Work Life balance and the next generation

Business Week had this article about work life balance. While it’s not in my general realm of technology, I think it has some loose lessons in terms of learning and the capabilities of the next generation. The collaborative nature and the ability to multi task are things that emerging generations will improve upon greatly. Obviously I won’t post the whole article, but it was interesting.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_40/b3953607.htm

But maybe balance is the wrong image. Instead, think transformation. Just as businesses are shifting from Industrial Age hierarchies to collaborative networks, so, too, is the American family undergoing a parallel social revolution. Parents and children are no longer on the same schedule -- unlike the way things were a generation ago. With many educated mothers and fathers working longer hours, they are linked to their kids by a web of cell phones and e-mails

At the same time, kids are taking the initiative to pursue more activities and are using information technologies to nurture their own electronic networks of relationships, from friends at school to cousins in distant cities. "The catalyst for change has been the same in the work hemisphere and family time," says Julie Morgenstern, a time management consultant and founder of Task Masters in New York. "It's technology."