Real Time Generation

View Comments and Questions (3)

What's Your Question � Ask Our Experts..

Chris Gabriel answers the questions on the Realtime Generation:

1) What is the Realtime Generation?

The Realtime Generation is the UK's next generation of students, workers and parents. Currently aged between 13 and 17, this group will play a fundamental role in determining how the UK is able to compete in an era of knowledge-based competitive globalisation. That's why Logicalis recently commissioned an online survey of 609 UK residents aged between 13 and 17 years old, questioning their attitudes to new forms of communications, their willingness to express themselves and collaborate, their expectations of how they will experience higher education and the workplace, and most importantly, their expectations of how and where they will work.

2) And what did you find out about their skills and attributes?

We found that members of the UK Realtime Generation are natural knowledge workers, connected, collaborative and expressive individuals, whose use of personal knowledge worker tools and technology exceeds even that of their US counterparts. They are social beings, too, with a wide network of contacts, many of whom they have only ever met online, with which they communicate naturally using text, voice and video. They are natural self-publishers and natural consumers of all forms of new media content, curious to read other peoples views and willing to share their own with the wider world. They are mobile and global in their outlook, with three-quarters expecting to take their talents outside of the UK at some time during their career. And they are already considering the balance between their families, lifestyle and future work styles.

3) How will the Real-Time Generation shape the UK economy in the next few years?

The results of our survey provide a stark choice for UK government, education and business leaders: we must provide this generation with the tools to allow them to bring their natural ability to communicate, collaborate and express themselves into education and the workplace, or risk losing this talent to our economic competitors. This new generation's ability to adapt to and embrace social, economic and employment changes will define UK Plc's economic success in the next 20 years. They may not realise that their innate ability to collaborate and innovate, express themselves and their ideas, and readily explore the thoughts and views of others are critical tenets of a knowledge economy. However government, education and business leaders must, and must invest accordingly, or we risk alienating a whole generation and losing our national competitive advantage.

4) How should companies be preparing for the impact that the Real-Time Generation will have on the world of work?

UK businesses leaders must be prepared to inspire the willingness of the UK Realtime Generation to communicate and share ideas and thoughts, and to reward positive collaborative behaviour that will position UK plc as a leading knowledge economy. Simply, businesses must value both the individual excellence of employees, but also collective innovation and problem solving. Moving away from a culture of personal reward for personal knowledge is essential to compete in an innovation-led knowledge economy, but the process of change must be a strategic management imperative, rather than being left to individual responsibility.

For these reasons, UK business leaders must be prepared to invest in leading-edge technologies and better manage the introduction of ‘consumer' orientated technologies into the workplace. Above all, they must embrace new methods of collaborative and flexible working to ensure a supply of new top human talent for their workforce. Our survey gives notice to UK Plc of what the next generation expects, the question is, can we in government, higher education and business deliver?

For more details of the survey results, contact The It Sanctuary solution experts or please visit:

http://www.uk.logicalis.com/executivesummaries/

Your Comments and Questions

chris gabriel, about 1 year ago

Gary, apologies for the delay but I have been on my holidays. I have just written a blog entry on this, and I agree, freedom of expression is one persons view of innovation and another's view of corporate governance hell. I think the key is to get in on these technologies early and start making the mistakes now. Waiting for this new generation to hit the workforce willing and wanting to use these WEB2.0 / consumer technologies is just going to make people rush to adopt, and that always causes problems. Those that dip their toes in the water now in terms of technology will be those best placed when corporate culture catches up, or has to catch up.

Edward Charvet, about 1 year ago

In our experience it is the technology sector that is leading by example. You only have to look at IBM and Sun to see two organisations that encourage blogging as a business enabler.

Gary Edwards, about 1 year ago

I worry that most employers are a long way behind the philosophy of this 'real-time' generation. For example, employee blogs are heavily censored or prevented altogether, and this 'freedom of expression is something that many companies rally against. Have you seen much evidence to suggest otherwise, and what advice would you give to organisations that are wary of these more 'open' forms of communication?