One + September 2010 - (Page 34)

34 one+ 09.10 > > Who: Deborah Gardner, CMP Deborahgardner.com James Spellos Meeting-u.com Event: “Battle of the Generations: Who’s Really Unplugged with Social Media?” World Education Congress July 24-27 Vancouver, British Columbia The Plaintiff The commonality among generations is the continued challenge of communication. And with ever-growing social media in the mix, it’s gotten worse. Social media’s purpose is to connect. Yet, in this very session, the jury clearly demonstrated the irreconcilable wedge in the generational disconnect. While jurors expressed their addiction to technology, they also witnessed each other’s solid arguments to self-centered reasons on why technology matters. Within the intense hour-and-a-half debate, the jurors soon realized that technology is still far from aiding their every need. Scarlett Coffman of Dave and Busters made the argument clear: “Technology will never replace face-toface. The focus on face-to-face was forgotten by the jury.” Our brains may have been rewired away from face-to-face (a known fact from this courtroom session), but technology has an even bigger problem— user self-control. The Defendant There was no surprise to me in the nearly unanimous verdicts handed down by the jurors. The minority (yet highly vocal) opinion espoused by Ms. Gardner that social media are hampering productivity is nonsense. There’s no doubt that face-to-face communication is still important and critical. Yet, new communications have enabled conversation—any and all conversations—to extend well beyond the walls of a single enterprise or even the borders of a country. When people say the phrase “It takes a village…” they refer to the entire population of Earth. These jurors didn’t believe that social media were causing an irreconcilable wedge between generations, which http://www.Deborahgardner.com http://www.Meeting-u.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + September 2010

One + September 2010
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Share Your Mind
Agenda
Thoughts + Leaders
Five Years Later
Focus
Overheard
What You Missed
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
TMI at Your Peril
Men Behaving Badly
You Can Go Your Own Way
Falling for Food
Breaking Bread
Community Service
Controlled Chaos
The Quick Guide to Keeping Your Top Talent
Generation Why
What’s the Right Risk?
Let’s Talk
Get an (Economic) World View
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again

One + September 2010