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Tech that Gen Y will sweep away

Nick Heath silicon.com | March 27, 2009 5:40 AM PDT

Summary

There's a new generation of people, raised in the Internet era, who don't see the need for many of the technology tools that once seemed irreplaceable.
Web 2.0 evangelist Don Tapscott - author of tech titles including Wikinomics and The Digital Economy - is forecasting a "big conflict" in the office, sparked by the generation of 11- to 30-year-olds who are determined to reshape the workplace in their own image.

Talking to silicon.com about his latest book Grown Up Digital, Tapscott laid out five "generational firewalls" that bosses need to tear down if they want to attract the brightest and best of Generation Y.

Here are technologies that are going to soon become obsolete if Generation Y has its way.

Email
"Young people see email as good for sending a thank you letter to an aunt but not much else."

Websites
"The internet is increasingly about building community, not providing content - it offers a way for people to self-organise to create communities. That is why Facebook beat Match.com, why bloggers are beating CNN.com and why Wikipedia is beating Encyclopaedia Britannica."

Datacenters
"They are going to move into the cloud, in much the same way that electricity companies moved away from the practice of having their own power plants onsite during the early days of electricity."

Fixed line phones
"They will be replaced by mobile devices."

The personal computer
"They will be replaced by small always-connected devices with a high degree of mobility. The personal computer was always an oxymoron for me, it's like the idea of personal sex. The purpose of computing is to communicate."

Traditional data processing
"This is headed for the ashcan of history. Everything in a report will have an XML tag called eXtensible Business Reporting Language." [This provides an identifying tag for each piece of information which is computer readable so the machine can understand what data it is handling].

This article was originally posted on silicon.com.

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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
SNJGuy 15th Apr 2009
GenY isn't going to sweep any technologies away. Email, land lines, websites and PCs (in one form or another) will be around for a long time, simply because they work. Every time some shiny new technology comes along, it's tempting to predict the demise of everything that came before. The fax machine is a case in point. Theoretically, faxing should have disappeared years ago... but it survives because it gets the job done; it's simple, cheap, reliable and instantaneous. New technologies will come along and supplement what's in our collective toolbox (for instance, workplace collaboration may take on Facebook and Twitter functionality), but the things that work will stick around.
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Don't think so
aopiehl 27th Mar 2009
I don't know if I could dissagree more with those opinions, maybe the uses of such things will change, and already have started to, but go away? I think not.
Email, not gonna leave any time soon, this technology though limited in scope, is the new backbone of the inter-office memo.
Websites, I shouldn't need to say anything since this is on one.
Datacenters, where will the cloud be without them?
Fixed Phone lines, though this is the one I really would like to see gone, I doubt it will happen in this generation, where I live cellular phones have no signal, and no carrier has any plans to build a tower, ever, I live in a low population area, and the big boys don't want the little bit of business we would give them, so the landline is our lifelink
PCs? that statement is rediculous. What the heck would I be using to read this without one? What would the ******** gamers use? Why would I get rid of the one place, thats 100% private, in my home, to store all my data?
And lastly, traditional data-processing, well I really don't have anything to say about this because the statement "traditional data processing" in itself means it is outdated, new technologies will always replace old ones, newer, better, faster, more accountable methods are being developed every day, and have been since the beginning of computing, so this one is a duh statement in my mind
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Mobile phones in low population areas.
Henrik Moller Updated - 27th Mar 2009
In 1935, the US passed the Rural Electrification Act to provide electrical power to places where it was uneconomical to do it commercially. I'd be very surprised if this didn't happen for mobile communications, probably within the next few years.

A lot of so-called "Third World" countries skipped right by the era of universal land-lines and are going straight to universal mobile. It's fairly cheap.
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Voice Quality
El Condor 29th Mar 2009
I just hope that this so called GEN Y 1.0 will improve the voice qaulity of the "smart a&& iphone /mobile device. Can't hear the bloody thing ring; can't understand the person on the other end and they can't understand you; can't read the text or comprehend the pics your looking. Oh yeah all hail(hell) the new tech crap point o!
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Who cares about Gen Y?
Unix Pimp 27th Mar 2009
Tell them to get a job and stop loafing around the coffee shops acting so self-important. Why would a corporation want to hire a Gen Y'er? The boss would have to deal with the Gen Y'ers annoying helicopter parents who would complain that their precious darlings are not the CEO of the corporation after 2 weeks.

1) Email - too many corporations and government entities use email for these slackers to cause the end of email.

2) The day Facebook figures out how to make money, then maybe. It is not about web hits, it is about the bottom line. Acting hip and cool is not going to pay the server maintenance and Internet connectivity fees.

3) Where do you think this "cloud" exists? In a data center.

4) Fixed land lines are going no where. They will either fight back with competitive pricing or they will morph into high speed data lines. Maybe when the last Baby Boomer dies, then land lines might bite the dust.

