In an earlier post on Corporate Transparency, I talked about 3 drivers of the push for transparency.  The first I highlighted was "Gen Y" (there is debate about the naming…but generally it is those born from 1981-1999).  In a later post I talked about Gen Y, Social Media and the workforce of the future and how this generation’s work style will alter the face of the workforce as evidenced by a number of reported examples.  At one point, I questioned whether I, at 37 and part of Gen X, was more rapidly becoming a dinosaur than those that proceeded me and that the burden is really on me as a leader to understand and embrace this emerging work style rather than hopelessly try to "covert" it to "old school."

One of my readers forwarded to me an interview in cnet with Cal State psychology professor Larry Rosen called:  Net Generation comes of age.  I thought it a very worthwhile and supporting bit of evidence of some of the same points regarding this emerging generation entering the workforce.  I’ll let you read the interview for Larry’s insights, but I particularly appreciated his input to these questions:

Will they (net gen) take those experiences to the "real world" and use them?

Baby boomers seem to have problems managing the Net generation, but they were in fact the ones who brought them up. How does that connect?

How do you keep the Net generation youngsters in a company?

Are companies aware of the needs of the Net generation?

How can employers benefit from different generations?

Larry is working on a book called "Me, MySpace and I" - I look forward to reading it.

Sean

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In Corporate Transparency I blogged about how Gen Y will change the workplace and how the defacto web 2.0 workstyle of this emerging demographic will change the workforce.

In Exploring Communities and Corporate HR I discussed the disconnect between traditional, largely internally focused, HR processes for talent management and organizational design and the emerging workforce that is anything by hierarchical by design.

Today, in the Seattle Times, I came across the following article:  Generation Y plays games on the job.  It makes for an interesting followup to these earlier posts, describing how a number of companies are using new media by design:

• Cold Stone Creamery using game simulators to deliver in-store training for new hires.
• Nike’s "Sports Knowledge Underground" interactive program for teaching basic sales skills and product information - with a version coming for delivery on PDAs, IPods, and cellphones.
• Cisco’s use of gaming to enhance math skills to support their networking business objectives
• E&Y using video blogging to provide an "intern’s eye view" to perspective recruits

All of these examples really just focused on what I would call employee acquisition and readiness, but good evidence of the trend to come.

Seen any other good examples worth sharing?

Sean

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