Couple of related posts appeared in my feed reader today.
First was from Mark Pesce who wrote about the fact that education provided in schools currently does not reflect modern communication cultures. When a kid goes to school they have to disconnect from the “hyperconnected” world.
What this means, in a practical sense, is that students have lost respect for the classroom, because it has no relevance to their lives. Yes, they will be polite – as they’re polite to their grandparents – but that is no substitute for a real working relationship. School will be endured, because parents and state mandate it. But it’s a waiting game.
This drawing parallels to how many a Gen Y approaches the modern corporation. They turn up because for many it is the only way to make money but it holds no relevance to their lives. They are generally not engaged.
The challenge for managers both today and in the future is to make the corporation relevant.
Or is it?
This brings me to the second post, from Collab@Work referencing a HBR article, which develops the notion that leaders in MMORPG games, like WOW, are the future leaders of business.
… players who lead teams in the game are learning skills that they will be able to use in business situations, when they will become leaders in the organization
The authors focus on three main components of this leadership: speed, risk-taking and temporary aspect of leadership position.
So, does it matter that the modern corporation has no relevance to the future generations because they will change the corporation to suit?
My take. It does matter, today, and only to corporations not Gen Y. It is the old story you want to attract Gen Y you need to engage them, companies that don’t will go out of business, while those that do will prosper.
The post from Collab@Work goes on to discuss leadership as temporal. Just cause you were the leader of project X does not mean you are the leader of project Y. A very interesting idea which I will explore later.
Michael Specht 
I think there’s going to be several decades of transition while Gen X will be the dominant group in the senior management positions (because they typically require several decades of experience to get into those roles) until Gen Y reaches the point of maturity where they can start really taking a foothold in corporate management … so until that happens Gen Y isn’t going to be able to strongly influence the model of management except passively through high staff turnover and lack of motivation … so that engagement needs to come from the top-down, which means Gen X peeps.
True, but there is also a fair bit of discussion that the X’s are going to miss out on things and the torch passed straight to the Y’s.
The Mark Pesce vision of the classroom is emerging in the Third World. The One Laptop Per Child project is creating and supplying laptops to to children in schools which may not even have classrooms or electricity. http://laptop.org/
A techfest will be held in Sydney on 01/06/2008. http://www.olpc.org.au/2008/05/14/get-involved-at-the-first-olpc-australia-techfest/