MEDIOS DE TRANSPORTE

Earlier generations found job security, career opportunities and friendships by staying with the same company for many years.

Colleague relationships often morphed from the purely

professional into the private sphere. And if you stayed with your company long enough there was a good chance you could climb

the ladder, as far as promotions went. The longer you were there, the deeper your roots were, and the harder it was to fire you.

But all those workplace values belong to Industrial Society. The very ideas of ”up” and ”down” – or even “ladder” – are

meaningless in the Network Society. As I will cover in the following pages, Homo Conexus doesn’t think “up” or “down” – but rather outwards. This first came to my attention when, a couple of years ago, I was asked to moderate a panel on why young people no longer found it attractive to work in the IT industry. Before the panel began, I was handed a list of job features.

It was the results of a survey of a group of young people who were asked to prioritize the features that were most important to them when choosing a job. The list looked like this:

1. I can grow and find new challenges.

2. There is a spirit of solidarity among the colleagues.

3. I can do something for others.

4. The salary is good.

5. The work isn’t too stressful.

6. There is little chance of being fired.

7. I have plenty of time off.

8. The job is prestigious.

This list made me very happy – it confirmed a hunch I had. This Top 8 says a great deal about how Homo Conexus will

contribute to the workplaces of the future, and it confirms that the

network is valued above all else for Homo Conexus. The three most important features about the future jobs of these youths, are all network oriented.

The undisputed winner is “That I can grow and find new

challenges.” This is exactly what’s making the abovementioned youngster’s ticker tock. And it’s what Human Resources

personnel experience first hand, when young Homo Conexuses come in for job interviews. A job is an opportunity for growth, not just a place to make some money. It’s another step on a journey where both the destination and the duration of the endeavor is completely unknown. The worst thing that can happen to Homo Conexus professionally is stagnation. And this is a logical fact.

His whole life, Homo Conexus has been bombarded with

impressions from all around, and has forged his identity from this world view, as seen in the last chapter.

There would be an imbalance felt in a Network Person’s life, if eight waking hours were spent in stagnation, while the rest of the day was pure network flow. Homo Conexus people feel

compelled to choose jobs that match the journey they are on in other parts of their lives. This makes self-development important, just like ”new challenges” – the other half of entry #1 among the top 8. What will an industrial person write to his colleagues when changing jobs? “I’m seeking new challenges, and therefore I’m leaving my position... blah, blah.” Homo Conexus demands that these new challenges come without the job-change – that the job itself constantly create new challenges.

But the two most important surprises on the list to me are #4 and

#8. The fact that compensation takes fourth place after more social criteria was quite surprising to me, as was the notion that Homo Conexus apparently won’t take a job just because others find it prestigious. That was definitely not the case when I grew up as a generation X’er, when the yuppie movement reveled in extravagant salaries, and having the right logo on your gold-embossed business card was everything! Homo Conexus’s take on money and prestige will be dealt with in greater length later on in this chapter. First, let’s put things into a little perspective.

When I was given that list, the recession of 2008/2009 was still just a theoretical possibility. As of writing this, the job market is not exactly in favor of the job seekers. This raises some

questions. Was the lack of focus on job security, wages and prestige just a result of a job market where unemployment was at an all-time low? Did these kids just assume that a job would always be waiting for them – and did they consequently focus on their own needs and personal development, rather than just being happy they could even GET a job? And more importantly, how does this play out globally? Is this just a local, and maybe just a temporary, phenomenon?

The Top 8 list presented to me was based on a survey by CEFU, the Center for Youth Research in Copenhagen. So you would think that it would apply to Scandinavia only, right? Not at all the case. In Australia, acclaimed social researcher Mark McCrindle wrote a report on the youth of that country, Understanding Generation Y, in which he states:

“Indeed, when deciding to accept a job, salary ranks sixth in order of importance after training, management style, work flexibility, staff activities, and non-financial rewards. The young people of this generation do not live to work, but rather they work to live.”

