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TORSTEN HENNING HENSEL
PARTNER // CREATIVE CONSULTANT
NOUVÉ INTERPLAY
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DIGITAL EMPLOYEES
HOW THE DIGITAL NATIVES WILL TRANSFORM
COMPANIES AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
BERLIN // NOVEMBER 2009

who are
thedigital
natives?

Digital Natives have grown up in a digital world. They
relate to information and to others in new and different
ways. They manage multiple online identities; they share
photos, music, and personal information daily; and they
create and collaborate in new ways. Finally, ...

"... they grew up on video games (twitch speed),
MTV (more than 100 images a minute), and the ultra-fast
speed of action films. Their developing minds learned to
adapt to speed and thrive on it." Marc Prensky: Twitch Speed
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Twitch%20Speed.html http://wallpaper-s.org/18__Grand_Theft_Auto_III.htm

digital thinking
digital life –

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jazminmillion/2773129174/
Based on the latest research in neurobiology, there is
no longer any question that stimulation of various
kinds actually changes brain structures and affects
the way people think, and that these transformations
go on throughout life. The brain is massively plastic. It
constantly changes and organizes itself differently
based on the inputs it receives.
Marc Prensky: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II:
Do They Really Think Differently?
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf

http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/ericsson_business_review/pdf/108/understanding_digital_natives.pdf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/orenratowsky/3109980220
always on
A typical 21-year-old has, on average:
sent and received 250,000 e-mails, instant
messages, and SMS text messages, used
a mobile phone for 10,000 hours, played
video games for 5,000 hours, and spent
3,500 hours social networking online...

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Twitch%20Speed.html
Twitch Speed Conventional Speed
Parallel Processing Linear Processing
Graphics First Text First
Random Access Step-by-Step
Connected
Active
vs. Standalone
Passive
Play Work
Payoff Patience
Fantasy Reality
Technology as Friend Technology as Foe
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dre007/2754865505 http://www.flickr.com/photos/luismontemayor/272464584

www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/05/14/what-companies-should-know-about-digital-natives
In a recent post on his blog, Jeremiah Owyang draws some
key characteristics of the digital natives:
www.flickr.com/photos/judygr/3788334816

this will have
consequences
for their
communication
behaviour

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrebernardodotcom/2578716991
control
http://www.de.capgemini.com/m/de/tl/Digital_Natives.pdf
impatience
This younger generation desires
with the ability to access content and communicate whenever they choose, regardless of location.
is also characteristic of this age group, as it seeks to make the most efficient use
interaction
of its time through multitasking and “media snacking.”
The youth are also constantly engaged in community
originality
sharing opinions on what content is worth seeing or experiencing.
Additionally, they are looking for avenues of selfexpression that enable them to showcase their
creativity and portray their

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slaterspeed/3111104731
control
For a long time media consumption has been a lean-back, passive experience, constrained by
broadcasting schedules. However, younger users are playing a more active role in controlling and
deciding how and when they want to consume media. They are starting to move away from
platforms such as linear TV and radio that do not enable content to be consumed in a flexible way.
http://www.de.capgemini.com/m/de/tl/Digital_Natives.pdf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/godchilla/3137393718/
impatience
Consumers today are living in a world of hyper-choice. They own multiple devices that provide
access to a very wide range of communication and content services. To make the most of their
time, they are increasingly consuming several types of content at once, rapidly switching
attention from one source to another, a form of multitasking
http://www.de.capgemini.com/m/de/tl/Digital_Natives.pdf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notsogoodphotography/2987346666/
interaction
The influence of their peer group on the younger generation is nothing new. However, the
Internet has opened up the possibility for today’s younger generation to interact with a global
community at any time, anywhere. This age group continuously exchanges opinions on what
is worth seeing, reading and downloading.
http://www.de.capgemini.com/m/de/tl/Digital_Natives.pdf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilcthulhu/457937492
originality
For a long time media consumption has been a lean-back, passive experience, constrained by
broadcasting schedules. However, younger users are playing a more active role in controlling and
deciding how and when they want to consume media. They are starting to move away from
platforms such as linear TV and radio that do not enable content to be consumed in a flexible way.
http://www.de.capgemini.com/m/de/tl/Digital_Natives.pdf

what happens
when they
enter
the business
stage...?

Young people may be
newcomers to the world of work, but
it's their bosses who are
immigrants into the
digital world.
www.flickr.com/photos/bug138/57290586

Today's younger workers are
not 'little us-es'. Their preference
is for sharing, staying connected,
instantaneity, multi-tasking,
assembling random information
into patterns, and using techno-
logy in new ways. Their challenge
to the established way of doing
things in the business world has
already started. Marc Prensky
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bug138/57290111

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bug138/57290231
Those challenges often flow from
young workers' embrace of digital technologies
that have grown up with them.

