Talking Talent

Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future, released earlier this year, suggests that the Google Generation is a myth.

In particular, it found that academics and researchers are “power-browsing” or skimming material, and using “horizontal” (shallow) research. Most spent only a few minutes looking at academic journal articles and few returned to them. “It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense,” said the report authors.

And this behaviour was not restricted to ‘screenagers’.

“From undergraduates to professors, people exhibit a strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, flicking behaviour in digital libraries. Factors specific to the individual, personality and background are much more significant than generation.”

This is an interesting take on the ‘digital native’ concept, and suggests that today’s youth are not the only generation with a national facility for navigating digital information.

As digital media researcher Margaret Weigel says: “being a media studies person and a lover of history, you learn that over time, modalities change, but human capacities rarely do.”

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The Australian Government has posted new information on skills in Australia’s ICT industry.  Aside from a list of skills in demand (if you’re skilled with CISSP, Java or SIEBEL, for example, then the world’s your oyster!) there’s also some fascinating insights into the future employment prospects in the industry. 

In May 2008 there were 176,200 “Computing Professionals” and 42,600 “IT Managers” in Australia – a total of 218,800 ICT professionals.  Within five years, the ABS is predicting we’ll need 32,700 extra computing professionals (a growth of 3.3% per annum) and another 10,300 IT managers (4.4 % growth per annum).  So if you’re looking for a career change, then look no further than ICT!

Is the next Galileo sitting at home wasting his potential watching DVDs of Star Wars instead of watching the stars themselves?  Is the next Shakespeare tapping out love texts on her mobile phone instead of writing the next Romeo and Juliet?

Luddites and techno-phobes complain that digital technologies are stifling creativity and creating a generation of unmotivated couch potatoes.

Technology has undoubtedly made life much easier for so many - but that doesn’t mean we’ve become lazy.  Instead, technology has further enabled us to expand our infinite creative potential.

The Internet has given people a means to break down barriers that once muffled the flow of information and collaboration.  With people from across the globe now able to access seemingly infinite amounts of information and to be able to collaborate and share ideas, we are entering an exciting new era.

With blogs and wikis, everyone can communicate.  With RSS feeds, everyone can read about it.  MySpace, Ning, Bebo and FaceBook help us to connect with the world. Flickr helps to sort, store and share your snaps, while YouTube let’s you show off your movie making talents.  Tagging sites like Del.ici.ous enable us to share our favourite webpages.  Gliffy provides the tools to draw and share diagrams, Googledocs eliminates the challenges of document version control, while Slideshare hosts and shares presentations.  The list is endless.

And despite what the naysayers say, Internet technologies are not making us lazier, but instead have the capacity to deliver sharp upswings in productivity.

While MySpace might seem like fun and fluff, social networks, teleconferencing, wikis and other technologies that allow interaction on a large scale are changing traditional business models and improving productivity.

Cisco Systems’ Chairman, John Chambers, recently suggested that businesses that embrace collaborative communications models, such as social networking, into their processes could see a return to 3 to 5 percent annual improvements in worker productivity.

By allowing people both in and outside of companies to connect with each other, and share information over the network, the pace of business operations will escalate.  The power of connecting will enable us to do things at a dramatically different speed.

So, in the words of science fiction writer, Robert A Heinlein, “progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.”

What do teens want? Tech, tech and moretech, according to the What Teens Want conference held in Manhattan last month.

Technology is starting to define what’s cool in a way that fashion used to define what’s cool, reports Melbourne’s The Age. For teens, as long as it’s technology, it’s what’s hot.

The article also points to an online survey which revealed that 93 per cent of teens prefer the internet to television.  New York high school senior Jonathan Molyneaux says: “You can watch TV shows on the internet, so what’s the point?”  He says he’s cut virtually all conventional TV viewing and has email forwarded to his mobile phone, which he dubs “my life”.

Ms Wells’ research also found 57 percent of teens prefer Facebook over MySpace, 71 per cent choose text messages over instant messaging and 65 per cent would rather use a Mac computer instead of a PC. That’s a sign of brand strength, since far fewer teens own a Mac.

There is no doubt we have a digital divide in Australia.

While the number of Australians connected to the Internet grows each year and costs fall, the gap between the information-rich and information-poor is still palpable.

Those on higher incomes are leaving lower income earners behind.  Those in the city have almost unlimited access to information and the capacity to be plugged in to a global economy, while country people still suffer from the tyranny of distance.  Single parents, unemployed people and older Australians are also missing out.

And in today’s wired world information is power and this digital divide can mean a dramatic inequality of opportunity.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Use of Information Technology (2005-06)  reveals that while the number of households with broadband Internet connection almost doubled (to 2.3 million households), and while the number of Australian households without access to home Internet has decreased by 20 per cent (from 2002 to 3.2 million households in 2005-2006), that’s still millions of households without home access to the Internet!

