Michelle Manafy - Dancing with Digital Natives: Staying in Step with the Generation Thats Transforming the Way Business Is Done

That we were able to complete this project with our sanity and friendship still intact owes much to the advice, help, and support of our friends, family, colleagues, and contributors. To list all of these people here would be a book in itself, but please know that we value your support.

Heidi would like to thank Michelle for embarking on this adventure with her. Michelle is incredibly well organized and a fabulous editor, and these abilities certainly raised the likelihood of completing this project. Heidi, however, is even more grateful for Michelles intelligence, thoughtfulness, sense of humor, and love of Yahtzee. Heidi would also like to thank Marc Dupont, David and Adelle Gautschi, and Lisa Gautschi for their love and steadfast belief in her, as well as Fatma Ramdani, Sabine Lesenne, Emilie Moreau, and Olivier Cornille for their support and help. She would also like to thank her students at the University of Lille 3 for giving her the opportunity to observe digital natives in action.

Michelle would like to thank Heidi for knowing her as well as she does and still choosing to undertake this project as partners. The work here benefits greatly from the added perspective of Heidis distinct world view. Michelle benefits greatly from Heidis steady calm, sense of fun, and fearless honesty. Michelle would also like to thank Daniel and Harlequin Sullivan for their unending patience, love, and support; Tom and Claire Sullivan for their belief in her; and Anita Kemmy for instilling in her a lifelong love of learning and literature. Michelle is also lucky to have had the daily influence of the team at EContent magazine for inspiration while putting this project together, and the support of Ron Miller, Nancy Davis Kho, and David Meerman Scott in particular for pushing her to get out of her comfort zone.

Without doubt, we are both deeply grateful to all of our contributors for their expertise, hard work, and patience. This project would not have been possible without them and owes its strength to their breadth of knowledge, openness of mind, and willingness to do the hard work it takes to create a contributed volume like this one. We are also grateful for the support we received from the team at Information Today, Inc., especially Amy Reeve and John Bryans.

Lastly, we thank all the digital natives out there using digital technology in creative new ways. You are our inspiration. Were counting on you to tell us what we got right and where we went wrong. We cant wait to get your feedback.

Heidi Gautschi

Sains du Nord, France

Michelle Manafy

New Preston, Connecticut

Michelle Manafy and Heidi Gautschi

It is always tricky to make generalizations about generations. For every conclusion drawn about the behavioral habits of people in an age group, there will be a seemingly endless number of individuals who refuse to toe the line that analysts have so precipitously drawn. Certainly there are those any label would fail to fit. Hard to say, though, whether this is why generational labels themselves have grown fuzzy around the edges: Generation X, Generation Y, Millennial. These certainly dont bear the same strong stereotyping stamp as generational monikers such as Baby Boomer, Greatest Generation, or Lost Generation.

Today, however, we are witnessing the emergence of a fully loaded generational epithet: digital native. So named by Marc Prensky in 2001, this generation encompasses all those who have grown up with ubiquitous digital technology. While lacking a hard-and-fast start date, it most often refers to those born since 1984. As with all of the preceding generational profiles, there are those who will not fall neatly into line with the assumptions made about the generation of digital natives. Many factors contribute to variationsfrom homes in which computer use is discouraged and those in which financial circumstances result in less technological exposure to the vast individuality of the people who fall into this (or any) age group.