Kids these days! :: Part 1 ::
Frankly I’m tired of hearing us middle-aged cronies complain about kids these days. “They don’t have foundational skills, they can’t write!” Really? Wasn’t a foundational skill of living in the 17th century the ability to start a fire? Many many many of us don’t know how to do that. How appalled the people of the 17th century would be with us – we don’t have foundational skills! Foundational skills change.
Don’t get upset. Wake up.
The foundational skills of communication are changing.
Interior Design Show 2012
Kids these days! They can communicate big ideas in 140 characters or less. Do you have that foundational skill? When they experience life they share it with at least six other people right there in the moment. Do you have that foundational skill?
Another complaint I hear all the time is “Kids these days can’t sit and look each other in the eye and have a conversation.” I think they can. Perhaps their conversations are happening in 2D and 3D where we only know how to converse one-dimensionally. Now, that’s a foundational skill I wish I had!
I work with a young college student. We went to the Interior Design Show here in Toronto on Friday January 27, 2012. We walked the show together, looked at the same things, spoke with the same people, admired the same items. How many other people from my circle shared in those moments with me? None.
Interior Design Show 2012 - we loved the luxe in this set up!
How many shared in those moments with the young college student I work with? Six. And how many since then? Countless. She was taking photos with her Blackberry and posting them to her circle of BBM friends. Six people virtually walked through that show with us right there in the moment as it was happening. Since then countless others.
Wake up. We are the ones missing the foundational skills of communications today, not them.
How does this impact marketing, communications and the way you manage your brand? In very big ways. Stay tuned for Brand Communications Part 2 next week.
The pictures in this post are Shelby’s picks from the Interior Design Show.
Interior Design Show 2012 - we both loved this pairing of traditional and contemporary design
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