5) A stupid portable phone PDA-like device replacing a PC? Dude if you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. BTW, what do you think people use do develop the software for your pocket gadgets? A PC.

6) Sure XML will solve all problems, cure cancer, end poverty and hunger, figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light, etc. XML is just another tool of "traditional data processing".

If this is the best of Gen Y, then the Baby Boomers and Gen X have nothing to fear, except when they get too old to work and have to rely on Gen Y to fund Social Security and Medicare.
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You are half right
Comnenus 27th Mar 2009
I'm Gen Y, and I agree. Most of us are lazy and think we know a LOT more than we really do. But it's because we were corrupted by the baby boomers into a huge sense of entitlement - the same entitlement many of them have.

Don't separate the roots from the branches.
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Really?
IT_Guy_z 27th Mar 2009
"But it's because we were corrupted by the baby boomers into a huge sense of entitlement -the same entitlement many of them have."

Well child...I'm a baby boomer who has WORKED his a$$ off to get where I am today in the IT field. NOBODY has handed me anything.

My parents were divorced when I was 4, and my mother raised 3 children on her own, as a working mother. I got my first job at age 9...a paper route...something your generation has no clue about?and saved my money to buy the things my mother was unable to provide.

I have had the ?pleasure? of working with many of your generation?and believe me?you children wouldn?t know what hard work was, even if it bit you in the backside.
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work ethic
odcchaz 27th Mar 2009
I don't think it's fair to generalize an entire generation as having such a bad work ethic. Most people's work ethic comes from their parents' ethic, IE your mom's.

I've been working since I was 9 (I'm 27) including a paper route, mowing lawns, cashering, moving furniture, and so on. So here's one Y that knows hard work better than most. And ya know what..I'm not even that upset at having put all those extra thousands of dollars in social security that I'll most likely never see a dime of when I'm in my 60s cause the Boomers will suck it dry.
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
steeleweed@... 27th Mar 2009
Email? - Here to stay and more useful to business than to my Aunt Millie.

Websites? - Information is good and necessary. Networking sites have limited applicability - they are not the answer to all information=sharing needs.

Datacenters? - Cloud processing is not the answer to all computing requirements. There are and will always be issue of security and availability. If my business survival depends on my IT, I want that IT under my control - not some company which could be bought out, merged or bankrupt.

Land Lines? - Cellphone coverage is not universal and may never be.

PC? - There is a growing shift to thin clients, but this seems to run is cycles - we've been thru this before.

Traditional Data Processing? -
"Much of the [IT] history of the last 20 years has involved replacing what workd with what sounded good."

Of the proportion of BUSINESS data that is digitized, the overwhelming majority still sits on mainframes. That is not going away anytime soon - and IBM & the business world just woke up to that fact and are making a big push to get mainframe training back into the educational process as it used to be.

IBM mainframes morph thru succeeding generations, but I expect to see them around 30 years from now (assuming I's still around then).


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I believe in the same
bmateus@... 27th Mar 2009
I think you're right in your statements.
Wherever the future might lead us, that
concepts have been established, and even though
others may come and go, these ones will still
remain for quite some years.

What we will of course see is that Gen Y will
evolve them, specially by mashing-up or
cramming these technologies with others or in a
different way.

I also hope to be here by that time...


Cheers.
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Mr Tapscott is, what? 16 years old?
Henrik Moller 27th Mar 2009
His observations sound like they could have come from my kids and reflect a fairly profound ignorance. About the only thing he may right about is that mobile devices will replace land-lines. People like mobility and copper is expensive to buy and expensive to install.
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
odcchaz 27th Mar 2009
I think this article should be about how the Boomers are slowing down progress by trying to save the technology they developed from extinction. We've got 60 year old CIOs with EE degrees from before the personal computer was even mass produced. The simple facts are that computer technology and computing methods are developing faster than the Boomers can learn it and apply it to their business models. Or they're afraid of it.

The Gen Y's are working jobs and can't understand why they have to do everything "the slow way." They can rattle off multiple ways to improove thier jobs, but are discouraged then those ideas fall on deaf, ignorant, and beaurocratic ears.
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This is amusing
Lunatic59 29th Mar 2009
Yes, the stuffy old curmudgeons have screwed up the world and have used thier stodgy fat cat good ole boy network to keep the unappreciated youth under a glass ceiling.



Of course that youth is really just a lazy unappreciative mob with a sense of entitlement who wouldn't recognize a hard day's work if they stepped in a steaming pie of it.



This kind of ageist posturing has been going on since homonids learned to reproduce.

The only certainty is that today's paradigm is tomorrow's obsolesence ... and predicting what will become tomorrow's standard is as reliable as forecasting the DOW.
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While your post provides a good commentary I think it is not based on reality.

Your post assumes that we've moved from green screens to windowed interfaces to web interfaces to WEB 2.0 etc...

