Sadrhino

16July2008

Gen Y is so Wired!!! Well maybe not so much…

Posted by Toner under: Nerd Culture; UX; business.

A while back I know I (and loads of other people) made a lot of assumptions about Gen Y and technology.

As Gen Xers with our i-phones, our RSS readers and our blogs I think we thought it a given that the next generation of professionals would assuredly be some sort of creature from the sci-fi shows we grew up on (just look at those awful headsets we wear). Just wired into the hive mind, multi-tasking like mad, using the power of the world at their fingertips to do things we, at their age, never had an opportunity to do.

And because of this, we in turn, spent a lot of time convincing people older than us how much things are going to change in a few years and how we better get ready. The slow are eaten! Up with the early adopters!!!!

Confirming these assumptions were loads of reports by reputable researchers like Pew, that spoke of how much time teens and tweens spent online. We pointed to the success of social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook and somehow made the correlation that because little Ian made a Guitar Hero-themed Myspace page, this meant that when he was CEO of Big Company.com (at the age of 20 of course) he would run his meetings not with minutes and agendas but with color-coded strips that matched the beats of Aerosmith songs. Whoa, the world was gonna change!

But recently I’m starting to change my mind. Let’s look at two bullet points that are fairly common faire in any “web 2.0/Gen Y” presentation these days.

• Digital Natives thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards.
• They prefer games to “serious” work.

Okay, so, let’s really think about this. I’m in my late thirties, and honestly, if I didn’t have a mortgage, a toddler that eats like linebacker and another baby on the way, you bet your ass I’d be home playing Oblivion all day and making bad original music on Garage Band. I mean who wouldn’t?

How about the amazing stats about multi-tasking? These kids are doing homework AND chatting at the same time. Breathtaking right?

Well, I can think back to days of homework and I’m fairly sure I had the phone cradled between my shoulder and ear while I got my way through the drudgery of High School algebra. I mean, hell, I bet my dad did it in the 50s as well. Who didn’t? So now maybe it’s typing over talking. Big deal.

So, the real eye opener for me has been some recent conversations with young people. interns, new employees, etc.

Of course this isn’t formal research in the Gallop sense of the word, but, enough of a sample (30+ people maybe?) that my beliefs about this new “wired” world are changing.

When I talk to 20-somethings about technology and work, they are really not that different than, well, the rest of us. Just the other day my boss and I did a little meet and greet with the Interns here and did some informal polling about how they consumed information/news, work behaviors and sort of general technology use.

For the most part, nearly all of them read the paper. Yup, paper. Tactile, made from trees. No one had a start page with a hundred RSS feeds, actually, for that matter; no one even used one of those aggregator-type start pages (igoogle, netvibes, etc.). By the looks on their faces I don’t think many of them knew what to make of that concept.

Of course everyone had a facebook page, but, really, how different is that than the activities we engaged in at their age? If you totaled up the time I spent hanging up fliers for various bands I was in or going on about causes I supported, I’m sure it equaled the amount of time little Johnny is spending sending virtual pokes to his buddies.

Sure the audience is larger, (potentially-in most cases it’s not) but as of yet, how many people have really managed to change the industry because of a YouTube Video or a spot on Last FM? For the most part what we see is kids being kids, just with better toys than what we had (unless you count Tia Tequila - I guess-sort of).

Lets face it, for the most part, people are using social networking for, well, social stuff. And social stuff is fun! Of course people spend a lot of time doing it. It’s like the Eddie Izzard joke about asking someone if you’d rather have a piece of cake or get poked in the eye with a paper-clip.

In matters of work, we immediately expected to hear everyone was using collaboration tools like Twine or Wikki’s but again, not so much. We expected study groups to have evolved into this online, extravaganza of meta-data and collaboration using all the latest and greatest, but again, people told us they used books, maybe the library computer if they were stuck.

