To blog or not to be: that is the question

OK: so its been a couple of days and no comments. I look at the short essay, survey it, sniff the air and wait. The immediate association was to a lemonade stand by the side of an untraveled road many many summers in the past.

Now, my blogging chums have given me tips on traffic, which, after all, is what I want- if this thing is to be read: its about the getting of attention, right? Or is it? William Saroyan conveyed the idea in "The Time of Your Life" that there would be no anger in the world if every aspiring writer could get published. Blogging has accomplished that. The ether is filled with words, ideas, information, and no time to read it. And of course, often, the lingering question of what is worthwhile to read.

So the silence has allowed me to "try on" a generational divide, to reflect upon an approach to media very different than anything I've known before. And its begun to inform my thinking on intergenerational difference and misperceptions.

The management and psychology literatures mourn the passing of the watercooler as providing a sense of place- an oasis for connection: Its true: we’ve experienced an historical shift. Hierarchical organizations evolve to flexible, adaptable smaller functional teams and groups. We can work globally with anyone; we have become portable.

Just as Taylorism stripped craft, a century ago, of integrity, and substituted specific movements for comprehensive skills, we’ve evolved: the waning of the “psychological contract” between worker and management, has meant that the worker must look out for herself.

But when she does, the Baby Boom or GenX manager criticizes her for being “Y” , so narcissistic. Narcissistic? Christopher Lasch wrote the manifesto on it in the 70’s: and the murderously envious judgment is (from BB and X to Y) is that Y is more successfully like the Boom than the Boom ever was!

However, what the BB doesn’t get is that interconnectedness via IT is a potent surrogate for the watercooler. Neither is a better spot; each is time-bound. For those of us who've known the watercooler and who've been comfortable there, its passing may be missed. Especially if being a blogger recapitulates the loneliness of a summertime lemonade stand on an untraveled road.

Still…… here I am , trying out the present (if not modernity) with nary a hit: and I “get” the feeling of antiquity of my clients, sending their vitae into the void: and achieving no response. And how many times, trying to swim with currents that Gen X and Y understand, Boomers have proudly told one another that they are "on" Linkedin: Now the question becomes, what to do with it?