Thursday, June 25, 2009

Are we that different?

Read column by Joakim de Leeuw - innovation manager at SEB in Sweden.

Reflections:

Digital natives and digital immigrants are said to be virtually different races. As a rapidly growing proportion of customers and employees are born into the digital world it is important to understand the possibly even fundamental difference.

How different are we? 

It is true that us immigrants have a need for metaphoras to make the digital world more tangible. We store documents in files in digital cupboards. If the document is needed in several places we copy it and store in several files. This does not make sense according to the natives - the information is all over the place - just tag it and search!

Another metaphor is the e-mail - a lettermetaphor for communicating. This does not make sense according to the natives - do not send - publish instead!

There are many more - but this is not new of course - the first car was called a horseless waggon, e-banks were designed as bank branches etc. And maybe it is just the necessary way to make the immigrants move on.

May be we are that different - and it is not a question of technology - but of culture..

2 comments:

Unknown said...

“Anything that is in the world when you were born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural way the world works”

“Anything that is invented between the time you are 15 to 35 is new, and exciting, and you can possibly get a career in it”

“Anything invented after you are 35 is against the natural order of things”

Douglas Adams

BoHarald said...

Well put indeed

http://www.meebo.com/rooms