the onda

The Economist review on Don Tapscott's new book, "Grown Up Digital," reminded me of how lucky kids growing up in the "net generation" are today. Based on a huge survey of kids growing up today, here is his summary of this new crop just coming out of school:

Mr Tapscott identifies eight norms that define Net Geners, which he believes everyone should take on board to avoid being swept away by the sort of generational tsunami that helped Barack Obama beat John McCain. Net Geners value freedom and choice in everything they do. They love to customise and personalise. They scrutinise everything. They demand integrity and openness, including when deciding what to buy and where to work. They want entertainment and play in their work and education, as well as their social life. They love to collaborate. They expect everything to happen fast. And they expect constant innovation.

Sounds like the ideal employee to me! More significantly, as Detroit crumbles in part because of the inability of a huge workforce to retrain itself quickly enough, I'm left wondering whether this cohort just coming out of school now might be able to avoid some of the same pitfalls.

The whole concept of Tapscott's sequel reminded me of this YouTube video I came across last week on the "Networked Student:"

It's worth viewing this video and wondering whether the education our kids are getting today at school prepares them as well as the narrator of this short piece might like. My bet: for the most part, no, though scattered through all manner of schools today, we've probably got great glimmers of hope in those teachers that are looking forward and thinking about what skills might be relevant to this new generation of students.

Finally, this is where I come to my second plug for Corey Doctorow's "Little Brother" and the kids he portrays. He might not have had Tapscott in mind when he wrote the novel, but his heroes sure do possess all eight of the aforementioned qualities of a net-genner and the book is a testament to how useful these can be in a pinch.