[Air-L] short review: Salkowitz, Rob. Generation Blend

[Peter Timusk]

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.
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