After some consultation with my supervisors, I’ve updated my mission statement as follows:

Mission Statement: To provide insight from an IT perspective, as workplace habits and norms are changing influenced by the growing proportion of technology savvy younger generations in the workforce.

Basically, my research direction is now heading into two major area:

1. Confirming / breaking the younger generations stereotype (generalisation)
2. Investigate Web 2.0 and mass collaboration tools in the business

John brought up the first point in the last meeting, it seems that this is an area worth exploring. My belief as I mentioned before, is that over-generalising can lead to inconclusive or yet, incorrect results for the purpose of the research. So far, most of the research on the younger generation only provides generalised statements. Those who are based on hard facts and data are normally focused on discipline other than IT (such as HR). The lack of research in this area could be an opportunity. Such research could provide a good insight on the technological aptitude of the younger generation. Some things that immediately comes to my mind are:

• How do you define technology savvyness?
• Is there a way to measure it?
• How does their technological aptitude changes when they enter the workforce (real job)?
• How does it influence the rest of the employees?
• etc.

The second point is to look at the tools that support the people, the Web 2.0 and mass collaboration tools. Both are hot topics on the popular press, one of the reasons that strikes me is that the younger generation is a creative lot, and thus they need tools that support their freedom of expression. But for the research, it needs to be related back to the business. So, I’ve jot down a number of key questions:

• What is the current snapshot of Web 2.0 and mass collaboration tools in the business?
• What are the business drivers for these adoption?
• How are these tools being adopted?
• What are the best-practices (or unique application) of these tools in the business?
• Do these tools add value in the long term? If so, how do you measure it?
• etc.

Again, I need to stress that this is the first attempt and I will refine these questions further down the track.

These key questions are also posted under “Research Objectives” section of the blog.