When I first entered the workforce back in 1991, all you really needed to know was how to read and write English. Email wasn’t even in yet. Memos were still printed and distributed by management as the primary means of communication. We had voicemail, but it was rarely checked, but it slowly permeated into our working ethics. Microsoft Office is just beginning its world domination, but was still competing with Word Perfect and other office productivity suites.
Today, with the prominence of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instant Messaging, and other forms of social media, it is becoming more important for workers to understand and use these technologies within the workplace. For example, support personnel can leverage the use of Twitter to gain a tighter relationship with the clients that they are supporting. They can also use YouTube to provide instructional video on how the product or service can be used. The use of Facebook and Twitter is also being used more and more for marketing and corporate communication, either building and enhancing an internal workgroup, or creating a working community, such as a user group for a particular product.
As our social behavior expands from our physical environment into the virtual world, communicating using modern social network mechanisms is more essential than ever. I think members of the workforce who entered the same time frame that I did, need to embrace these technologies. Otherwise, they will be left behind when the onslaught of the texting generation gains a firm foothold in the workplace. Perhaps they already have!