the tudors-generique

Yes i was under this mistaken iirpessmon as well. So imagine my head scratching when as an Associate Professor at the Masters of Digital Media program (an elite cross over creative and technical program targeted at this new generation) this theory was proved not wrong. This is an extra effort on my part beyond my role in IBM powering Social Media Adoption and the elective I’m offering is called Social Media Foundations – Applications of social media for learning and work and it has been very well received so far. In the very first class I realized (to my complete surprise) that my expectations of our small sampling of the rising connected youth culture knew very little about emerging social technologies or why they matter.I asked two questions at the end of our first three hour overview of the state of social media in learning and work. These questions were:1)I assume that all of you live and work with social media everyday, is this true? (The unanimous answer NO!)2)Have any of you considered the role of social media in the workplace, for learning or business? Near unanimous NO! (Students will have seen social tools used in various marketing programs and realize business is using social media for their work, but they don’t exactly understand how or why).We assume that our youth are almost naturally social media aware, that they get' social media because they are active new media participants and that they can easily adapt to this medium as a common communications channel. We also assume (regardless of age, background or expertise) that people who use social media in their everyday lives, understand the business value/opportunity in leveraging social media. My own hands-on evidence suggests that both of these assumptions are critical misunderstandings of new media and business today. Though there is seemingly no limit to the energy with which the new generation is seizing the opportunity to leverage new media, they still need guidance as to how and why this new enabler can shape their work in the enterprise. The good news here is that we are helping as many people can to catch up and I still hold out great hope for the potential changes ahead lead by the surge in youthful connectedness in the enterprise.