The Internet Generation Gap

Now I know who is running the Internet, turning it into Web 2.0, writing all the software, creating useful and sometimes useless, applications. The same people have launched YouTube, FaceBook, Friendster, Twitter, Plaxo and all the international and regional social networks.
Now I know it is not us, the baby boomers. We are too busy running countries and multi-national corporations, law firms, stockbroking companies, quaint little country pubs or lying around the swimming pools in our villas in Spain, Phuket, or Boracay. Some are just retired enjoying a game of golf after breakfast and a snooze after lunch.
I should have come to that conclusion when I first realised that some of the people I know of, a similar age, cannot even operate a DVD/CD player, never mind a mobile phone or a computer. Those who can fire up a computer are using dial-up internet connections and think that broadband can be tuned into on the radio!
No it is not us. It's the kids, the bratpack, fresh from school or university with a degree in computer science .
This fact was slowly dawning on me a couple of years ago but it really banged home when I attended a two day E-Commerce Conference at the Intercon in Makati City, organised by the DigitalFilipino Club. No sleeping under The Times after lunch in that Club! If, as is unlikely, they read The Times, it would be the on-line edition, on their laptops, while they tuck into their beef tapas and fried rice for breakfast.
When I entered the Conference Hall the lights were low and eyes were all peering at laptop computers, connected to the Internet by the hotel's wi-fi(If you do not know what that means, stop reading and go and have a cup of Horlicks).
The full horror hit me when the lights went up for the lunch break. I was the oldest person there by several decades!!!!
Instead of going into a quiet corner to sob, I carried on bravely. At lunch I sat and talked with some of the juvenile participants. I made an important discovery. They are smart, very smart. They are also highly motivated and energetic. Some of them have set up companies for web hosting and design, some have bought or hired servers to host blog sites and on-line directories, some act as freelance consultants, some make a living from blogging on sites which carry advertising.
I was relieved, really, to know that such important tools of modern life are in the hands of smart young people around the world. Imagine how the internet, computers, mobile phones and other portable digital tools would be if left to my generation, the baby boomers. We would still be sitting around with Steve Jobs in his garage, discussing whether Bill Gates was going to take the IBM or Apple route and start up a company he was thinking of naming Microsoft. Bill was right to retire from Microsoft and concentrate on his charitable foundation, that is now clear to me.
I was moved to post this blog after a meeting I had this morning with another two members of the Internet bratpack, who are hoping that I will hire them to improve my websites.
You see, I am trying to hold my own and instead of fighting this technology, embracing it. Try it.