In a previous blog entry I touched on the fact that being young in business is a disadvantage when saying the unpopular thing. The truth is that in most organizations management recognizes the need for new “young” talent, and the emergence and subsequent popularity of online communities has reinforced the notion that maybe those with the most tenure aren’t always going to be the ones with the most knowledge or best ideas around social media and community strategy. The C-levels seem to really get it these days, and I thank all the web-strategists and community evangelists out there for starting the conversation and opening the doors (sometimes just small windows) for new thinking and creating crazy amazing opportunities for relative newbies like myself to add to the conversation and participate in the change.

Now that the flowery things have been said, it’s time for me to pull up a little dirt and note that despite the very perceivable changes taking place in corporate (and non-profit) America, I’m noticing an emerging tug-of-war between new talent and seasoned professionals. Positioning myself on the new talent team, not by choice but more in part due to an unspoken newbie hazing, I find little opposition to my presence. Where the struggle seems to be is more theoretical in nature. I’m embraced with arms wide open, but there are moments (granted they are few in frequency) when minds are still closed.

Just the other day I found out that another, more senior, individual at my company has been more than toying with the notion of creating a social networking site to enhance the means of communications between teams in each program. Hmm…funny…that’s strangely similar to my responsibility. As the information eventually trickled down, and it always does, a colleague and I wanted to find out about this competing effort so we scheduled time to discuss the matter. Long story short, everything is a go on this other project and I’m just now finding out about it. To make matters worse, I had to sit in the meeting and endure the fact that this individual was not only operating solo but was operating under the impression that she knew more about social networking, online communities, and social media than I did. She encouraged me to really think about social networking and how it could serve our programs (um…yeah…that’s what I’ve been doing since day 1…I have wireframes to prove it).

I reflected on the meeting (more like fumed and then reflected) and decided that I’m okay with being talked down to. I’m even okay with other people assuming they’re smarter than me. But what I’m not okay with is the revelation that the community of the organization is segregated and that we’re working against each other and not with each other. What’s the point? We’re only spinning our wheels.

I don’t need to win and I don’t need to be right, but at the end of the day I don’t want to be in a tug-of-war battle and find myself caked in mud because the struggle just doesn’t seem worth it.

And for the record, I’m young, not dumb. I know what social networking is!

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