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IT for Gen Y: Social Media and the Net Generation

2 Posts tagged with the definitions tag
Anirban Dutta

- by Anirban Dutta, Web Producer

Tidal wave?

The concept that has sent a Wave of excitement through the tech and non tech community alike comes from the innovative giant on the web – Google.

They’ve named it Google Wave.

Google Wave logo.

Founders of the Google wave are Lars Rasmussen, Jens Rasmussen (brothers) and Stephanie Hannon - the same team that came up with the Google Maps application.

 

As Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Wave highlights, email was created some 40 years ago, before the creation of the Internet its self and it was done without the experience and knowledge we now have of things such as wikis, social networks, sms, instant messaging and so on. He introduces the Wave as “Google Wave is what email would look like if it was created today”. He says as opposed to emails which try to instantiate a point to point conversation, the Google Wave is "one metaphor for hosted conversations" object hosted on a server somewhere.

 

The Wave concept typifies an utopian Web 3.0 world where we have all the caliber of Web 2.0 ie emails, IMs, wikis, blogs, bulletin boards, Social networking, sharing and collaboration merged with a much more real time focus; so we have all of the cool stuff happening in a single browser session in a single pane with more enhanced features like we never imagined!

 

So how does this Sci-Fi set look?

Google_Wave_snapshots_inbox.png

 

Features like real time translation in 40 languages, contextual spell check, grammar checking and all in one drag drop file sharing, document creation, sharing and editing, starting forums. It certainly packs the thrills of a Spielberg flick!

 

Plus a very cool feature is its Playback option which lets you refer back to a conversation trail and see which participant added what and at which time and locate the origin of the Wave - each conversation is a wave.

 

Open Source and the Wave

Google shared its baby with the world at Google's Developer Preview forum Google I/O May 2009

Watch the launch video

Google has actually invited the developer community to participate in the Google Wave program by throwing open a forum to contribute to its features. Majority of the Wave's code is open source and the developers would be given accounts in a sandbox within Google's system  to start developing add on features and extensions to coincide with the launch. This is way too cool.

There is also a feedback capturing mechanism if you wish to be updated on whats going on - Fill up the form

I think I can definitely suggest some cool aliens in this movie on the semi technical side straight to the directorial suit.

 

The Wave is a platform in iself and it supports robots to automate tasks and functions, embed Waves into external blogs and web sites, “talk” to popular web services such as Twitter collaborate across different platforms, merge other Google tools and gadgets in short Google calls it a "Game changer".

I enhanced my open source knowledge from whurley's podcasts.

 

I'm not walking the technical line on this red hot topic - there's enough out there on the internet, a particularly good read is the Google Wave guide.

 

Concerns, resistance to change?

Does this mean the end of the world of CCing and BCCing and SMTP mails and the very recent blogging? How would it impact my business/ Do I have to resort to cloud computing? Would the corporate world accept the wave? Would the concept be scalable enough? These are some of the initial questions that make the tag cloud of this mega project but coming from an organization like Google I have full faith on their to realizing abilities.

 

My part of the shock was when I realized the concept of the Google Wave was so massive and yet so simple that Social Media would be turned into a subset of this giant - where I always thought Social networking encompasses all - I feel this Tide has a magnitude of possibly redefining Tim Berners Lee's www into World Wide Wave.

 

Cant wait for the tide to come sweep us over!

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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0 Comments Permalink Tags: bmc, corporate, gen_y, social_media, api, web_2.0, open_source, collaborationdeveloper_community, dell, blogging, bmc_communities, chat, culture, generation, twitter, google_wave, developers, blog, facebook, web_3.0, www, communication, developer_network, google, definitions
Alena Hitzemann

 

- by Alena Hitzemann, Associate Web Editor

 

A few months ago, when Anirban and I were batting around the idea of a joint blog about being young professionals in IT, I came up with the name “IT for Gen Y: Social Media and the Net Generation.” I was pretty darn proud of it. I’ve never been good with titles and it seemed like one of my better efforts. I was *pretty sure* that we both fell under the “Gen Y” and “Net Generation” umbrellas, we work for an IT organization and we’re interested in how social media fits into the IT world. Check, check, double check.

 

When I sat down to write this morning, I realized that I wasn't entirely sure what “Gen Y” and “Net Generation” actually meant. Hmm. Somehow it seems like understanding the implicit themes of a blog, particularly my own, may engender its success.

 

So I looked it up. According to Wikipedia:

Generation Y, also known as The Millennial Generation, is a term used to describe the demographic cohort following Generation X. Its members are often referred to as "Millennials"[1] or "Echo Boomers"[2]) . There are no precise dates for when Gen Y begins and ends. Most commentators use dates from mid 1980s to early 1990s. Members of Generation Y are primarily the offspring of Generation Jones and the Baby Boom Generation.


 

Wait a second. Mid 1980s? That’s a little late- I’m not that young. This definition puts me in the same bucket as kids still in high school… I can’t be accountable for their actions! No wonder a Google search for “Gen Y” features such laudatory terms as “self-absorbed,” “brash,” “slackers, whiners and praise-junkies.” Kids these days!

 

So I looked up “Net Generation.” This time the definition came from the Boston Globe, and puts the timespan from 1974-1983:

The Net Generation -- for whom social networking via the Internet is a birthright -- are probably too young to characterize adequately. They were in their teens and 20s in the Nineties (1994-2003; not to be confused with the '90s); and they are in their 20s and 30s now, in the Oughts (2004-2013; not to be confused with the '00s).


Not to be confused with the so-called Generation Y or Millennials (pop demography terms that refer to Americans born between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s), Netters aren't the parent-loving, resume-padding, squeaky-clean paragons of virtue we've heard their parents praise to the skies. Like OGXers, who were lumped in with Boomers but never felt part of that generation, Netters are a lost generation; older Netters have been lumped in with PCers (who, to make matters worse, were mistakenly called Xers), and younger Netters have been lumped in with Millennials. This trend stops here!



 

Ok, wow. First of all, that’s a lot of generation-jibber-jabber (check out the whole article- it’s intense.) But I do feel vindicated. It makes sense to me that my peers and I fall into a no-man’s-land between the famous Gen X and this newly-defined Gen Y. We understand angst and irony, but we grew up in the ‘90s when things were rosy. We were adults for 9/11, but we’re still idealistic. And from the same article, most applicable to the world of IT:

… it almost goes without saying that Netters take listservs, email and instant messaging, Google and Wikipedia, MySpace and Facebook, YouTube and Flickr for granted. Netters also don't remember life before fast computers and Internet service; they are a wired generation, sometimes accused of addiction to instant gratification. They don't read print newspapers, buy CDs, or rent DVDs, and their collective grasp of the concepts of copyright and intellectual property is shaky, at best.

 

There you have it. The definition I was waiting for. The one that ties together the times in which we grew up with their technological implications. Although I will take issue with the claim that we “don’t remember life before fast computers and internet service.” I certainly do, and I think that’s a key factor in differentiating us from Gen Y: we know what it was like Before.

 

So what does “IT for Gen Y: Social Media and the Net Generation” really mean? I think it’s less about the year we were born and more about where the wired mentality meets traditional business. It’s that intersection that largely defines my job and my interests, and it's that realm that I hope to explore.

 

The postings in this blog are my own and don't necessarily represent BMC's opinion or position.
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2 Comments Permalink Tags: boston_globe, net_generation, gen_y, it_for_gen_y, social_media, definitions

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