Generation Firewall: Local authorities resistance to social media in the workplace

In my research, I talk to local authorities, asking them what are their main hurdles in engagement with citizens online. And one of the most common answer I get from young local council staff is the resistance of local authorities to adapt to the new ways of connecting with citizens through social media. And this is what Don Tapscott calls ‘Generation Firewall’. Local councils are blocking access to social media such as Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter and other social networks. I found this clip of Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World that addresses the issues related to ‘Generation Firewall’.

Don Tapscott conducted a $4 million research project “The Net Generation: a Strategic Investigation” interviewing 5,935 Net Geners aged 16 to 29 in 12 countries (the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China, Japan, and India).  In addition, a benchmark sample of Gen Xers, aged 30 to 41, and baby boomers, ages 42 to 61, was gathered in the US and Canada. The total interviewed in the end was 9,442 people.

Don Tapscott asked in his research:-

What are you doing online?

Are you working, learning, collaborating or having fun?

Young people answer – I can’t answer that – because they’re all the same activity.

Other interesting quotes from video:-

Young people say they’re all the same. They work, learn, collaborate and have fun all at the same time.

The new generation wants speed and customize, scrutinize and knowledge sharing everything, that is bringing transparency into the workforce.

Work and learning is the New business model /New enterprise is collaborative.

We fear what we don’t understand.

They’re/young people are coming into the workforce with a new model on how work should be done.

Young people come into the workforce with better tools at their finger tips and the IT department consider this to be disruptive.

Why don’t we work like this, why don’t we have networked collaborative models where each of us have our own area of authority and where we work together in multidisciplinary teams as opposed to traditional hierarchy

This is a new paradigm, in what is work and how work gets performed.

A new paradigm cause disruption, confusion and their nearly always received with resistance or coldness and even worst mockery and hostility, invested interests fighting against change.