Well, let me tell you that green screens are alive and well as interfaces for core business applications that were written 30 or 40 years ago.

Of course the conflict the title alludes will be there. I have that conflict with green screens and fixed sized fields, that doesn't mean that they are going away anytime soon.
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Gen Y, imbrace Big Brother!
LittleGuy 27th Mar 2009
But they don't even know what it is
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
Jack516 27th Mar 2009
...reminds me of the prediction of the "paperless office" circa 1980 that would "definitely take place" before the turn of the [20th] century...nice ambition, still waiting. Better yet, where are the flying cars that everyone was supposed to be driving by Y2K as predicted by Popular Mechanics in the mid 70's? So far, nobody has been very successful in predicting the future--let alone nailing a timetable.

Good luck--I'm not quitting email yet.

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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
edkollin 27th Mar 2009
"why Wikipedia is beating Encyclopaedia Britannica."

Wikipedia are you kidding me??. Has this author tried to edit a page there?. The only thing new there the technology. Using a MySpace Page or twitter as a source is considered treason (ie unreliable source),The New York or Times of London are the holy grail of sources. The "personal" stuff that is the backbone of social networking is "unencyclopedic scandalous trash". Wikipedia and YouTube comment pages another Gen Y forum make the cable news networks actually look civil, no idealistic teamwork there.

Wikipedia beat Encyclopedia Britannica because Britannica's website is clunky. Nothing really new about that
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Re: Edkollin
StyxPhoenix 28th Mar 2009
While I would agree that Wikipedia should not be a replacement to well-documented facts such as what you would find in more reputable sources, I think you should check your definition of "treason". Even the #3 definition of treason is a very rough stretch to the point you are trying to make.

I don't think anyone, including the author, was implying using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or whatever other social networking site out there as a "holy grail of sources". I'm pretty sure the point is that social networking should be embraced by business and not shunned by the older generations who still believe we should be using carrier pigeons to deliver messasges than computers sending e-mails. (A little exaggeration, but you get the point)

Wikipedia has its purpose. But more importantly, the technology surrounding Wiki's and blogs is really what has benefit to companies. We're not talking personal blogs or the public Wikipedia sites ... we are talking customized versions for use internally in businesses as well as externally to communicate to stock holders and investors.

Also, please don't generalize about the laziness of Gen Y. Some of the most successful up-and-coming tech companies have Gen Y founders and braintrust. What those who choose a white-collar path instead of a blue-collar path lack in the "hard work" you all speak of, they make up for in innovation and technical knowledge. It's been this way for years ... Gen X and Baby Boomers started this trend. Most of the younger generation don't want to work in factories or production lines, they view success as working their way up the Corp. ladder and taking the path of least resistance. Don't belittle them for that. Baby Boomers started that trend with "entitlement".
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Reply StyxPhoenix
edkollin Updated - 28th Mar 2009
I hit on the my fellow boomers in the other article. I said nothing about white collar or blue collar. All I was trying to say is that in general despite working with a new technology Wikipedians are conservative (in a literal not necessarily political sense) to the extreme. Correctly or not they view new media sourcing with great suspicion and consider old line media sourcing reliable. They also view with suspicion the personal topics discussed on social networking sites. If somebody says something on their MySpace page you can not use it. If the same person says the same thing in the Times it may be used.

As for Wikipidia discussion pages and YouTube talk pages they tend to be conflict ridden and in the case of YouTube full of personal attacks.

Maybe it is just me, but I have found the exact opposite of the authors utopian vision in my dealings with Web 2.0.
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
commodorejohn 28th Mar 2009
He wrote a book titled "Wikinomics." 'Nuff said.

...words just cannot express how sick I am of the way so many seemingly-sensible media outlets piss themselves in excitement every time J. Random Internet comes up with a slightly different, slightly more over-simplified way to do the same things we've always been doing. We haven't had a serious computing revolution since the Web was invented, and these ain't it.
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
EmoEntitlement 29th Mar 2009
You people should be polishing your newsstands because when the EMP hits, all this electro communications crap is going to hit the ether and you'll all be back to newsprint and typwriters.
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RE: Tech that Gen Y will sweep away
jeremyswright 31st Mar 2009
The only thing I disagree with is email. I think
people will still communicate through email, much like
we still communicate through the phone.

The other points on datacenters and fixed phone lines
are no brainers, since we already see a shift in those
areas. It is just a matter of time.
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GenY isn't going to sweep any technologies away. Email, land lines, websites and PCs (in one form or another) will be around for a long time, simply because they work. Every time some shiny new technology comes along, it's tempting to predict the demise of everything that came before. The fax machine is a case in point. Theoretically, faxing should have disappeared years ago... but it survives because it gets the job done; it's simple, cheap, reliable and instantaneous. New technologies will come along and supplement what's in our collective toolbox (for instance, workplace collaboration may take on Facebook and Twitter functionality), but the things that work will stick around.

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