I just finished reading an-honest-to-god print book (Joystick Nation), and now I’ve finally started Got Game. From the introduction:

“Video games have dramatically changed the way members of this generation see the business world, how they think about work and risk and success, and what they expect of themselves. These attitudes can be confusing to boomers-to anyone who doesn’t intuitively understand game culture. They can even be counterproductive, both for the organization and for gamers themselves. But the deep lessons this generation has learned in and around video games carry enormous value. If managed and reinforced correctly, they can deliver that value to individual managers, to work groups, and to entire companies.” (p.22)

Last week I talked at length with a guy who is facing this issue head on. He’s a techie who loves his job fixing computers, a boomer, and now during this last year, the manager of high school and college students who manage the network at a school. He plays EverQuest and PlayStation 2 games with his 11–year old son so he’s familiar with gaming and the culture, but it’s been a frustrating year for him, even though he’s a very easy-going type of guy.

As we talked, he told me how he just doesn’t understand these kids. To him, you work on projects, you complete them, and you do them well because otherwise people get fired. Since I was in the middle of reading the first book, I gave him “Got Game,” and he got through the first 100 pages before we went our separate ways and he had to return it to me. And you know what? Those 100 pages really helped him. During our final talk, he told me that at least now he understands why these kids think and act the way they do. It’s not that they don’t care or that they’re not doing their best; it’s that they’re gamers so they’re willing to experiment and try new things rather than speed forward on the “one, true” path. For them, failure is not to be avoided at all costs. Instead, it's a new starting point. Now that he understands all of this, he believes he can interact with and manage them more effectively.

I’ll be interested to talk to him again next year to see how all of this is going, but I tell you this story because not only do you have to interact with these kids as patrons, but they’re going to be working for you – if they aren’t already – and in some cases, you’re going to be working for them. I’m barely into Beck’s book, but already I highly recommend it.