By Ines Schinazi
Don Tapscott is a visionary. He is the co-author of one of today’s best-selling Management books, “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.” His avant-garde thinking has resulted in such brilliantly precocious works as his book about the Internet written in 1981, as well as his innovative vision of a collaborative workplace in “Wikinomics.” In this exclusive interview with Talking About Generations, he shares his vision of the workplace, offering insights about the future, predicting a rupture in the current relationship between companies and employees, starting with changes in Recruitment and Selection processes.
Ines: In an interview at Google, you discuss the issue of timing in regards to your writing. Your avant-garde nature and forward thinking becomes extremely apparent. You wrote a book about the Internet in 1981, and another about the privacy of the web in the mid 90’s. Obviously, this was before most people could even begin to merely grasp these issues. So, what issues are you exploring right now?
Don: Currently I am writing a new book with Anthony Williams, my co-author of Wikinomics. The working title is: Rebuilding the World for the Age of Networked Intelligence. We believe that many of the institutions around us are nearing the end of their life cycle. They need to be dramatically overhauled and in many cases replaced.
Ines: In “Wikinomics” and in several of your articles, you present the vision of a hyper-collaborative workplace, where traditional hierarchies make way for two-way conversations. This happens both between employers and employees, but also moves outside the business, actually giving consumers a role as collaborators. Obviously, this has endless positive aspects to it, but what, if any, are the negative sides to this new model?
Don: I don’t see negative sides, but there will be challenges. For example, as companies become more transparent and corporate boundaries are more porous, companies will have to balance candor and confidentiality
Ines: From your perspective, what will the workplace look like in 5 years?
Don: Many baby boomer bosses will have retired (assuming they can afford to) and many Net Geners will have positions of authority. I think you will see a change in the tone of the workplace. In Wikinomics we talked about the army marching in lockstep to tightly arranged military music is a metaphor for yesterday’s workplace. But the workplace of the future will be more like a jazz ensemble—where musicians improvise creatively around an agreed key, melody, and tempo. Employees are developing their own self-organized interconnections and forming cross-functional teams capable of interacting as a global, real-time workforce. Loosening organizational hierarchies and giving more power to employees can lead to faster innovation, lower cost structures, greater agility, improved responsiveness to customers, and more authenticity and respect in the marketplace.
Ines: In the article “Ideagora, a marketplace for minds” you argue that “…many of the best people are to be found outside your corporate walls.” You state, “R&D labs would be ambidextrous: building on core capabilities internally, while acquiring the greatest, most complementary ideas externally.”
Don: At his recent Sao Paulo lecture, Mark Zuckerberg spoke to this exact idea. He stated that the best Facebook applications, were not built by those with the most resources, or from large corporations. Rather, the best ideas came from creative individuals, who were often “outside” of the corporate world, much like Zuckerberg himself, when he founded Facebook.
Ines: Obviously, the digital world gives us countless resources to find innovation outside corporate walls. But in your opinion, does this trend also reflect on the nature of the corporate world? Are corporations not giving their internal employees enough creative freedom?
Don: I agree. Companies should be giving employees much more freedom. They feel constrained while those “outside” do not. It goes to the jazz band metaphor I used above. Employees need the latitude to experiment and be creative.
Ines: While you seem to understand this generation, almost as if it were your own, not everyone is so open-minded. Do you think we’re in for a deep generational clash as the net generation floods into the workplace?
Don: Absolutely, and it’s already begun. Teenagers and young adults entering the workplace are frequently met with hostility. Older workers begrudge the younger generation’s sense of entitlement and what they misinterpret as arrogance. Employers who don’t create the proper climate for this new generation are going to suffer a backlash.
For starters, I think the old HR model – recruit, train, supervise and retain – should be shelved. Instead, companies should adopt a new model – initiate, engage, collaborate and evolve. Companies have many ways to make themselves more attractive to a potential N-Gen employee: they can customize job descriptions, as Deloitte does; use game-based training to train employees for short-term projects; keep in touch with alumnae, the former employees, to find new people and get new ideas. Old-style job interviews are out. Two-way dialogues are the way to hire. And the first three months is a time when the employee is evaluating the company, not the other way round.
I think the Net Gen can help companies win, period. My research shows that companies that selectively and effectively embrace Net Gen norms perform better than those that don’t. In fact, I’m convinced that the Net Gen culture is the new culture of work. The Net Gen norms I describe in this book may turn out to be the key indicators of high performing organizations in the 21st century.
I should add that one of the best examples of a company that understands the value of Net Generation thinking is electronics retailing giant Best Buy. Recently retired CEO, Brad Anderson, says that the most important people in the company are the tens of thousands of young people in blue shirts that work in the stores. Anderson told me these young employees “are closest to our customers, are most like our customers, and their culture is the culture of the 21st century Best Buy.”
