In my previous blog post on Obama I wrongly quoted the numbers of fans he had on Facebook. It was/is actually 13.4 million according to Don Tapscott who, back in September, correctly predicted Obama’s victory in an interview with Stefan Stern of the FT.

Anyone who doubts the power of such social networking sites and of the internet in general should think again. I sometimes hear people questioning whether Gen Y are that different from the rest of us. YES THEY ARE. They are wired differently because of the technological landscape that has always been a very comfortable home for them. They are natives to this world. Us Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are immigrants and always will be.

Sally

I was chatting to a client this week and we were reflecting on how amazing some of our Gen Y colleagues and friends are. We both confessed to feeling a little envious at times. A touch of the “I wish I had been that confident, capable, wordly… at their age”.

I reckon these feelings are pretty common. Here is a generation who see fewer barriers in their lives, they tend to have more confidence in themselves and what is possible and they have much broader horizons on the world because of the internet and the fact they connect so easily with people around the world. I think it is understandable if the older generation occasionally feel a little envious, jealous, resentful even.  I often hear comments like “I had to work my way up the ladder, why do they think they shouldn’t have to”, “they are far too confident - verging on the arrogant”, “they just expect things too easy”.

These views and feelings are often expressed at meetings I have with clients.  I sometimes detect a mixture of resentment and a wanting to put Gen Y in their place. Yet on the other hand there is a realisation that their talent and confidence are marvellous assets that present a huge opportunity for employers.

I think the healthy and productive attitude is to accept the negative feelings as understandable  but to move on and look at the assets that all the generations bring to the workplace. The key is for each generation understood the others more: their intentions, passions and strengths. It’s not for Gen Y to ’stay in their place’ it’s for them to challenge the status quo, come up with new ideas, question old assumptions. It’s uncomfortable for us Xers and Boomers but great leadership is about allowing and encouraging that whilst mentoring and guiding when necessary.

Note to self: remember that when next talking to amazing, accomplished and inspirational 23 year old

Sally

Having worked in the learning field in some shape or form for years, I have often been surprised and shocked at how closed many people are to learning new things.  My experience is that avid learners are few and far between. By learning I mean being prepared to have a go, fail a few times, admit you don’t know, be courageous and being honest with yourself about your levels of competence or lack of it. Small children have no problem with learning, If they did there would be plenty of teenagers crawling around the floor having not taken the risks, knocks and bumps of learning to walk - a very complex set of skills.

I don’t find such openness to learning in organisations. Nowhere near actually. I have only come across a  few executives who are excellent learners. I will never forget the comments of a former colleague in Chicago, He was a superb salesman and at the end of a sales training programme he approached me and said something like this “i have been a student of sales for years, and I learned some new ways of thinking and acting that I am going to experiment with. This course is the real deal”.  I guess I remember it because a comment like that was so unusual.

Of course there are a whole host of reasons why this might be. But the question I am getting round to is whether Gen Y are much more open to learning. I had a conversation today with my Gen Y mentor and he was relating to me some of the tough challenges he was encountering in his job. His openness to learning was so impressive. He is a super bright guy with a responsible job but he has just been promoted and has a lot to learn. I was so impressed by how willing he was to admit he didn’t know the answer, ask for help, work lots of extra hours to read books and pick colleagues brains. He told me that most of his colleagues were the same and that there was an atmosphere of excitement about learning. We had a discussion about whether he felt Gen Y are more open to learning than other generations. He thinks that they are.

I would argue that learning is a key capability for organisations if they are to adapt quickly enough to the fast changing business environment . For those who agree with that,  Gen Y presents yet another fantastic opportunity.

Sally

One of the great things about job-hunting if you are a Gen Y is that it is so easy to get the inside track on a companies that you may be thinking of working for. For us poor old Xers and Boomers it was nearly impossible to find out what it was really like in a company until we actually worked there.  Today the internet makes it easy.  Graduates only have to go onto Facebook to find out whether the truth of working somewhere matches the marketing messages they have been fed.

There are more and more websites springing up that give the inside story and where grads can ask specific questions about careers, selection methods, hours of work in particular sectors/companies and much more.  They make interesting reading and no doubt provide an invaluable service for young job hunters.

wikijob was started by two graduates of Manchester University. is a site used by students and graduates to network with peers, and exchange information about jobs, employers and interviews.

I love www.rollonfriday.com , not least of all for the gossip! It pro.vides news and views about the legal sector.

They are good reminders to companies to make sure their marketing matches reality. There is no hiding place!

Sally

How to capture and manage knowledge is something that organisations have long been struggling with. Expensive IT systems often disappoint because no matter how good the system is it will not yield any benefit if people don’t use it. A common objection to using such systems is the time it takes to enter in the data. I remember when I was at The Economist Group and we installed salesforce.com, one of the toughest challenges was finding ways to encourage busy sales people to use it.

A few years back, looking for ideas and inspiration, I visited Euan Semple who was at that time leading knowledge management for the BBC. He was doing some very inspiring and impressive work including introducing wikis and blogs. At that time use of these technologies was uncommon in business. His advice to me however was that unless you could be sure of having enough of a critical mass of people to engage with these new ways of working it was pointless. Three people in the editorial department may well be excited by this (then) newish technology but only three people in an organisation of 1000+ would do nothing to help with knowledge sharing and ‘management’. I remember leaving my meeting with Euan feeling disheartened that this exciting technology would probably stay exciting but be absolutely useless because of the difficulty in convincing people to use it.

Five or so years later I am heartened. My friend, a 26 year-old high flyer started a new job in January in a medium-sized consultancy. I saw him last week and he has already been promoted and was telling me how much difference he has been able to make already. ( I smiled at this, he is a Gen Y and making a difference if something that is very important to Gen Ys).  So I asked him to show me what he had been doing that was making such a difference. He showed me a wiki that he had designed to capture data about problems reported by customers and solutions to those problems. There was masses of content in there. "When did you introduce this?" I asked. "Two weeks ago" came the reply.  And already a huge amount of valuable data had been captured and was being used.

Let’s just have a think about this. In the space of two weeks, a new employee of less than 4 months has introduced a new system that has transformed the capture and use of valuable data. Not only that but everyone is using it and it is improving the quality of service to customers and shortening response time.   What are we to deduce from that? Well, having questioned my friend closely on this, here’s what I conclude:

1. The (Gen X and Boomer) leaders in his company are committed to promoting people on merit and supporting them to do whatever needs to be done to make a difference.
2. The interests of the customer take priority.
3. The workforce are predominantly Gen Y and therefore took no persuading to use wikis.
4. A good idea is a good idea and will be listened to irrespective of the length of service and seniority of the person who comes up with the idea.
• This company gets it. The leaders in this company clearly see Gen Y as an opportunity and not a threat. My friend had tried to introduce a wiki into his last company. He told me he gave up because he got fed-up of trying to convince his colleagues (aged 35 to 70) that it was a good idea. This talented young man eventually got fed up himself and looked for a company that would "appreciate and use his talents".

Gen Y vote with their feet. If they are not being appreciated they will leave.  Contrary to assertions that Gen Y are flighty and don’t want to stick at a job, our research shows that if they are getting what they want they will stay, and they will be loyal. My friend has every intention of staying in his company, he has had a flying start there and in a short period of time has been recognised, valued, been given the freedom to contribute and show what he can do.  Other organisations would do well to take a leaf out of this company’s book.

Sally Bibb