After a couple of weeks of contemplating, I’m finally back with a new blog. I’ve decided to move platform from Joomla! to Wordpress because I think it is better for the things I want to do. So I do apologise to my supervisors if they are wondering why my RSS is broken.

As I’ve mentioned to John, one of my research supervisor, I’ve had some thoughts about altering my research. Not anything utterly major, but just a slight shift of focus.

My proposed research is on the growing Gen Y workforce and how it can affect IT within the enterprise. Why IT? Two main reasons: One, my background is in IT/IS. Two, Gen Y grew up with the internet. The two are almost synonymous: Facebook? MySpace? YouTube? It’s a daily staple for us.

Which brings to the point that Gen Y is the workforce of the future. Slowly but surely they will replace the generation before them and along the way they create change. It is a common, recurring theme.

My initial focus was on the tools we use: blogs (like this), wiki, social network sites, and so on. I thought it would be a good idea to analyse how these tools are being used in the enterprise and then compile a sort of best practices guide. However, I believe I’m not thinking big enough.

After reading a couple of books, “The Future of Management (Hamel, G. & Breen, B. 2007)” and “Wikinomics (Tapscott, D. & Williams, A.D. 2008)”, I’ve broadened my perspective. Instead just the tangible and apparent, I would like to dig a little bit deeper and analyse the intangibles as well. I want to understand the wisdom, the principles, and the motivation.

To start, and to keep me focused on the goal, I’ve written my mission statement below.

Mission Statement: To help companies (big and small) understand and extract the potential of its younger workforce through technology solutions.

You may notice a number of things. First, instead only the enterprise, I want companies of all sizes benefit from my research. Second, in reality there is a big grey area between the generation preceding the Y (Gen X) and the generation superseding it, it’s very easy to fall into stereotyping and I want to avoid it. Third, instead of just IT/IS, I’m referring to a broader term of technology solutions. How IT/IS will evolve in the next 5 – 10 years is anyone’s guess.

Over the coming weeks, I will elaborate more on my mission statement, my research focus, while at the same time refining the research question and research methods.

Keep an eye on this space!