I’ve always felt that there are constants in human experience. Circumstances change, of course, but some things persist. When my daughter was born, I had a sort of epiphany. I figured out—on the way home from the hospital—why my parents were so weird. It became immediately clear to me that words like accountability and stability had real meaning—and that they applied to me. My world had opened up and I was no longer the center of it. I think that the same thing is happening to today’s thirty-somethings who are now accoutered with a mortgage, children and other responsibilities.
To borrow a phrase from my youth, I think, “the kids are alright.” This young, maturing generation is made up of passionate, purposeful and highly intelligent men and women who are not just tech literate, but tech natives who are wonderfully equipped to make good use of the most innovative technologies. It’s as if mobile, cloud and social technologies are not simply tools, but rather an extension of their biological nervous system—embedded in that complex network of nerves and cells that carries messages to and from the brain.
During the time I taught at cca, I quickly learned that my design students could master any software almost immediately. There was no learning curve. A student with no prior skills in Photoshop or InDesign would simply say, “I’ll figure it out.” He or she was not at all intimidated by the technology—no more so than learning to wield a pencil. The current crop of young people has an intuitive grasp of the tools of connectivity and, happily, a hunger for purpose and innovation. They comprise a workforce that’s adaptive and aspirational; serious about engaging in meaningful work for companies that live up to their stated mission and values.