Generational change can be jolting. For my parents, it was listening to Pink Floyd that convinced them their enjoyment of Bach and Beethoven had been displaced. For Boomers like me, it is technology that creates the same gulf from my own kids.
I struggle with all of the fancy generational definitions consulting hucksters use to talk about generational differences to their clients. Generational change is not rational. It is a poke in the eye that awakens elders to a new order.
A number of eye-opening experiences in the past several months lead me to conclude TECHNOLOGY is the new generational divide that separates Boomers from their Millennial children.
Over the past few years, if I have a problem with the projector or my computer before a presentation, I look for help from the youngest person in the room. That’s a significant change from 25 years ago when I would seek out the geekiest person in the room if my slide carousel got jammed.
My presentation ills were a leading edge indicator of the importance of technology to generational differences. Yet, two recent experiences crystallized my thinking.
The first was teaching a class on advertising at VCU. Talking about the Internet and its value as an advertising medium to college students is easy. They are able to stay up with the discussion that bounces around from FaceBook to Google to video blogs, all while they text message and instant message with their friends around the country.
The second was a client meeting.
Sit in a meeting with one of our aged 45+ Boomer clients and the same discussion that takes about 20 minutes in the college classroom can drone on for hours. The ability to transition from static media like print and broadcast to the Internet for most Boomers is ugly. It is kind of like someone trying to learn to play golf at aged 56.
Our clients are another story. They fight technology change every step of the way. They struggle to understand why their company name doesn’t show up on every Google search even though they have bid $2.00 a word. How come their website can’t look different every time someone comes to visit? Are 300 visits a day all we get? What is the problem? When I gently try to explain that the Internet is not linear and operates through connectivity and mutual interest, the discussion turns dark.
Boomer executives are threatened quickly when they try to apply 1980s communications logic to the brave new Internet world. Because they don’t intuitively understand it like their Millennial children do, they get scared and start battling with old logic that frustrates them to no end.
Did our parents struggle the same way adjusting to rock n’ roll and acid rock? Probably. While they intuitively understood classical music, the Beatles slapped them in the face and told them they were old and out of touch. Technology seems to be having the same effect. It is threatening the Boomers to the point where they are compromised—a scary thing for a generation that is convinced it will never age.
Nowadays at work I avoid technology confrontation. I no longer talk to our clients about the use of the Internet. I save that for the classroom where the instructor can be instructed. At work, I turn to the youngest employee to handle the arduous task of trying to explain how to use the Internet to any clients 45+. When it comes to Web-talk, kids carry more credibility than an aging Pink Floyd freak.