That exact phrase was echoed in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, when they ran an article with the headline: They don't live for work ... they work to live. For British youth, salary took seventh place:

“The top priority when choosing a job was 'doing work that I love'. 'Earning lots of money' was far behind, in seventh place.

When it came to walking away from an employer, a lack of motivation was the top reason followed by a work-life balance leaning too far towards the job. 'The Boomer generation [who are over 45] created the culture of long working hours and Xers [aged between 28 and 45] reluctantly accepted it,' the report said. 'But not Generation Y. While they are not work-shy, they don't live to work. They will get the job done on time ... but on their own terms.'

So it seems it’s not just a local tendency. Young people in small but rich countries like Denmark, as well as teens at large, in European industrial countries such as the United Kingdom, and across the globe in Australia, all downplay wages when asked about what they want in a job. Interestingly enough, the U.S. is a little different. Around the same time in 2008 as the above studies were presented, the consultancy firm Accenture examined how graduating college seniors in the U.S. viewed their job chances, and what they were looking for in a job.

According to this study, the American college grads were focused on money first. About 87% selected the salary as the most important characteristic in their job search.

Number two on the list are benefits, and on the number three and four spots, we find social demands such as “Interesting and challenging work,” and “A social atmosphere and camaraderie with colleagues,” which the other lists had at the top. Many people – including many Americans – believe that the average person in the U.S. is too money-oriented. Is the fact that the American youth entering the marketplace is so focused on wages proof of this?

Fortunately it isn’t the case. Rather, there seems to be a timing issue. This has to do with the Homo Conexus’s work trend hitting the U.S. job market just in time for the recession of 2008-2009.

But this only slowed down things a little bit.

Remember back in Chapter Two when we discussed cohorts?

Well, of course, there’s also a cohort that’s going to be impacted by the Great Recession of 2008-2009. At this writing, most economic experts expect the job market to bounce back in 2012.

That’s a four-year period, where all those in their formative years will experience some of the highest unemployment rates the U.S.

has ever seen. They will not feel as secure as those who are even just a few years older. But on the other hand, those

younger cohorts following them into the job market will not have been impacted in the same way.

Nobody should ever try to downplay the terrible ordeal many families have suffered as we entered the second decade of the 21^st century. In some areas of the U.S., every third work-ready person was out of a job. The average unemployment rate

hovered around 9-10% for the nation as a whole. With one in ten capable human beings being out of a job, it is clear that some sort of focus on job security must arise. However, this must be put into another perspective – that of identity.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Homo Conexus’s identity is not based on the nucleus of the self-exploring the immediate surroundings. Rather it is based on a much larger realm of beings, things and ideas, which are all networked together to make up the self. Now try to add a place where you go for eight or more hours a day, and where you usually interact with a lot of people and ideas in order to make money. In the Industrial Age, we were very much defined by our jobs. But for Homo Conexus, the job is just another extension of the network. It’s definitely an enabler.

It keeps food on the table and clothes on the body, but it isn’t necessarily what defines us. Rather, it’s an exploration of a new network, and its possibilities for improving the network you already have. This hasn’t changed because of the recession.

Even if your job is what Douglas Coupland called a McJob in his book about another generation, Generation X, it’s still a network of people that you interact with, even if you are flipping burgers or manning a toll booth. The general notion of the individual being defined by belonging to something bigger, without losing his individuality, is one of the defining differences between Homo Conexus and his or her predecessors. And if you’ve grown up with group dynamics and participatory culture, like Homo Conexus, it’s hard to see your workplace or your family as your primary network.

The decentralization megatrend forces Homo Conexus to stop placing the people he or she interacts with in a hierarchy – and basically this also means that the network you have at your place of work is not necessarily more important to defining yourself than your circle of friends, your family or even the guys you go bowling with. This is something that the recession hasn’t

changed. This is a megatrend that has been decades in the making, and which will continue even as job scarcity recedes.