Napster Made Me

Says spokesman for Gen Y.

Honest people go to the store to buy their music. But not Ryan Healy. He was using Napster to steal songs while he was in still junior high. In college he switched to Kazaa.

Now, he's so used to taking whatever he wants that he can't imagine himself adapting to the command structure of the business world. And, he believes that he's not alone.

The internet has raised an entire Napster Generation of outlaws, rabid individualists who are used to satisfying their impulses here and now. And these guys, who have have little patience for anyone who gets in their way, will force employers to give them more room for personal initiative on the job.

And so, again, technology has outpaced the social structure creating a new, aggressive middle class which will be the next vehicle of the democratic revolution.

Comments

[Rosie]

Dang, I can't believe he blogged about that. You're supposed to blog to hide that kinda baggage! :)

[Chris Taylor]

I think he is being rather overly optimistic.

Most of the people I know who have not adapted to the command structure of the business world are unemployed.

Every decade some guy makes millions assuring us all that "the rules have changed" but they actually do not. Human beings are hierarchical and territorial by nature; this isn't going to change overnight (or even over the course of centuries) no matter how many people tell you it will.

It is not as if humans have never known sincere efforts at collective decisionmaking before -- in economic enterprise or elsewhere. There are sound reasons for having notional or actual leaders of divisions, departments, etc. Accountability and responsibility would be the best reasons. Morale would be another.

Try submitting your raise or bonus appeal to all of your colleagues. Some of whom will think you do a good job, some of whom will think you do a poor job, and some of whom may be surprised to learn that you're in their department. You are either 1) not going to get the raise because everyone else isn't immediately getting one too, or 2) you will get the smallest raise, relatively speaking, because your reasonable demands will be outpaced by ambitious peers who ask for even more. Published CEO salaries are an instructive point to illustrate option 2. CEO pay has skyrocketed not because they are greedy, but because they now have readily available benchmarks against which to measure themselves. And all it takes is a couple of guys steering sinking ships (but making stellar pay) for everyone else to say "Well I'm doing a better job than that schmoe, shouldn't *I* get paid more?"

When you and I are retired and golfing in Florida guys will still be making these hilarious "but it's all different now!" claims. And it won't be. The technology may change, but human nature never does.

[laurence haughton]

Yikes... will somebody get Ryan a library card? The history of management is full of examples and experiments testing notions of human nature, hierarchies, collaboration, cooperation while looking for cause and effect. And BTW what they discovered would please you Ryan.

But Chris is right when he says that human nature is enduring (my paraphrase). What that nature causes, and how it influences behavior has changed over history. There are many good resources on this at the "used book" bookstore or the library.