Anderson says that his job was not so much to make decisions but rather to create the conditions in which his young customer-facing employees can self organize and help re-invent the company. The company has an online social network where 25,000 young employees regularly gather to brainstorm and share insights. Management pays attention. Anderson says he is in the business of “unleashing the power of Net Generation human capital.”
Ines: In the article “Focus on the Net Gen Family” you find that this generation has closer ties with their parents than baby boomers ever did. This generation has grown up with a less authoritarian model of family, and more of a two-way conversation between parents and children.
Yet, as these kids enter schools and the workplace, they often don’t find that two-way conversation. Rather, they’re usually confronted with a more traditional model.
In this current transitional moment, before institutions have time to really start adapting and changing, what’s the key to reconciling the “new ways” of the family, with the more traditional aspects of institutions like school and the workplace?
Don: I think adults have to understand the harm they can cause by refusing to change their ways. For the corporate executive, as I just discussed above, this refusal jeopardizes the long-term health of the company. To help senior management understand, companies should try reverse mentoring: Senior personnel becoming the “mentees” of young employees. Learn from these kids. Understand the appeal of sites such as Facebook, and why the company should #1) not prohibit access from company computers, and #2) explore ways to use it as a business tool, as many companies have done.
Ines: You often write about how businesses and institutions should adapt to this new generation. However, do you feel this generation also needs to adapt to older generations?
Don: I think the issue is less to “adapt” and more to understand what motivates and shapes the attitudes of older generations. They too are products of their upbringing and experiences. We could all benefit from more dialogue
Ines: I recently interviewed Dr. Gary Small, a leading neurologist, who argues that the Internet is changing our brain. He is also a digital advocate, but worries that young people are at risk of losing their social skills all together if their digital-use becomes too excessive.
You seem to take a different view. In “How Technology has Changed the Brain,” you state “By their 20s, young people will have spent more than 30,000 hours on the Internet and playing video games. That’s not such a bad thing.”
Do you think the net-generation’s face-to-face skills will suffer as the world becomes increasingly digital?
Don: No. The increasingly digital world is an increasingly interactive world. Kids aren’t at home staring dumbly at screens. They are in constant communication with their peers, through phone calls or texting or writing on Facebook walls. They know how to relate with others.
Ines: You talk about how your own children have been quite instrumental in sparking your research, as you saw them “growing up digital.” In between writing “Growing up Digital” and “Grown up Digital,” what (if any) were the biggest surprises you encountered in regards to this generation?
Don: I was surprised and delighted with just how quickly the Net Generation adapts. When I wrote Growing Up Digital the web was still largely a publishing medium. Companies and others posted information online for other to consume. Since then, of course, the Web has become much more a collaborative tool, often referred to as Web 2.0. With their early adoption of tools such as IM, texting, collaborating with wikis, use of social media, and so on, the Net Generation continues to innovate and show leadership.
Ines: How does the unequal distribution of resources fit into wikinomics? You mention that increasingly innovative talent will be located in BRIC countries. Yet, how does extreme inequality and disparity of basic resources, not to mention the lack of access to technology and the Internet make this growth possible, and not reserved to a tiny elite?
Don: The current inequities in global wealth distribution are unconscionable. More than one billion people on this planet have no reliable access to potable water. I’ve written about the dangers of the digital divide for many years. To participate in a digital world people need the proper tools, and I heartily endorse the efforts to make digital technologies more widely available. Fortunately the tools are more powerful, more versatile and less expensive every day. But we should be doing much more.
Ines: What happens as information becomes increasingly free? Is the general trend going to be to move from a product to a service, as you suggest with music for instance?
Don: Yes. Why would I want to buy tunes for my iPod when I can have any song in the world streamed to my portable device for a few dollars a month? This will be true of more and more products as devices gain access to a wireless, broadband, continuous Internet. Do you really want a newspaper put on your doorstep every morning with its small snippets of yesterday’s news? Not really. What you want is to have timely knowledge of what is going on in your world.
Ines: In the article “Net Gen Transforms Marketing,” you clearly express how marketers must change to adapt to this generation. From your perspective, are billboards, traditional ads, and the TV commercials, going to die out completely?
Don: Billboards will survive. But as we see in Times Square, they will be electronic and constantly changing. As newspapers and magazines stop publishing print versions and go online – which will happen much sooner than most people think — traditional ads will disappear. TV commercials will soon be relics. Televisions will soon be relics. Today kids look at a typewriter and say “what’s that?” Tomorrow they’ll be saying the same thing about TVs.
Ines: While most people are bashing my generation, you’ve been incredibly generous, perhaps our biggest advocate. What exactly makes you so optimistic about this generation?
Don: I think I have a big advantage over many cynics. I have children. They give me great hope.
