Social Media and Generational Differences

Craig is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and has worked with ProjectManagement.com for the last six years developing the various HEADWAY processes (Project, Change and Portfolio). He has hosted a series of webinars and is a business intelligence subject matter expert.

  Communications Management   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned   Talent Management  

Social media will soon play a critical role in how people communicate on your projects. What is your initial reaction to this statement? For some of you, it might be:

1. “Social media already plays a huge role in both my personal and professional life. I can see this happening on my projects, too.”
2. “I’m not so sure about this. Social media is fine in my personal life, but I have seen it tried at work and it hasn't gone well.”
3. “Social media? What the heck is that?”

The range of responses will include these, along with many others that stretch the entire spectrum. The opinions on the impact of social media are far reaching and diverse. Regardless of your perspective, one key factor that will impact the growth of social media in project environments is the diverse generations of people that make up our project teams and the wide gaps in the perspectives amongst these generations. Each of these generations has its own take on social media and the role it will have on project management. For most of us in the workforce today, we have worked with three to five different generations, including:

1. The GI Generation
2. The Silent Generation
3. Baby Boomers
4. Generation X
5. Generation Y

The following table (Table 1) highlights some of the key demographic aspects to each of the generational …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.