I do not necessarily think that teenage boys talking business models in a pizza shop is a primary recommendation for promoting collaboration and the use of social software, but it is a harbinger of a rapidly-approaching reality, as Joe McKendrick points out in this post from the FastForward blog.

But I've posted often about the rapidly-approaching impact of digital natives on the workplace of the near future ... one more in what will be sure to be a long and widespread series of observations by many people.

Enterprise 2.0 Revelation in a Pizza Shop
by Joe McKendrick

Stewart Mader (Atlassian) surfaced this post from Steven Baker’s BusinessWeek blog, and it really makes you stop and think, especially if you’re old enough to remember the first seasons of Saturday Night Live:

“Stephen Baker tells how he overheard a group of boys in his local pizzeria discussing how MySpace makes money, and why YouTube sold itself to Google for $1.65 billion. He reflects that the boys are “orders of magnitude more tuned into business” than he was at that age, and that to them, “business is a much more vibrant and relevant subject. They know that a start-up is just an idea away.”

Stewart ties this revelation into the rising social software and collaboration phenomenon. “It matters more than perhaps anything else because the mindset of this generation and tools available to it are combining to limitless potential. While most major news stories concentrate on the perceived pitfalls of technology - the dangers of online chat rooms, the dangers of games, the ‘overuse’ of Wikipedia, and so forth - people in my generation and younger are showing incredible savvy - by understanding Wikipedia better than their parents and teachers, restricting their MySpace and Facebook profiles to just their friends and people they approve, and starting great new companies and tools based on the power of their ideas.”

Members of the emerging generation that is beginning to populate our enterprises clearly understand the power and potential of information technology. Not only that, they will expect that their employers (or clients) will also be savvy about the potential of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 tools and platforms. If the organization isn’t savvy, then they will be expected to stay out of the way while they create, innovate, and find new ways to drive value to their businesses.

As my colleague Bill Ives pointed out in a recent post, a Watson Wyatt study concludes that “nearly 50% of the employee population will soon prefer – and expect – collaborative and interactive methods of communication with their employers.”

In other words, enterprises better get savvy about E2.0, because their employees (of all ages) will do it anyway. Lead, follow, and get out of the way.

Jon Husband

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