Mr Salkowitz apologizes later in his book for any ageism and he has now given me a comment on my blog. here is his comment I appreciate your serious reading of Generation Blend. For the record, one of the principle ideas behind the book is that the perceived "technology age gap" is socially-constructed and cultural, not cognitive or inherently age-based, and it can be surmounted by training and acculturation that acknowledges the different perceptions that people bring to technology based on their life experience and generational perspective. My work, both at Microsoft and with OATS, is to overcome ageist prejudices around technology adoption. If that was not clear in my text, it represents a significant failing on my part. Best of luck with your work. Further study in this field is much needed. On 8-Jun-08, at 12:42 PM, Peter Timusk wrote:
I am interested in technology and age difference but this book that helped spur my interest did not help much. I would like to add age and technology attitudes to my thesis simulation so any sharing welcome.
Blog entry
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Interesting but not very complex reading and could be considered ageist in its failings.
I am reading this book right now amongst others.
Salkowitz, Rob. Generation Blend: Managing Across the Technology Age Gap (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2008) While this book is interesting and covers a vast array technological areas it falls short of having any details. The reason it fails is that it only assumes youth are better and more comfortable with technology and such things as web 2.0 and does not hold back from this view. Again and again the old are considered technological deficient and the youth technologically gifted. So no matter what technology or workplace practice the author examines he does not change from this perspective. This could have been a much more interesting book with much more results. I would suggest the author embark on empirical studies to back up his points. This is book is signed off on by Microsoft which is mud on their fenders in my opinion. _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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