This blog is all about our life with Grayson, but since I'm currently on a work trip and have no updates to share about our crazy boy, you're stuck with my recent ponderings. I am attending an interactive/social media conference where you'll find everything from independent bloggers to web programmers to video & computer gamers to brand managers for worldwide corporations like Coca Cola, Adobe, Dell and many, many others.
These people's jobs are so very different from one another and from what I do every day, yet we're all connected through the power of communication. This very blog is part of the social media phenomenon and is a communication tool that connects my life with yours.
I find it interesting how easy it is to keep up with friends, family, even perfect strangers through social media tools now and to think about what it will be like in the future. One of the speakers today spent years researching the digital impact on youth. He started by asking if all of this information and technology overload is making our youth anti-social. The results actually showed quite the opposite, they are becoming hyper-social -- always connected, always in touch with their network of friends -- which has caused them to expect news, information and other things on-demand. And, just because they are hyper-social doesn't necessarily mean they are social in the traditional ways we may be thinking.
Another session talked about how the line between an individual's online persona and their employer's online brand is blurring and soon they will be one and the same. I've intentionally not written much about my employer on this blog, not because it's a big secret, but because that's not the focus of this blog. I think as the recent generations of college grads infiltrate the workforce and move up the corporate ladder, they are not only building their individual online personas, but intertwining it with the brands for which they work or represent.
There are so many implications for both employees and employers that it will be interesting to watch this relationship evolve over the next few years, decades and longer. It keeps causing me to think about passion. Whether you love or hate your job, work is a very personal thing and where you spend a significant part of your day. If you aren't passionate about what you do, it makes for a vicious cycle of discontent.
If today's speaker is right and the line between personal and company online personas is erased, I'd hate to see what happens to companies currently employing unhappy or even disgruntled employees. No company and no job is perfect, but at the end of the day there needs to be passion on a personal and professional level for all parties to succeed. That's not a result of social media coming into the mix, it's been a reality forever, but social media is amplifying the need by providing a worldwide forum to expose the good, the bad and the just plain ugly.
I realize this is way off topic from my usual posts, and if you've made it this far without moving on to another site I appreciate you humoring me. I guess the moral of the story is to find a job that makes you happy, even if it takes a leap of faith, and encourage your children to do the same. Their generation's workforce and work environment will be completely different from the current one and (in my humble opinion) will be centered on staying true to yourself and your employer since, to the outer world at least, they will be closely linked. If you can't be a whole-hearted ambassador for your employer, that should (and will) speak volumes.
3 comments:
WOW~~~~!!! You really put it all out there on this one. Very profound, I must say, as your proud pappa!
So so true. I took a workshop on this very subject and how it affects how kids are learning these days. It touched on how traditional lecturing is not getting to the students who are digital multitaskers and get bored easily. They are the "Digital Natives". One thing that scares me is that kids won't be able to have a face to face conversation. I have experienced that with some kids in my classes. They don't know how to present or talk to actual people! Also, there is less regard for people's feelings when you are not talking to them face to face, so we need to be careful to continue to have actual physical human interaction! Crazy world.
I so agree with Amy. My young students in my classes are having a harder and harder time relating to one another in a positive and meaningful way. Their attention span is very short and lasting friendships are almost nonexistant. When asked to write a story in their journals, they have a hard time coming up with anything to write. I try to pull out personal experiences, but all I continually get is that they play video games or are running from this event to another. Parents are constantly asking teachers why their child cannot make friends. I believe it is due to no socializing in the years before they even go to school as well as less and less time given to children to simply play with others. How often do you drive down the street and see any kids outside playing with others? In days past, one would have to stop and wait for the kids to get out of the street so you could pass by. I for one would like to see more balance take hold.
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