The NBA Report

Digital Natives Are Here

Is your company blocking access to YouTube? Can no one get on Facebook or check out MySpace? Is your IT department still trying to sell your senior management on the absurd notion that allowing people to access websites that have Flash animation on them could cause some kind of security breach, or worse, cripple your entire technological infrastructure with a deadly computer virus?

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We made it through the Y2K scare, but something bigger is brewing in your business and it has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with your human capital. Your ability to grow your business efficiently moving forward is at stake, but this time it’s about your people and not your choice of software.

You know your business is going to be challenged over the next little while with trying to figure out how to bootstrap your way through the economic downturn and the recession (it is a recession, isn’t it?). But there might be something even more challenging happening within your organization right now.

How many employees do you have that are digital natives?

A digital native is essentially anyone who was born and raised in a household where there was always a computer. We’re talking about your new employees who have never known a world without a mouse and a keyboard.

Some of them have not only always had a computer in their life, but they’ve also been online since they were infants. Being connected, chatting through Instant Messenger, sharing files through Google Docs, working collaboratively on a wiki (a Web page that anyone can edit), creating and uploading their own video shows, posting their thoughts to Twitter or updating their Facebook status is all a large part of their daily lives. Much in the same way you pick up the phone to call your spouse or go to the bathroom.

Most of us older folks are digital immigrants (anyone over 30 is, pretty much, a digital immigrant - someone who grew up without digital technology and adopted it later). I love this example from Wikipedia: “A digital native might refer to their new ‘camera’; a digital immigrant might refer to their new ‘digital camera.’ “

How old do you feel now?

Clay Shirky (educator, technologist and author of the amazing book, Here Comes Everybody) sums it up best: “To a 4-year-old, a screen that ships without a mouse ships broken.”

Their perspective is very different from ours. We’re doing our best to recruit, retain and engage this workforce and we’re mistaking their multi-platforming (you know, the types of people who watch television with a laptop on their laps - and seven different windows open - while they’re listening to their iPod and texting on their BlackBerry) for time-wasting and lack of focus.

If your company is blocking channels like YouTube and Facebook, it is missing the point. It is missing an opportunity to enable and empower its people to connect.

The same tactic of blocking is used when any new technology comes into the workplace and causes a level of disruption. First off, that’s what great technology does - it disrupts. When phones were first introduced many companies saw no reason why employees should have access to one. The same was true for faxes, computers, email, etc. You would think that we would have learned our lesson by now.

Being connected is not only a part of who they are, it is what they are. Their digital footprints are their personality and not giving them access to these tools, channels and media would be the equivalent of someone telling you that you can’t use the phone or talk to your peers during office hours. The people who are going to abuse their access to Facebook and YouTube are the same ones who would take an extra hour for lunch or not come into work because they are, “cough, cough,” sick.

Any great business knows that to get the best talent, you need to be a great place to work. Taking away communications and marketing channels is not going attract the best and brightest. Digital natives have an expectation that work is going to be like school where they are constantly connected, collaborating, researching, sharing, having fun (gasp!) and growing beyond the confines of your four physical walls.

“We believe human contact is what makes companies successful,” said Bernardo Huberman with t

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