Teens, Tech & Racism

Reposted from USA Today:

The most racially diverse generation in American history works hard to see race as just another attribute, no more important than the cut of a friend’s clothes or the music she likes. But the real world keeps intruding, as it has the past few weeks with angry protests over the racially charged deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in nearby Staten Island, N.Y. “As a generation, we don’t acknowledge color, but we know that the race problem is still there,” says 16-year-old Nailah Richards, an African-American student at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School in Brooklyn. “We don’t really pay attention to it, but we know it’s there.” Nailah is one of the Millennials, the 87 million Americans born between 1982 and 2001. They are defined by opinion surveys as racially open-minded and struggling to be “post-racial.”

Many young people still see the USA’s intractable problems as rooted in race. In a May 2012 report, Race Forward: the Center for Racial Justice Innovation found that “a large majority” of young people in the Los Angeles area believed race and racism still mattered significantly — particularly as they relate to education, criminal justice and employment. In follow-up sessions in five cities in early 2012, the center found that “racial justice” was the most significant interest among young people. “Do I feel like I live in a post-racial society?” asks Izabelle. “Not at all. Not at all.” The borders of school districts often produce segregated schools as a byproduct of neighborhood segregation, and students are placed in classrooms and on academic tracks based on test scores that often correlate with socioeconomic status.

Social divisions, including racial divisions, “are not disappearing simply because people have access to technology,” researcher Danah Boyd says. “Tools that enable communication do not sweep away distrust, hatred and prejudice.” The mere existence of new technology “neither creates nor magically solves cultural problems. In fact, their construction typically reinforces existing social divisions.” For instance, when she sat down to look at the Facebook profile of a white 17-year-old girl at a private East Coast high school, boyd found that though her school recruited students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, most of those who had left comments on the student’s profile were white. “Teens go online to hang out with their friends,” she wrote, “and given the segregation of American society, their friends are quite likely to be of the same race, class, and cultural background.”

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Myths, Dreams & Hope

This past week’s elections played out as they typically do. The party out of power picked up congressional seats. Media stars were born. Political careers were ended. Life goes on. And while politicos will spin the outcomes and pundits will predict the implications, the realty is voters chose one party-backed candidate or another as the electorate polarized on Election Day. The two-party system – a peculiarly American phenomenon – in action.

“…and you will find while in the wind something that you lost…the dream was never over…the dream was only lost…”  -Stevie Nicks

I was driving back to DC on election night, listening to the results as they came across the radio airwaves from Boston, Manhattan, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and finally, our nation’s capital. It was obvious from the low voter turnout that business as usual will continue. Incumbents…even those with outrageously ineffective track records…were returned to office, even as new faces proclaimed a mandate for change in their victory speeches. But there’s no sign anything is going to change.

I drove along thinking about those who vote along party lines and what they were voting for. Hopefully not for the simple-minded good versus evil posturing both parties use in their campaign ads. Regardless of our politics, we’re all still Americans. Hopefully not some gullible belief that any one candidate is going to create change. Well-meaning newcomers are consumed by the system they promise to reform every election.

True believers vote for mythology: heavily ingrained, overly-simplified, status-quo-supporting mythology. In the one camp, government is the answer. In the other, business. And these competing camps conveniently juxtapose themselves against one another, to force artificial choices. It works in political terms, but two polarizing parties cannot address all the opportunities and challenges in an increasingly complex world.

“People have the power – the power to dream…to rule…to wrestle the world from fools…it’s decreed the people rule…”  -Patti Smith

Is government the answer? No. Where is the human factor in government bureaucracy? Is business the answer? Of course not. Where is the human factor in business bottom lines? But in a system where being politically independent is more of a personal statement than a way to effect change, there aren’t a lot of alternatives.

Younger voters aren’t interested in simplistic explanations that limit their options. In an age of individualization and personalization, they are more nuanced and sophisticated in their thinking. And therein lies my hope for change. They dream anew…writing a new narrative.

This dream is not about huge upheavals or the dismantling of what currently exists. It’s the hope in quietly, purposefully making choices that create consensus and generate practical solutions. No polarizing of well-intentioned people along fabricated fault lines. Just open, honest exploration of everything that is possible.

For the first time in my lifetime, we are shedding the paradigm of limitations spawned by the Great Depression. It’s wonderful to see the human spirit unfettered from the the fears of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. And this gives me hope, because I want my legacy to connect to something bigger than our shortcomings and limitations. Don’t you?

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”  -John Lennon

McKinsey: The Obsolescence of Experience

Reposted from McKinsey Quarterly:

Another implication flows from the creation of this new knowledge resource. The new generation of managers, those now aged 35 or under, is the first generation that thinks in terms of putting knowledge to work before one has accumulated a decade or two of experience. Mine was the last generation of managers who measured their value entirely by experience. All of us, of necessity, managed by experience—not a good process, because experience cannot be tested or be taught. Experience must be experienced; except by a very great artist, it cannot be conveyed.

This means that the new generation and my generation are going to be horribly frustrated working together. They rightly expect us, their elders and betters, to practice some of the things that we preach. We don’t dream of it. We preach knowledge and system and order, since we never had them. But we go by experience, the one thing we do have. We feel frustrated and lost because, after devoting half our lifetimes to acquiring experience, we still don’t really understand what we’re trying to do. The young are always in the right, because time is on their side. And that means we have to change.

This brings us to the third implication, a very important one. Any business that wants to stay ahead will have to put very young people into very big jobs—and fast. Older men cannot do these jobs—not because they lack the necessary intelligence, but because they have the wrong conditioned reflexes. The young ones stay in school so long they don’t have time to acquire the experience we used to consider indispensable in big jobs. And the age structure of our population is such that in the next 20 years, like it or not, we are going to have to promote people we wouldn’t have thought old enough, a few years ago, to find their way to the water cooler. Companies must learn to stop replacing the 65-year-old man with the 59-year-old. They must seek out their good 35-year-olds.

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Born in Another Time

How far my parent’s generation advanced past the achievements of my grandparent’s generation. And how much farther my generation has progressed beyond the accomplishments of my parents. And even though we cannot imagine everything the future holds for our children, we know they will push the boundaries of living and learning even farther ahead for all humanity. So why would we persist in sustaining an education system that does not prepare them for their future? More than any generation that’s come before them, our children need and deserve new opportunities to learn and be successful. Beyond brick-and-mortar facilities and walled-in classrooms, measured common competencies and and old-as-time outcomes. The sage wisdom of this proverb still holds true for us today. Our children are expecting more of us, and we must have the capacity and the will to deliver.