Today's 25-year-old was born in 1985 – 10 years after the first consumer
computers went on sale and the same year that the breakthrough "third
generation" video game, Nintendo's "Super Mario Brothers," first went to
market. When this young worker was a toddler, the basic format of instant
messaging was developed. And at the time this young worker entered
kindergarten in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a computer program called the
World Wide Web. Upon entering middle school, our worker might have
organized his schedule with a gadget called a Palm Pilot (first shipped in
1996). And at the dawn of high school for our worker in 1999, Sean Fanning
created the Napster file-sharing service. When the worker graduated from
high school four years later, his gifts might have included an iPod (patented in
2002) and a camera phone (first shipped in early 2003). Our worker's college
career saw the rise of blogs (already two-years-old in 2000), RSS feeds
(coded in 2000), Wikipedia (2001), social network sites (Friendster was
launched in 2002), tagging (Del.icio.us was created in 2003), free online phone
calling (Skype software was made available in 2003), podcasts (term coined
in 2004), and the video explosion that has occurred as broadband internet
connections become the norm in households (YouTube went live in 2005).
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace

Now, we have a reversal of the normal situation, where young people migrate
into a workplace manned by seasoned natives. Instead, in this digitalized age,
this 25-year-old and his peers are showing up in human resources offices as
digital natives in a workplace world dominated by digital immigrants...
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace www.flickr.com/photos/normko/1011494609

www.flickr.com/photos/lyza/276990225
This generational difference will inevitably pose challenges
and create opportunities for the firms that hire them.
The Pew Research Center identified five new realities of the digital
natives' lives that should be understood by their new employers...

www.flickr.com/photos/anasantos/2055192769
1
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace
THEY ARE VIDEO GAMERS AND THAT GIVES THEM DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS
ABOUT HOW TO LEARN, WORK, AND PURSUE CAREERS.
For today's young workers, the ethos of video gaming plays a significant role. Virtually all college students play video, computer or
internet games and 73% of teens do so. Gaming is the "training program" that helps form their attitudes about the way the work-world
operates – a world full of data-streams, where analysis and decisions come at twitch speed, where failure at first is the norm, where the
game player is the hero, and where learning takes place informally.
For companies, this puts a premium on designing engaging work that allows workers to make a clear contribution and be rewarded for
same. If "organization man" has become "gaming man," then the importance of worker morale is elevated -- as is the value of basing
work on completed tasks, rather than other measures of work effort such as hours on the job. Digital natives need projects to complete
and then stand out of the way. They quit when they are frustrated trying to finish an effort that will 'get them to the next level.'

www.flickr.com/photos/anasantos/1937300158
2
THEY ARE TECHNOLOGICALLY LITERATE,
BUT THAT DOES NOT NECESSARILY MAKE THEM MEDIA LITERATE.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace
Most users understand the internet as a vast encyclopedia – more than it is a playground, a commercial mall, a civic
commons, a kaffee klatch, or a peep show. This is especially true for the digital natives, who have grown up relying on
it to complete school assignments, perhaps too often clipping and pasting material from websites into term papers.
The problem is that digital natives often rely on web sources without checking their origins and confirming their
evidence in other ways. Thus, companies are doing good to enhance their critical thinking skills regarding media and
make them questioning what lies behind media productions – the motives, the money, the values and the ownership –
and to be aware of how these factors influence content.

3
THEY ARE CONTENT CREATORS – THAT SHAPES THEIR
NOTIONS ABOUT PRIVACY AND PROPERTY.
Most teenagers today have already created a blog, posted an artistic or written creation online,
helped build a website, created an online profile, or uploaded photos and videos to a website.
They think of the internet as a place where they can express their passions, play out their
identities, and gather up the raw material they use for their creations...
In the many-to-many broadcast environment of the internet, the prospects for data hemorrhage
from companies have grown exponentially. The rise of consumer-creations online also means that
outsiders have all manner of ways to record and report on the behavior of employees. Clearly,
firms need to create policies about how internal bloggers should treat company information,
what kinds of intellectual property need to be protected, and basic norms of behavior that
should guide people who want to create online material.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace
www.flickr.com/photos/anasantos/1721276540

