The Buck Stops With Generation Z

by Rebecca Thorman on May 3111 Comments
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Gender inequality exists, but only in the workplace. Young women grow up believing in equality, but when she enters the workplace, she hits a brick wall.  That will stop when Generation Z joins the workforce. Not because gendered roles will somehow evolve in the next decade, but because technology will.

Generation Z is the most technologically immersed and advanced generation ever. They are known as “digital natives”  because they have never known a world without iPhones, laptops, video games, chat windows, tabs and texts. On airplanes, toddlers are abated with digital shows and video games instead of stuffed animals and paper coloring books.

Old Media Needs an Opinion

by Rebecca Thorman on May 259 Comments
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Journalists are objective. Bloggers are not. The two have been duking it out since the dawn of the Internet age. Journalists think objectivity will save their jobs and bloggers know that is nonsense. Old media is not irrelevant, but they are digging themselves into a hole. Let me explain.

First, understand that journalism has never been objective. Newspapers first emerged as political publications funded by partisan parties and read by the top of society’s pyramid. Then in a move to both democratize media and increase profits, newspapers dropped their prices and attracted multitudes of immigrants and workers as subscribers in order to sell those eyeballs to eager advertisers.

3 Drawbacks of Reputation as Currency

by Rebecca Thorman on May 190 comments
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We talked about how reputation as currency on the web has the potential to be quite powerful. But there are drawbacks to using reputation so fluently. Here are three:

1. You Can’t Have a Bad Day.
Our current economy uses money as a currency, which is great because you don’t need to know or trust me to exchange value. With money as a currency, it doesn’t matter if you’re in a good mood all the time or if you snap at the Home Depot cashier or not. It’s an impersonal exchange.

Reputation, on the other hand, doesn’t allow such flexibility.

Fare Thee Well, Boss

by Rebecca Thorman on May 1614 Comments
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The boss-employee relationship is defunct. Managers think young workers aren’t willing to pay dues, but really young workers aren’t willing to be employees. Managers dangle the lure of a raise or a title, but young workers just want to build something together as a team.

The new org chart shouldn’t be based on hierarchy then, but a horizontal ladder of peer-to-peer management, where employee and boss teach and learn from each other. They share, knowledge, experience and ideas.

Working together in service to a larger vision is a more human way of employment, but it is antithetical to how businesses currently run.

Being Always On, Always Right and the Case for Anonymity

by Rebecca Thorman on May 1124 Comments
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There are a lot of reasons I stopped writing my last blog. Primarily though, it was because the Internet takes a lot out of you. It expects to be able to dissect everything. The Internet wants to pull you apart. Everything should be accessible and out there for all. In the Interneted world, you have to be always on.

I don’t particularly want to be always on. For starters, I am incredibly moody. Most people on the Internet seem like happy people or are on their way to being happy.

I am not happy. At least not today. Try again tomorrow?

What Comes After the Social Web?

by Rebecca Thorman on May 0513 Comments
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   I am worried about how the Internet defines social.

There is a big difference between shopping online and shopping in seventy-degree weather, when someone brushes your bag, and you run into your friend on his way to a soccer game. Online shopping is solitary; real-life shopping is social. Seeing that my friend “liked” a new laundry solution on Facebook is not a social experience.

I rarely shop alone. Even on utilitarian trips to the grocery or Target, even if I don’t have an accomplice, I am still out and among other people. I want my best friend to tell me what to wear and that the very short shorts look good on me and encourage me to buy a pair when I would never do so otherwise.

You Like Mainstream Media Now, Don’t You?

by Rebecca Thorman on May 034 Comments
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Osama Bin Laden was killed yesterday and the reactions ranged from revelry to relief to wondering why the New York Times didn’t take down their paywall. C.W. Anderson, an assistant professor of media culture at CUNY tweeted, “NYT has a public obligation to place articles out from behind paywall in cases like this.”

Why on earth would they?

The Times has ten-thousand employees, all of which I’m sure will work over-time this week. In any other industry, when workers do more work, when they do more quality work that is life and earth changing, we pay them overtime. We reward them.

How Amateur Content Makes Us Dumb

by Rebecca Thorman on May 020 comments
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newspaper collagePhoto: mypixbox

It’s a misnomer that the web was the innovation that gave amateurs their place alongside experts in credibility. We were actually primed for this during the industrial revolution when things like hot dogs became an abstraction of real food. Processed and pushed into its casing, hot dogs look nothing like and have no relation to anything they are made from. As meals go, this is one for the amateurs. Real foodies eat sweet pork sausage that is made on-site at the restaurant. And the real, real foodies (experts), make sure that the pork didn’t come from an industrial hog.

Women Struggle With New Literacy: Programming Your Life

by Rebecca Thorman on April 2711 Comments
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The web makes it easier than ever to test and execute on your ideas, at least for those who know how to code: Mark, Aaron, Ev and Biz – you know, the ones running the show. These guys along with other young lads are defining, controlling and programming your life.

“Only an elite gains the ability to fully exploit the new medium on offer,” writes Douglas Rushkoff in Program or Be Programmed. “The rest learn to be satisfied with gaining the ability offered by the last new medium. The people hear while the rabbis read; the people read while those with access to the printing press write; today we write, while our techno-elite programs.

Good Deeds (Part 2)

by Rebecca Thorman on April 220 comments
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In Part 2 of our interview, the former CEO/activist of Seventh Generation talks about how he would launch a company today, the tensions of scale, and what motivates him the most.

After leaving Seventh Generation, the company he founded and ran for twenty years, Jeffrey Hollender didn’t stop in his fight for corporate responsibility, sustainability and social equity. In Part 1 of the interview, Hollender spoke on today’s labor movement, changing the rules of business and politics, and the biggest failure at his old company. Jumping in where we left off -

So, let’s talk about large companies again – is scale ever a sustainable business model?

Browsing Toward a New Currency

by Rebecca Thorman on April 2110 Comments
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This is a continuation of How the iPad is (Thankfully) Destroying Our Economy.

Historically, money wasn’t necessary. Within a community, barn raisings, shared child care, and borrowing tools all occured as part of the gift economy. You used trust, reputation, and identity as your currency and money was only used between communities that didn’t know each other.

(Money is a type of currency; it isn’t synonymous.)

This is essentially the same today.  My neighbor will give me his lawnmower or I can go buy one at Home Depot. In the transaction with my neighbor, we might say I got the lawnmower for free, but really I used our relationship as currency.

The Delusions of Happiness

by Rebecca Thorman on April 1930 Comments
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Happiness is relative, but I’ve been really happy lately.  Secrets to happiness? Yes, I’ve got those. Try exercising, meditation, setting goals, spending time with friends and family, trying new things. Those should all sound familiar; people tell you those things all the time and they may or may not work for you. The real secret? I’ll get to that in a moment… (and it isn’t something foolish like follow-through).

Meditation, though. That’s something people are hot about lately. “It’s like a key that opens the door to the treasury within,” filmmaker David Lynch tells a New York Times columnist. “Here’s an experience — poooft!