My 13 yr old son Tom Varsavsky at SIME

I saw Tom at SIME and he was indeed great, producing hilarious one-liners such as “Only if I was really desperate” (to the question “would you use online dating services?”) but also giving clear testimony of the digital life of a 13 year old.

But the discussion at panels like SIME about the fact that teenagers don’t use email is based on a misconception since teens don’t live the same tyoe of life as working adults.
Teens live in the present, they communicate with their friend about things happening today and rarely plan for longer than tomorrow. They don’t work in projects with colleagues, they don’t have any bosses or deadlines.

So it is not strange that teens think that email is to slow and cumbersome. But for most people email will continue to be an important tool in the working life since it is asynchronous, i.e. I do no thave to interrupt the receiver with my message and I can choose when to read incoming messages. (There are of course many problems with this, spam, cc-ing everybody etc, but these can be handled with a proper email policy/training)

So this debate illustrates the growing problem that we all must learn to use the whole palette of available digital communication toools; email, communities like Facebook, blogs, IM, SMS, MMS, Twitter/Jaiku, mobile phones etc.
The most important new knowledge is to use the right communication tool based in:

1. How urgent do I need an answer?
2. Whom am I communicating with?
3. What is the subject?
4. What type of media does the message contain? (text, video, pictures, voice etc)
5. In which situation is the receiver when he/she gets the message?

Unfortunately, most people today, both young and old are stuck in one or two ways of communicating.

But the ones who master this palette have a great advantage already today!

I was at SIME ‘07 too, and I loved Tom’s wittiness

Too bad we didn’t get the opportunity to have another quick chat together, Martin. When I saw you, you were having an interview with a journalist.

See you at Le Web3?

–Tristan

Brilliant!!!

It’s so easy to be stuck in one’s own communication paradigm — young people today are growing up with more communication facilities than earlier generations; and so they’re more likely to use more nuanced communication facilities – the more choices, the better. Email doesn’t have as social an element as say, biting someone and turning them into a zombie, which is probably more fun anyway

your son articulates points and explains the value proposition better than most executives with “13+ years” experience . I’m sure you are quite proud of him.