Tellingly, the ABS’ 2006 Children’s Participation in Cultural and Leisure Activities survey indicated that of the 2.7 million children aged 5 to 14 years, 92 per cent used a computer and 65 per cent used the Internet at any site.

What about the other 35 per cent of children who don’t have regular access to the Internet?  Or the 8 per cent of children who aren’t using computers at all?

Those on the wrong side of this digital divide face being marginalised as the ‘net becomes an increasingly dominant feature of economic and personal life.  And for young people, this means more than being able to access MySpace and YouTube.

In the job market, for instance, the best opportunities can increasingly be found on the Web rather than via traditional sources.  As more and more companies, government services and community groups deliver their services via the Web, these disadvantages will intensify.

Broadband is a national priority - but more than that, we need to ensure that all Australians are connected to the information superhighway in the first place.

What sort of workforce will Australia need in the future?

Some issues I see on the horizon include the retirement of baby boomers and the potential clash between ‘digital natives’ (the current generation of teenagers often called Y Genners, that has grown up immersed in technology) and ‘digital immigrants’ (most of the current workers - Baby Boomers and early X Genners) who are adapting to new technologies but whose pivotal education and development has not been heavily influenced by technology.

Y Generation workers’ continuous exposure to technology will make them more impatient ‘job hoppers’, and the compensation is that they are likely to be more creative than their predecessors.

This will have interesting implications for the public sector, where, in most cases, technological change will continue to occur more slowly than in the private sector because of more regulatory constraints and greater risk aversion.

I think that the traditionally long tenures of civil servants will keep shrinking, which means that government agencies will need to come to terms with a more ‘volatile’ workforce. Although external service providers can help, government agencies will need to retain critical skills in-house, and the faster employee turnover among suppliers will not make things any easier.

And of course this technology literate group will be in management positions (at the middle and top levels) by 2020, and not just in IT departments (or whichever areas will manage IT by then).

However, will government be able to retain the most talented people, or will these individuals be so disappointed by the earlier part of their careers marked by low-tech environments and a lack of flexibility to abandon government and leave the public sector with a much greater skill shortage challenge than it faces today?

Moreover, will this force government to outsource critical processes to a much greater degree than we can envisage today?

Technological innovations are closing the gap between physical limitations and productivity and a significant, untapped workforce is looking for job opportunities.

There are many wonderful assistive-technologies now available that ease access and increase productivity.  From video-descriptions to screen readers, technology is encouraging people with disabilities into the workforce and integrating them further into society.

Accessibility experts and executives from corporations such as IBM, Yahoo, Internet Speech, Deque Systems and e-ISOTIS are already telling us about new products such as the latest and greatest speech recognition software, assisted-listening devices, real-time translators, keyboard filters and alternative input devices which enable individuals to operate computers without using standard keyboards or mouses.

These tools, which are designed to enable employees with disabilities to overcome barriers in the workplace, can help those with hearing, speech, vision and mobility impairments.  Coupled with this, mainstream technology, such as word processing software and operating systems, also have features that can benefit people with disabilities.

And of course, the more companies move toward the paperless office, the more it opens the workplace up to people with mobility impairments.

One of the greatest perceived barriers to implementing assistive technology is cost. But a study by the US’ Job Accommodation Network (JAN) has revealed that 15 percent of assistive accommodations cost nothing, 51 percent cost between $1 and $500, 12 percent cost between $501 and $1,000, and 22 percent cost more than $1,000.

The digital divide still exists between people with disabilities and those who are non-disabled, but the Web has the ability to be even more accessible than other parts of society.

Let’s work together to ensure that accessible technology continues to advance and that our workplaces are flexible and open enough to consider using the tools to harness the untapped potential of a new pool of talented workers.

I wonder if the time-honoured ‘the dog ate my homework’ excuse is finally dead and buried as a new generation of kids blame the dog for eating their iPods?

Schools and universities are already waking up to the potential of the iPod as an educational tool, podcasting lectures, making audiobooks available for students and using iPods to record music lessons, for example.

In the foreseeable future, iPods will become essential pieces of equipment in every student’s digital backpack.

Instead of being seen as disruptive devices with no place in the classroom, iPods can be exciting educational and training tools.

In the future, the MP3 player will probably look more like a memory stick with a roll out screen, and have enough memory to carry not only a student’s lifetime of notes, but rich media references, assignments, presentations and portfolios – not to mention a vast personal library of songs, audiobooks, photos and movies.

iPods are emerging as a popular device at universities across the globe as lecturers realise their messages can reach the masses of students who skip classes, and students realise they can use what used to be ‘dead time’ (such as sitting on a bus) more productively.

And iPod learning need not be confined to traditional educational institutions.  Baby Boomers are downloading language lessons to brush up on their French and Italian before taking their grand tours through Europe, for example.

There is huge potential for students and educators alike if educational organisations harness this emerging technology.  Today’s students are already ‘digital natives’ and we must find ways to engage students in learning, ensure that their educational experiences are relevant to Australia’s prevailing knowledge economy and to their lives outside the classroom.