Digital natives are those born after the introduction of digital technology, or after around 1980, Bell said. Though he is not a digital native himself, he has learned intimately about them as the father of three.
Digital natives have many expectations, Bell said, such as being constantly connected and informed through social networks like Facebook, whose membership Bell called “staggering.”
“As someone who came from a computer science background, to think simply about the technology that could onload 500 million users in less than three years is still a staggering idea for those of us in technology,” he said. Bell is an avid social network user himself — he currently has Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts.
Digital natives also have specific expectations when it comes to the business world, which are not priorities for members of earlier generations. For example, in their organizations, digital natives expect “on-demand analytics,” or real-time web analytics tools for areas such as customer behavior and management reporting.
One of the biggest shifts accompanying the rise of digital natives, Bell said, is that “tech-savvy workers” are using technology in their everyday lives that has not yet been adopted by companies. “When students left college 10 to 15 years ago, they were introduced to technology beyond anything they had ever seen and needed to be trained in advanced technology,” Bell explained.
Bell discussed how organizations can harness the new environment of the digital native by following the five principles of “Wikinomics,” a concept from the book “MacroWikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World” by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. These principles are collaboration, openness, sharing, integrity and interdependence.
Bell concluded his presentation by calling for companies and digital natives to “accept the wave of change that is coming” and understand how the value proposition of digital natives can be enhanced as they become more connected, informed and mobile.
This was the last in a series of Business Today seminars, which aimed to “further the exchange between college students and business executives,” said Philipp Bewerunge ’11, who organized the series.
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