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Friday, September 5, 2008
People Problems
Keeping ‘digital natives’ from getting restless
By Brendan Lynch
MHT Editor Doug Banks on NECN: Decoding the Gen Y workforce
A pair of Harvard University researchers have stalked a new animal — the “digital native” — in its element, tracing its migration from colleges to the cubicles and corner offices of local tech companies.
Digital natives are people born after 1980 who have access to digital technology and the skills to use it. Last week, authors John Palfrey and Urs Gasser of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society released “Born Digital,” a primer on understanding the next generation. Natives are good multi-taskers, who are savvy with social networks and other Internet technology and work well in non-hierarchical teams, Palfrey said.
Those qualities can appear as both pros and cons for employers. While digital natives’ different expectations can lead to arguments with older bosses in hierarchical organizations, Palfrey suggested figuring out what those young workers are good at and then harnessing their good qualities.
Palfrey, also a venture capitalist at Highland Capital Partners LLC, said he had no problem investing with natives, who often make savvy entrepreneurs with seemingly off-the-wall ideas like Napster, Facebook or BitTorrent. They also don’t need much capital for those startups, with companies that often comprise about four people, computers their parents bought them and a little money for bandwidth, Palfrey said.
Palfrey also noted that, often, a company’s social utility aspect is more important than the technology — for example, a startup for young people by young people: “If you dismiss it as playtime rather than see it as a disruptive technology, you’re missing out on a huge investment opportunity,” he said.
Jim Lucchese, not in the digital native class himself at 35, is CEO of music software startup The Echo Nest Corp. in Somerville. The Echo Nest plans to double its seven-person staff, two of whom qualify as digital natives. Lucchese, who replaced Don Rose as CEO in May, said that while having employees with seven to 10 years of coding experience is still important, hiring digital natives is part of the company’s long-term strategy. Having employees resemble the company’s target consumer brings insight that may escape Lucchese and co-founders Tristan Jehan and Brian Whitman, who skew a bit older.
“We can guess, but we’re wrong a lot.” Lucchese said.
According to Palfrey and Gasser’s research, 100 percent of natives get their music from the Internet — which is good news for The Echo Nest. But one problem digital natives present is turnover, Lucchese said. In 1995, when he was looking for a job after graduating from Boston College, it was considered a pock mark on a worker’s resume to jump from job to job, he said. Today, digital natives don’t place as much value in long-term job security from an employer, instead making certain to keep their software skills sharp and learn the latest code languages, for instance.
“They look at job security as an internal skill set issue,” he said.
The Echo Nest plans to use equity compensation as one way to maintain continuity of employees, Lucchese said.
Digital natives Lucchese has worked with also blur the line between work and home life because of their passion for the subject matter — he said he often finds long e-mail chains about work-related subjects when he checks his e-mail on the weekends.
“It’s not work to them to stay on top of some company in Luxembourg that released a beta of a cool music application last week,” he said.
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