thejaymo

EDIT: This is the longest thing i have ever posted on the internet that wasn’t on a forum. It weird, I dont mind writing stuff on a deadline for a zine etc, but ‘blogging’ has never been something that has ever interested me and feel real apathy toward creating content if i was to start one. I would rather just talk to you about it AFK.

In 2008 i just after i started at the company I still work for, i attended a ‘new thinking’ lunchtime informal discussion hosted by @alexfradera before he left the business to be an awesome dude full time - if you don’t follow him already, why not!? i wrote a reply to the topics raised in the discussion but never posted it, the main reason being - I was new.

 That post ended up being rewritten as one of my last columns for the (sometimes quarterly) Geek Essay Zine, where i used to rant about Star Wars, crap pulp sci-fi novels, computer games, and hardcore punk.

The article itself exits in hard copy in a box at my parents house in Kent, and on a CDR which is somewhere in my flat - you are more than welcome to come over and help me look for it. Posted below is (i think) the first draft which i e-mailed to myself on the 09.08.08 - Remember those days when you would e-mail yourself stuff to ensure a safe copy? Its poorly written and suffers from my usual issue of trying to shoehorn in too many ideas into one place, and the repeated use of outdated terms like ‘Web 2.0’. The final text was only 2 pages long and I remember vividly doing some brutal editing and hardcore rewriting on it before submission. But the topics /issues raised are covered below, all be it incoherently.

Anyway, re-reading this has been interesting, and i have a few observations.

A: I cant believe i was concerned about corporations/employers spying, and not Governments

B: The adoption of social networks has been all encompassing, not just the younger demographic in society.

C: The Demand for change by a whole section of the workforce has not happened. The reason being this was written just before the financial crash. Subsequently none of them have actually got a job. Although i think some of the #OWS movement is somehow tied to this desire.

D: I don’t think i have ever approached my thinking about interaction on the web in a dualist manner, and i agree 100% with Mr @nathanjurgenson’s digital dualism argument. And it is true: I change my name via the Internet when i was 15.

Draft In its its entirety:

Workplace 2.0 - Whos lookin’ at Y- ou kid?

‘ello

I got a new job in an office a while ago, and have been thinking about the future. A lot has been said on Generation Y recently in these pages and on the forum so I’m not going to repeat or regurgitate anything others have said – I’m just gonna launch straight in. Not quite long as my Populous rant but here goes:

At 23 I am probably smack bang in the middle of Generation Y its demographic definition is perhaps too broad a range. Generation Y i think can be split further in to two subsections sections:

Those that remember a time before the Internet and a those that do not. Indeed my brother at 18, looks at me with glazed hazy eyes when I tell him I remember when I first saw a web page, and having to agonisingly wait in front of the TV on a Saturday morning for television shows to actually begin, I do not believe my brother has ever seen the girl at the chalk board place holder actually being broadcast on actual television. (did you know she was left handed and they flipped the image to make her right handed?? fascists…)

On this thought, the split in the generation is not perhaps an age gap as most commonly seen between generations, but an internal Culture Gap. These higher and lower tiers within the generation still present similar attitudes regarding; ambition, attitude toward perfered time management styles in the work place - preferring flat plane communication to leadership chains etc.

Social networks that I belong to are:

http://www.digg.com/users/thejaymo

http://del.icio.us/thejaymo

http://www.last.fm/user/thejaymo/

https://twitter.com/thejaymo

http://thejaymo.deviantart.com/

http://thejaymo.tumblr.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thejaymo

& Facebook + Wikipedia profiles

Please also excuse the following explanations of the networks if you already know about them and their uses. Within this list of websites you can pretty much find everything you need or should wish to know about me.

Digg – is a social news website that is based on a democratic nature. Members submit webpage’s as news and then other users ‘digg’ an article or ‘bury’ and article the first increases it chances of getting to the front page as news or burying an article reduces its chances.

Del.icio.us – is a social book marking site that through an application added to the firefox web browser I can store all my bookmarks on the internet and access them from any ware. I can also send bookmarks of interest to others in my network and tag each bookmark with keywords for ease of searching.

Last.fm – is a site that allows me to post all music I have listened to on the web for all to see, it generates charts of most listened tracks and artists, an similar to amazons recommendation engine will recommend me bands and artists I may like, it also has a social networking function and it will show you your closest neighbours (people with similar tastes to you).

Twitter – is one of the fastest growing networks there is. It is effectively CB Radio converted to txt message/ 140 characters. When I ‘tweet’ all my friends in my list will received my status update. And when they reply I will receive it by text message as will everyone else in my network on twitter.

THE PERSONAL BRAND.

 To enable companies to be able to passively information effectively using these technologies, the individual or user of these technologies must have a strong digital brand. What appears in the Google search defines you as an individual. I would like to think that my personal online branding is ‘alright’. All my user names and details are always ‘thejaymo’ this enables me to control my info and my image across the plethora of online sites I use on a day to day basis.

The problem comes for companies trying to spy on you before you get a job is they are not branded or coherent. I.E: With different usernames; or mixture of their real names / online handles. With all this information scattered across the internet is will be neigh impossible for a company to find all this information and use it to build a full picture of a potential candidate.

I think there are perhaps two types of effect on your online identity that information sharing via 2.0 has on your idenity. Each directly in relation to the type of activities performed in the digital realm by ones own online brand or identity. It could be split in to two categories, Passive and Active digital identities.

I would consider myself to be a passive brand, in which I do not actively promote my personal digital brand to others for any reason or agenda. You my think that the daily task of keeping my twitter, my books and my Facebook up-to-date is a mammoth task which would take up a lot of my time - and therefor could be considered ‘active’, but for me it is so much a part of my culture and attitude within my peer group that it all gets update without thinking. This is passive life streaming. I just generate it, and sits there as part of the digital me.

As Generation Y increases its presence in the work place I believe will find it difficult to integrate itself in to the classic ‘top down’ management structure in place across all traditionally structured businesses. Generation Y is used to information instantly at it finger tips, quick efficient means of communication and collaborating effectively on projects across countries and time zones. This within a classical business structure is not possible. Within the top down ‘for my eyes only ’ management style information is filtered down the rank and file of the workforce. This I believe ‘does not fly’ with the members of Generation Y and it certainly doesn’t with me. This demographic element in the workforce as it grows will prefer (and perhaps even call for) better access to information about the company they work for. The consequences of this we will begin to see changes in the way management styles and information is disseminated. I am not suggesting that the management structure will disappear within an office frame work. There will always be a need for managers (Facilitators?), middle managers and team leads but Generation Y value experience and ability - We do not consider seniority or length of service as an asset for a manager to have. This generation care more than any other that the right person is in the right job, and they are more open to the idea of ‘don’t like it / if its not working, then leave’ than any other demographic in the workplace.