4
THEY ARE PRODUCT AND PEOPLE RANKERS –
THAT INFORMS THEIR NOTIONS OF PROPRIETY.
This is the wisdom-of-crowds generation that grew up rating peers' physical
attributes (amihotornot.com), pop culture creations (metacritic.com reviews),
teachers' style and grading practices (ratemyprofessors.com), products and
services (epinions.com), and even weddings (bridezilla.com). No surprise, then,
that there are websites drawing decent traffic for people to rate their bosses,
their clients, and their customers.
As the tone of online commentary is often flame-oriented, racy, and retaliatory,
organizations might ponder adding a new clause or two to the policy manual
about online etiquette inside and outside the workplace to handle unacceptable
online behaviors where liability might emerge.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace
www.flickr.com/photos/anasantos/2046047328

www.flickr.com/photos/anasantos/2318112610
5
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/70/digital-natives-invade-the-workplace
THEY ARE MULTI-TASKERS OFTEN LIVING IN A STATE OF "CONTINUOUS PARTIAL ATTENTION"
AND THAT MEANS THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN WORK AND LEISURE IS QUITE PERMEABLE.
The ubiquity of gadgets and media allows younger workers to toggle back and forth quickly between tasks for work and chatter with
their friends, research for projects and diversions on their screens. Many marvel at their capacity to juggle multiple tasks at once. Thus,
many technophiles function in a condition called "continuous partial attention," where they are scanning all available data sources for
the optimum inputs.
Those who operate in such a state are not as productive as those who stay on task. They also do not make distinctions between the
zones of work and leisure, consumer and producer, education and entertainment. Their worlds bleed together. But as it won‘t work to
draw borders around different spheres of life for them, companies should let them shift among them at their own choosing – as long as
the work gets done.

www.flickr.com/photos/kegroll/2903014468
As digital natives change how businesses
operate, new management standards will
abound and the demand for technological
infrastructure will be greater than ever.
Offering them the tools and software they
are used to work with and collaborate with
each other, will be a key success factor in
the war for talent.

the role of
software
in the
war for
talent

As digital natives enter the workforce, they bring with them their norms
of sharing, collaboration and information processing. These norms differ
significantly from the workings of traditional corporate environments.
www.flickr.com/photos/j_osullivan/2230310236

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottonassar/1149873101
The digital natives are taking with them
blogs, wikis, mashups, RSS feeds and
other Web 2.0 social networking tools
that will allow them to collaborate freely.
www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Digital-Natives-Will-Drive-Web-20-into-Your-Business

www.flickr.com/photos/larskflem/1716905122
Companies that want to attract digital natives will
have to speed up becoming 'enterprises 2.0', offering
their staff rich internet applications, social software
and a Web platform to execute tasks.
www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Digital-Natives-Will-Drive-Web-20-into-Your-Business

http://www.flickr.com/photos/selenamarie/2466988308
Instead of just throwing money at personal tools and
software technologies that support social processes in-
house, companies should start with business goals
and then pick technologies to support them.
www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Digital-Natives-Will-Drive-Web-20-into-Your-Business

www.flickr.com/photos/eekim/2235294862
Companies should especially pick social software that
boosts the effectiveness of employees doing tasks that
cant be automated. These concepts include relating to
each other, discovering threats and opportunities,
innovating, teaming, leading, and learning.
www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Digital-Natives-Will-Drive-Web-20-into-Your-Business

www.flickr.com/photos/j
ermaister/458624987/
www.flickr.com/photos/3
5034345449@N01/263260
68
As digital natives will contin ue to influence the evolution of
modern business practic es that support the digital age, it is
very likely that they also wil l change the concept of hierarchy
and transform it to a mo re modern, competence-based and
collaboratively sou rced understanding of leadership.

WIREARCHY IS EMERGING ...
We all know and understand hierarchy – the enduring principle of the institutions that govern us and in
which we work and live. The people at the top of the institutions control the agendas and make the
decisions. That's changing.
Taking decisions and managing organized activities are being impacted in powerful ways by
interconnected networks of people and technology. The Internet is connecting customers, employees and
communities and empowering them with information in ways never before possible.
Every week the impact of hyperlinked, horizontal and vertical networks is being felt more clearly and in
more insistent ways. The impacts are creating new dynamics in organizations as well as emergent forms
of organized activities that are based on participation and peer-to-peer interaction, resulting in nimble,
responsive, and results-focused networked group / team structures.
A shift in the ways activities are planned and managed is occurring in many spheres of human activity,
from command-and-control to coordinate-and-channel. This new principle is called Wirearchy: a
dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility,
enabled by interconnected people and technology.
Jon Husband http://www.wirearchy.com/
www.flickr.com/photos/-cavin-/2366764272

THANK YOU!
Want to know more? Get in contact:
torsten.hensel@nouve-interplay.com
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