Are You A Digital Native or Digital Immigrant

I heard an interesting description today for people who grew up in the digital era….” digital natives.” That makes me a “digital immigrant,” one who is still trying to learn the language, the culture, and new rules of engagement. I hope eventually to feel like I really belong and will be accepted by the “natives.” At a luncheon conference today on “social media” we arrived to a meeting room prepared with the biggest screen ever filling up almost an entire wall, and the screen was the Windows desktop I see on my various computers. My internal reaction was that I was comforted by this–that I anticipated the presentation would involve looking around on the Web with our Web- savvy presenters. The experts–from DOD’s interactive communications division–were impressive, but they wasted too much time trying to get a Power Point presentation to work, rather than just going online and giving us a tour of where they go to interact online. I did appreciate that they took time for our questions and that they genuinely shared what they thought about the possibilities for applying social online networking tools in our businesses. The greatest take-away for me was the notion of being a digital immigrant. The term gives me something to talk about with my immigrant friends in my real life networking where I am just as comfortable talking to real people, having a refreshment with them, listening, laughing and letting it all disappear into thin air while my Blackberry is off–or at least on vibrate, and the conversation ends there.