I came across a quote last week that was attributed to Alvin Toffler and thought it was a profound statement -

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." 

I say attributed to Toffler for the reason that other sources I checked didn't have this exact quote, but the above quote was generally in agreement with the point Toffler was making in the quote I did come across.

I have read a lot of blogs in the last few months about how Generation Y or the Millennials are coming into the workforce and are the driving force behind some of the new ways of working more collaboratively.  While I don't disagree that they are bringing in new expectations of how organizations deal with this new generation in the workforce, I don't believe they are the primary driver behind some of the Enterprise 2.0 implementations as some strongly believe.

I was re-reading a blog post from a few weeks ago on Forbes from someone at IBM that was advocating you need to be networking with your younger employees.  This statement really bugged me -

"That's a lot like the use of enterprise 2.0 social software systems today. Older generations have an ingrained urge to avoid collaborating, having spent their lives being trained to hoard and control information. Their thick, almost-impermeable skin takes effort, time, encouragement and environmental change to break through."

I have written about knowledge hoarders and knowledge leaders before (see blog post here), but I disagree that this is just a characteristic of the older generation.  It may seem like it is just the older generation that avoids collaboration because until very recently they made up most of the workforce.  But I have seen people of all age groups that don't collaborate.  It is just built into their DNA to not share what they know.

I certainly am closer (at least age-wise) to being characterized as the older generation that has an ingrained urge to avoid collaborating.  But ask anyone that I work with and they should tell you (at least I hope they would) that description doesn't resemble me in any way.  I share and collaborate frequently using enterprise 2.0 tools like this blog and our internal microblogging tool Yammer.  I have invested a lot of time in the last 3 years learning about and using these various tools, including any behavior modifications that were necessary.

Age has nothing to do with being willing to collaborate and adopt and use Enterprise 2.0 systems today.  Many in my generation (as others have also written in blogs) strongly agree that the age argument isn't really valid.  The quote from Toffler is key for a member of any generation to move forward with new technologies and new ways of working - you need the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn to be successful in the 21st century.