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Clay Shirky on managing net generation workers

The professor, author, and social-media expert talks about the unique challenges of managing millennial employees.

MARCH 2011

Clay Shirky, author and professor of new media at New York University, has written at length about Twitter’s and Facebook’s influence on politics and economics, even before the social-media tools played a key role in the popular movements sweeping across the Middle East. These technologies also shape behavior at the office, especially for younger employees who log into Facebook at work, e-mail from their BlackBerry on weekends, and consider their career paths pliable and open-ended.

In this interview, conducted at this year’s World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, Shirky sits down with McKinsey’s director of publishing, Rik Kirkland, to explain the opportunities and constraints that net generation1 employees balance at work, as well as how managers can do a better job of understanding and retaining them.

Watch the video, download a PDF of the transcript, or download the audio file.

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Video: Clay Shirky on managing net generation workers
The social-media expert discusses the unique challenges of managing millennial employees.
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Notes

1 The “net generation” is the demographic cohort following generation X, with birth dates ranging from the early 1980s to 2000. This group is also commonly referred to as “generation Y” or “millennials.”

Recommend (19)
  • 9 MARCH 2011
    Artee Hazari
    Consultant
    Infosys
    Bangalore India

    ...[with] the majority of net Gen employees owning a smart phone, it somehow becomes a moot point to discuss allowing social media on the organization’s system....

    Read more
    .
    Artee Hazari
    Consultant
    Infosys
    Bangalore India

    I must say this is a thought provoking piece with lessons not for just current managers but for future managers as well to accept change in working styles and motivations.

    The degree of freedom provided at a workplace definitely defines the choice of it. Having said that, it’s important to realize the amount of work hours lost due to these freedoms vis a vis work done over weekends.

    With ubiquitous mobile apps for each and every activity that can be imagined, and the majority of net Gen employees owning a smart phone, it somehow becomes a moot point to discuss allowing social media on the organization’s system.

    P.S.: I prefer the freedom to have FB at work!

    .
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Clay Shirky in Foreign Affairs on social media and democratic revolution
Read “The Political Power of Social Media,” Clay Shirky’s cover story from the January/February 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs, in which he describes the power of social media to drive popular democratic uprisings around the world (available without a subscription until April 17).
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