I have a hunch, kids being kids and all, that just like how my father working in a factory made me not want to work in a factory, seeing us walk around with our stupid headsets and our smart phones and working Sunday night at 10pm when we should be eating popcorn and watching a movie, is, if anything, making kids more likely to want to want to slow down, turn off the machines and maybe go outside.

I hear it’s nice outside…

8July2008

What I still don’t understand about women.

Posted by Toner under: Life and Family.

If you add up time spent dating, living together, engagement and marriage, my wife and I have been together about ten years now.

I think we know each other pretty well.

Over the weekend, I was helping her hang some curtains up that we just got back from the dry cleaners.

Now, to clarify, in this particular room, we have “curtains” which are, ya know, curtains, and then we have something called “sheers” which are like these white strips of material that go in-between the curtains.

As we are putting the first set back up, my wife says, “We usually have two curtains and three sheers on each rod, do you think we should just change and do two and two?”

Of course I ask “why?”

And she says “no reason just asking.”

This perplexes me. Now, follow me here. As a man, if I give someone options there’s usually a reason. A pro/con perhaps. For example…

“Bob, do you want tequila or beer?” Essentially, I’m asking, “do you want to get drunk out of our minds or do you just want to chill, have a beer and watch the ballgame…” There are two clear options.

This leads me to believe, my wife, being a rational, intelligent woman, probably had some motive behind the question, but, what this motive is, will remain forever unknown to me for no reason I can figure out… i mean, was one answer better than another? I dunno…

Creepy man.

4July2008

America #$%^ yeah…

Posted by Toner under: history.

As a history major working in technology, I don’t get to use my degree much… so considering the day, here’s my little indulgence… It’s one of my favorite bits of American history…

At Fort Stanwix, during the Revolutionary War (that’s the one where we beat Britain and celebrate today by drinking beer and blowing up illegal fireworks), there was a bit of a standoff between the British and Americans.

The British, hoping to scare the American garrison into surrendering, rounded up a bunch of local Indians (the “come to our Casino” kind, not the “is the computer plugged in sir?” kind…) and threatened the American commander (in a round-about, rambling way, so typical of our friends across the pond) that if he did not surrender he could not be responsible for what the Indians in his command did to the “old, infirm and women and children” in the fort. See back then, you had to take your family to war with you. Good times right?

So, the Americans invited the British, under flag of truce, into the fort to discuss this.

An American colonel at the scene, Marinus Willet, after listening to the British officer ramble for a good 20 minutes or so, unloaded on his “guests” saying:

“Do I understand you sir? I think you say that you come from a British colonel… and by your uniform you appear to be an officer in the British service.

You have made a long speech… which, striped of all it’s superfluities, amounts to this, that you come… to the commandant of this garrison to tell him that if he does not deliver up the garrison into the hands of your colonel, he will send his Indians to murder our woman and children.

You will please reflect sir, that then their blood will be on your head, not ours. We are doing our duty to our country. This garrison is committed to our charge, and we will take care of it.

After you get out of it, you may turn around and look at it’s outside, but never expect to come in again, unless you come as a prisoner. I consider the message you brought a degrading one for a British officer and a citizen of his majesty’s empire, to carry.

For my own part, I declare before you that before I would consent to deliver the garrison to such a murdering set as your army…I would suffer my body be filled with splinters and set on fire, as you know has at times been practiced by such hordes of the women and children killers as belong to your army. You may leave my fort sir.”

Balls man. Balls.

Have a good fourth, and ya know, spend a little time, between meat and beer and random explosions, to think about how we all got here.

13May2008

Phew. Thank God!

Posted by Toner under: Life and Family; Nerd Culture.

Believe it or not, I’m a practicing Catholic. This was the one issue of my faith that I really wrestled with.
Today, apparently, the Vatican has announced,
- it’s OK to believe in aliens.

6May2008

Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf

Posted by Toner under: business.

A simple, short post on the gulf between passion and pop. Easy right?
Seths Blog: Avoiding the Passion Pop Gulf