sunk their teeth (mostly) into these kinds of tools that allow sharing of information so easily and quickly. I guess not...
A point I'd like to make explicit though...as one of David's commenters explained "A vast majority of young people are entirely clueless about the technology they’re using - they see it as magic as much as the older generation does." Too true! But, I don't think it's just a case of Gen Y-ers being able to do it better than others...I strongly feel it isn't a generational thing and certainly not a "digital native vs immigrant" thing either...(maybe it does have a lot to do with access though)
Labels: business, digital literacy, digital world, education, pedagogy, performance, social media, social software, transliteracy
posted by Jess @ 17:27
5 comments
links to this post
jess @ jesslaccetti.co.uk
5 Comments:
"the vast majority seem clueless" resonates with what Will Richardson said today - in his post-lunch plenary to about 500 educators (a symposium put on the the Ontario Ministry of Education - very progressive). He did talk about the access issue - that many, many homes are still on dial-up; however, the multitude of kids who aren't and are creating "My Space" don't really grasp social networkind and how a future employer will come aross Molly's entry and "judge" her, or how a future mate might do the same. Will's question if Molly had learnt from her teachers how to post on "My Space" was greeted with a roar of laughter, as was the question "Have her parnets taught her?" So Will said, we have to teach our very able kids about social networking and all its ramifications.
Business are the LAST things to adopt technologies. At every bank that I have worked at, employees have to use Windows 2000, well after Windows XP and Windows Vista have become the standard. Java 6 is out, what do we get to use? 1.4. The list is endless.
On the rare occasion that they do use a new tool, odds are that it will not be used properly, because management does not really understand what it is supposed to do, or how it really should be used. (Worse yet, the people that do know are either too low on the totem pole, or are just not listened to.) A good example: at the last bank, we had both a wiki and an issue tracker. Yet information would never be disseminated via those channels; it would come third hand as gossip! Management would make these strange judgement calls that were factually incorrect, but because they didn't know how (or didn't care) to use the issue tracker, they couldn't see the status of things. It was terrible.
So, while having access to the right tools is one thing, having proper support and understanding of them is also vital.
Anonymous: yup. I totally agree. It's never just a case of access but literacy. Just because people (kids or adults or whomever!) are using technology doesn't mean that all aspects of it are understood. My second and third year uni. students didn't *really* realise that their facebook profiles are there for anyone to see (unless they are made accessible only to friends but lots didn't seem to think this was necessary).
mr.mike: businesses are always the last to adopt? surely not all businesses...I mean, look at microsoft at lots of employees have their own blogs (check out Steve Clayton: http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/)...
I understand there are those (archaic? anxious?) businesses that don't use new tech. like your experience with banks...did they ever explain their reasoning to you? I mean, why didn't they use the wiki?
Excellent point about needing proper support to understand/learn new tools. Exactly!
Microsoft is an unusual case, though. While it is a large company, it is also a technology company, and thus has to display proficiency with technology, as well as attempting to stay at the forefront. Most large corporations do not have those requirements, and thus lag behind.
I'm not too sure why the upper management folks never used the tools they spent so much money on procuring. I suspect they thought they were above that sort of thing; that it was for the people who do the coding that would find it important, not the people managing others.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home