A majority of us were born prior to the mid 80’s and as such, the concept of a computer was foreign to us. Researching information was done in a library hunting through books found using the Dewey Decimal system or searching it on microfiche. We waited patiently for movies to be released on the big screen and we went as a family to watch them. New music was heard originally via radio stations where they were famous for discovering and setting new trends. I remember hiding under the covers in my bed late at night listening to my transistor radio, in time, we could record and share what we heard with our friends on a cassette tape (careful not to record the commercials). Programming the VCR was VERY complicated and only a few people in the neighbourhood mastered it.
To understand how innovation has occurred in the past we need to review our landscape a bit more. The world was unimaginably HUGE. Unless we lived in one of the 10 or so major cities around the world, most of us lived in a place where foreigners passed through from other parts of the country and stood out like a sore thumb. It was unusual to have tasted cuisine from outside of our country, and for a career, we usually followed in the footsteps of our forefathers and only recently was it expected for us to complete a secondary education beyond the minimum requirements. We thought creating something original through innovation was completed by qualified specialists or scientists with crazy hair, and it likely occurred in several places around the world at the same time.
Then in the mid 80’s this changed forever. PC’s entered the home and we were given the World Wide Web. In only 20 years, more information has been made available to us than all the libraries combined could hold and you no longer need special permission or qualifications to review it. If you didn’t understand something technical, you could find people from around the world to explain it to you, all without leaving your house. Granted, in the beginning we needed specialist search engines based on subject matters. Then came search engine consolidators, the likes of Copernic etc. that would provide you with search results from all subjects, these were only relatively recently replaced by Google and Bing. People were no longer the single source of the truth. Children didn’t need to ask their parents the questions they didn’t know the answer to; instead of looking it up in the dictionary or, for the well-to-do family, an encyclopaedia set (hopefully current), they could now learn the facts by looking online and comparing recent information from around the world. Dr Google has become the de facto consultant, teaching us what to do and expect when we have an ailment or medical concern.
Recently I was lucky enough to attend an evening conference hosted by Fujitsu where one of the speakers, Dr Graeme Codrington, touched on many valuable points. The one that continued to stick with me was when he discussed the concept of the “Digital Natives”, those young workers born post PC era and grew up with the internet at their disposal. They are the current new recruits into your business and were born after 1990. He went on to discuss the children growing up today, who think they have a magic finger that can change the colours on their digital colouring books by the time they are two.
One of the main points to take away was would these people be happy working in your company today? And I wonder, when your business processes and technologies aren’t intertwined, new technologies are controlled and restricted, departments operate in silos and people aren’t rewarded for sharing (in the old fashioned direct way or via social media) or simply asking why something is done, why would they be?
I don’t think that mainstream businesses have fully grasped this paradigm shift. They are still working and competing in a pre-digitisation mind-set. One question I had when listening to Dr Codrington was, how corporate businesses in their current structure will be able to compete in the future markets when the only thing preventing someone from building something and providing it to the world is their imagination. Today’s youth, or young adults have a monumental advantage over their older generation, they naturally assume that they will use technology. They have the entire world’s knowledge at their fingertips and they aren’t afraid of using it. Today, you can design a product and share your ideas online through social media with millions of people without even building it. You can find experts to donate their time and help improve your design, then at the push of a button, PRINT a fully working item on a 3D printer at home or half way around the world, for someone you have never met. What shocks me is that the pre-digital natives still think they should delay getting their child a tablet PC? Why restrict a child’s ability to develop, question and learn?
What business can compete with the level of creativity and innovation available to the general public today? Even if a company listens to their customers and adapts accordingly, are they agile and mouldable enough to completely change direction at the whim of a simple idea? Are leaders listening intently enough to the observations made by the recent Digital Natives joining the corporate environment… our future leaders? As current leaders, how do we ensure these potential trail blazers directly influence the day to day processes and equally or maybe more importantly, those strategic visions of the future before we stifle their creativity and force them to accept the status quo?
I am so grateful that society hasn’t completely shut out the dreamers and the imaginative, I can’t wait to see what future this new innovation brings.
Through Willard Enterprises, I specialise in helping businesses achieve successful lasting change through IT transformation, process improvement, smart sourcing and IT programme transparency. As always, if there is something I can do to help your business or someone you know deliver their next challenge, please contact me for more information.