Aren’t we overlooking something of vital importance in shaping future education and learning experiences? Businesses and Business Schools are ill prepared for educating and training future youth!

Lost Boys is an international creative company progressing business innovation through the design and implementation of interactive and web based platforms and campaigns for major clients of leading companies. Their young creative staff of designers, all aged in the early 20s, follows the latest trends on the Internet such as Web 2.0 and Peer2Peer communication. Examples of which are Wikipedia, Second Life and Habbo Hotel and even the way Linux as open source operating software comes about. When they speak with brand managers and marketing managers of client organisations often aged between 28-35 these managers have no idea what the new opportunities in interactive communication are or what the emerging on line youth culture entails. So in fact they have to educate their clients who are only 10-15 years older and are missing the recent changes in social interaction and on line value creation in Cyberspace. They miss the new business models that make for instance Google, eBay, Amazon and YouTube so successful. These new business models are often based on social commerce where peer production for benefit, peer governance and creative commons are emerging in Web 2.0. Many managers stick to traditional media as TV and print even though less and less young people watch television or read newspapers. A lot of money is wasted without reaching the heads and hearts of youngsters (Thijssen et al, 2006). If the managers are 35 years of age and over (those that formulate the strategy and control the resources) the cultural gap between youth 10-21 and 35-55 year adults is even more significant. The question is what are we overlooking?

What do we know about digital literacy?
Business schools more and more focus on closing the gap between theory (rigor) and practice (relevance) as pointed out by Gosling and Mintzburg (2003) and Bennis and O’Toole (2005) stressing the fact that business schools have lost their way. Business managers (mainly over 35) and educators (mainly over 35) interact and determine the competencies required for young professionals obviously based on their mental models about the world today. They collaboratively decide on the learning content for future students. This is my point! Managers and educators miss out on knowing youth culture of future students and more in particular the way they process information, share information, build social relationships, networking skills and use innovative media. We know very little about their learning styles and learning skills. What do we know about digital literacy? Honestly now? Little to none!

Figure 1: The Digital Literacy GAP

In the above Figure 1 Gap 1 identifies the gap between business and business schools. This gap enjoys great attention by involving business in education more and more. GAP2 and GAP3 up till now enjoy little attention. If businesses understand little of the digital literacy of youth that has come about in the last ten years, how are we to know about it? Youth themselves, research and a new lens may help to close these overlooked gaps.

Youth and digital literacy can drive new learning
In a study conducted by Veen (2004) from the Technical University in Delft, Netherlands entitled “Learning from Youth” a number of recommendations to close the Gap between Youth and Education are made:

• Take the social skills and learning skills of the net generation as a starting point: these competencies will need to be specified through research and design principles will have to be generated that link to the broader reform of education towards demand driven and competence development to fresh knowledge on the net generation.

• Learn from the principles of game design in the commercial world for the design of education and create a social ecology to enhance the quality of modern education. (Like Microsoft and Harvard Business School work together, my addition)

• Reward students that are willing and able to make a contribution towards the design and improvement of education.

• Apply the knowledge and skills of students to train teachers, researchers and staff using open source tools. (And even practitioners, my addition).

• Change requires much energy to overcome resistance. Life-long learning students are a natural target group to experiment and develop new educational programmes with. The roll out to other target groups can follow in time.

• Teachers have a crucial role and influence on future education. Redesign the teacher’s education together with youth and with business.

• Regard ICT as a motor and not just as a tool.

• Stimulate research to explore, describe and explain cultures in Cyberspace and learn from fast developments in China, South Korea and Singapore (And throughout Europe and the USA, my addition)

• Connect and engage libraries to these innovative developments.

Changing our lens
The above human (youth) centred view is shared by Boswijk et al (2005) who put the individual (in this case the student) in the centre of attention in his or her physical and virtual spaces taking into account the personal, social, cultural, economic and ecological contexts. Youth is willing and able to develop themselves in these contexts. Learning takes place at home, at school, at work, whilst dealing with businesses, organisations and governments and with experiences in public space. This requires unlearning traditional mental models of supply centred education and training and experimenting with demand centred education and learning. This way we may accelerate the learning of future youth.

I invite critical remarks and comments and pass the pen on to Igor Milder of Lost Boys and Ed Peelen of Nyenrode Business University.

Thomas Thijssen
European Centre for the Experience Economy
Director of research
References
Bennis, W.G. and J. O’Toole (2005) How Business Schools Lost Their Way, Harvard Business Review, May 1-9, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.Gosling, J. and H. Mintzburg (2003) The five minds of the manager, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
Boswijk, A., J.P.T. Thijssen and E. Peelen (2005) A new perspective on the Experience Economy; experiences that matter. Pearson Education, Amsterdam.
Thijssen, J.P.T.. E. Peelen and S. Bink (2006) Share of heart versus share of mind: The Sportlife Case of the Arctic Games, Research paper, European Centre for the Experience Economy, Bilthoven.
Veen, W. (2004) Learning from Youth, Foundation Surf, Utrecht.

Veen,W. Presentation 

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