The Net Generation

Don Tapscott is entertaining to watch.  He always is pitching his latest book.  An eternal salesperson.  Today it was Grown Up Digital.  Don is calling the Net Generation the generation of kids after Gen X.  These kids have grown up with the internet, Facebook, and Twitter.  Now that 80 million of them are coming into the workforce, they will have the power to change business and our way of life.

This will affect companies and governments in significant ways.  I was inspired to write about change in the healthcare industry.

More from Don's book.  In 1983, only 7% of households owned computers.  By 2004, the number had grown to 44% and a whopping 60% of those households had children.  Now 100% of American schools provide internet access.  75% of teenagers between 12 and 17 years old have mobile phones.

Technology is like the air for Net Gen children.  Technology has fostered a new way of communicating, accessing information, and entertaining oneself.  They are not obsessed with technology and in fact use it as we would use the tv.  It's just where you go for news and entertainment, except the internet is where they go for interactive fun, friends, and communication.

So where does this leave business intelligence?

Well, Net Gen kids have had to search for, rather than simply look at, information.  This forces them to develop thinking and investigative skills.  Unfortunately the tools they use are nothing like pivot tables, analytical cubes, reports, forecasting models, or statistical tools.  Their tools are collaborative.  The internet and its global reach is unique.  And the world is enabling global communication.

Maybe you will say BI 2.0 is the answer.  Although I'm not sure I have seen a truely collaborative platform for corporate data.  Sure, some products allow you to tag reports and provide comments.  However true collaboration in business intelligence I have yet to see.