Ypulse Interview: Don Tapscott, Author, 'Grown Up Digital' And Chairman, nGenera Insight
Posted by meredith on 02-11-2009
Today's Ypulse Interview is with Don Tapscott, one of the world's leading authorities in business strategy and author of Grown Up Digital, an in-depth exploration of the Net Generation and their effect on social institutions. We were lucky enough to land Don as the keynote speaker for our national Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup Event in June and after this sneak preview, I think attendees will feel the same way. Register today and qualify for Early Adopter Rates!
Ypulse: What are the biggest changes you've observed between your first book on this topic, Growing Up Digital and the follow up Grown Up Digital?
Don Tapscott: The biggest change is in the internet itself. When Growing Up Digital was published the net was in its infancy. It was based on html, and was a platform for the presentation of content. Back then people talked about eyeballs, clicks and "stickiness" of web sites. Now the internet is based on XML, a platform for collaboration. It's broadband and rich with services. When I wrote the first book there was no YouTube, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. There wasn't even blogging. But I could see in the way young people were using the net to communicate –rather than just access website– that the future of the internet was about communication and collaboration.
YP: What institutional changes do you think we'll see with the Net Generation's president in office?
DT: What I hope we'll see is not just a change in elections, but a transformation in the democratic process. Until now, voters only mattered on election day. Between elections, the lawmakers and influencers were in charge, and the citizenry was inert.
What the system has lacked until now are mechanisms enabling the government on an ongoing basis to benefit from the wisdom and insight that a nation can collectively offer. I'm not proposing some kind of direct democracy where citizens can vote every night on the evening news or web sites. That would be tantamount to a digital mob.
Instead, courtesy of the internet, public officials can now solicit citizen input at almost no cost, by providing web-based information, online discussion and feebdback mechanisms… President Obama says he will encourage ongoing citizen input through his "organizing for America," which is just beginning to take shape. The potential for this initiative is incredible.
YP: What are common mistakes marketers and companies make when attempting to communicate with the Net Generation?
DT: Marketers continue to think in the old paradigm of marketing, believing that they control the message and their brand. They think they should focus on customers rather than what they should really be doing: engaging and co-innovating with them. They are still trying to see products rather than customer experiences. They continue to spend the vast majority of their advertising dollars on traditional media rather than the media their young customers actually use and are influenced by. Young people today have what I call n-fluence networks. These are their classmates, friends and co-workers they they have an ongoing discussion with on sites such as Facebook. When I was a teenager I could influence a half-dozen or so of my friends. Today, an individual young person can influence hundreds of Facebook contacts. Companies have to understand these ongoing networks of influence and become part of the process.
YP: Have you seen a working environment in the corporate realm that really gets it? Which one and how?
DT: I would say the best example is Best Buy, the CEO, Brad Anderson says that the most important people in the company are the tens of thousands of young people in blue shirts that work in the stores. Anderson says "the blue shirts are closest to our customers, are most like our customers, and their culture is the culture of 21st century Best Buy." Anderson says that his job is not to make decisions, but rater to create the conditions in which his blue shirt people can self-organize and help re-invent the company. He says that between him and the blue shirts are layers of middle management that have the effect trying to prevent him from making it happen. Anderson says he is in the business of "unleashing the power of net generation human capital."
Blue Shirt Nation is the online social network of 25,000 Best Buy employees that gather around the cyber water cooler. Every time I visit Best Buy HQ there are several new powerful internet-enabled initiatives to build communities and generate value. In the future Best Buy won't just be an electronics retailer. It will be a company that enables people to self-organize and co-innovate value.
YP: What will Mashup attendees learn from your keynote?
DT: Why a volume purchase of Grown Up Digital makes sense. LOL.
More about Don: Don is chairman of nGenera Insight, an Austin, Texas-based technology company that serves Global 2000 customers. Don also is an adjunct professor at the J.L. Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto. He is the author or co-author of 13 widely read books, including Wikinomics, which was the best selling management book in the United States in 2007 and is translated into 22 languages. His most recent book, Grown Up Digital, explores how the current Internet generation is changing the world — and all of its institutions.
Categorized under: 2009 Mashup
