Skip to main content

Losing Our Technological Edge

As a Gen Xer entering the workforce twenty years ago, we were told that we were special because we had "that technology thing" down.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I've tried to keep up.  And I thought I was doing a good job.  Our twentieth high school reunion, after all, was advertised and documented on Facebook.  When I started working with Millennials a few years ago, I realized that the technological edge was definitely with them.  I'm not too proud to learn everything I can from them, but I'm also not conceited enough to think I'll ever come close to matching them.  So you can imagine my utter shock (and serious ego bruising) today when I asked my seventy-year old mother if she knew how to find something specific she had mentioned and she nonchalantly responded "can't you just Google it?"  Okay, now I am very proud that she knows what Google is and how to use it, but if she knows that (and yes she has a Facebook page although she rarely updates it), it means my generation has not only lost the edge to the new generation, but the older generations are catching up to us as well!  I don't know about you, but this is definitely something I need to ponder.

What is your favorite example of multi-generational technology use?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What an Extraverted Intuitive Needs to be Productive

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Jung observed that people have inborn preferences for gathering information and making decisions and that these preferences guide an individual’s behavior. The mother/daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers expanded on Jung’s theories and created an assessment to make the combined work accessible to all individuals. Today, the assessment is used by most Fortune 100 companies and over two million people worldwide, annually. The assessment identifies an individual’s inborn preferences on four dichotomous scales: where you focus your energy, how you prefer to take in information, how you make decisions, and how you deal with the outer world. Type is best used to understand other people, improve communication, and develop individual skills. The first dichotomy is Extraversion (gets energy from other people) and Introversion (gets energy from reflection).  The second...

What is True Self Awareness and Why is Important for Personal/Professional Development?

You know my opinion that when it comes to professional development , you get out of a program what you put into it.  So now you get my opinion on the single most important element of personal/professional development. 
SELF AWARENESS 
 What is it?  Self awareness is knowing your strengths and how to maximize them, knowing your weaknesses and how to buffer them, knowing that you have blind spots and being open to feedback about them, and being willing to do the necessary reflection and work to constantly improve yourself. I have observed so many people in leadership development programs (1 hour to 18 month) listen to an amazing instructor describe an action, reaction, or career derailer and immediately speak up and identify someone else who has that quality.  You would not believe how often, that person has the same quality.  However, they often even follow up with because of my experience working with that person I make a point to not do this.  Awkward....

Your Personal Plan - Part 1

Every January 1 there is a rush to make New Year's Resolutions.  I don't know about you, but a list of resolutions never seems to stick for me.  In the training and development area we are constantly talking about Executive and Individual Development Plans.  I will be honest, I can really get into these with a client.  But, I don't have one in the form I recommend.  Is this part of do what I say, not what I do?  Maybe.  Maybe not. I've been thinking that one plan for what you want to accomplish at work and one for home and one for your volunteer work can be as aggravating (and ultimately useless) as trying to maintain a paper calendar at work, an outlook calendar, a hanging calendar on the fridge at home, and a google calendar for your extracurriculars. I think what we really need is a one-stop shopping personal plan that merges everything you do now and everything you want to achieve in the next five years (or whatever time period you are using). ...