During a June 2007 event in New York City sponsored by the Harvard Business Review and Microsoft Corporation, Johnson explained how those people who have cut their teeth in the Digital Age have quickly become adept at dealing with cognitive complexities. They are able to keep up with complicated social networks and to collaborate on projects with people in far-flung locations whom they have never met. These are skills that it has taken previous generations years, and even decades, to learn.

"This generation grew up on [and is] fluent in the online world," Johnson said.

Pop culture has gotten a bad rap, he said. Although parents and others generally blame the hours youngsters spend in front of a computer or television playing video games and watching shows for creating a passive generation that eschews any real challenge, Johnson disagrees.

"If that were true, then games would have gotten simpler," said Johnson, who noted that games and TV shows have grown in complexity, which appeals to Net Natives. "People like to be challenged," he said.

Johnson recounted how his own seven-year-old nephew grasped the relationship between industrial taxation and factory occupancy during his first foray into the popular computer game Sim City, in which gamers create, populate, and run their own cities. "He was learning in spite of himself," Johnson said.

Another example he cited: In the computer game Civilization 4, players build alternate world histories—selecting a form of government, an economic model, a religion, and the like. Players must keep track of thousands of details and engage in complex problem solving. "This is the kind of thinking that one needs as a grown-up," Johnson said.

Technological advances such as more dynamic user interfaces, video on the Web, instant messaging, and blogging tools provide Net Natives with the opportunity to develop a variety of skills that should serve them well in the workplace, Johnson noted.

Indeed, this environment of rapid technological development encourages Net Natives to be versatile and flexible, he added, to keep up with and even anticipate the consequences of rapidly changing scenarios.

As the current generation absorbs the intricate storylines of certain TV shows, it is unconsciously learning about complex social relationships within organizations and how to maneuver within them. Johnson contended that the popular Kiefer Sutherland show 24 has more in common structurally with a novel by Jane Austen than it does with its earlier counterparts. He compared the program's layers of complexities and often nuanced character relationships to those in Dallas, 1978's highest rated show, where viewers were—in his words—"hit over the head" with obvious and fairly simplistic links between characters.

By keeping track of richly layered storylines and the interrelationships between characters on a TV show, viewers are developing a usable talent. Based on his research, "people who are good at keeping social networks in their heads, and keep up with the connections, are very good at their jobs," Johnson said. Furthermore, these social networks provide valuable experience in interpersonal relationships. And, he added, those "emotional IQ skills are very important" in business relationships.

However, the most marketable skill that the Internet may have provided Net Natives is the ability to work naturally and spontaneously with virtual strangers. Wikipedia, for example, has single-handedly encouraged a corps of volunteers to do what many managers have spent countless hours and dollars trying to convince workers to do: collaborate freely with colleagues scattered around the globe to generate documents, solve problems, and share their expertise on projects.

"None of the people know each other, and they come together to build this [Wikipedia] entry, collaborating and editing a document on their own," Johnson said, with no leader or boss to drive them.

Although Net Natives may enter the workforce with more highly developed talents than their predecessors, their future managers face some challenges.

Net Natives are often thought to lack the persistence of more traditionally trained workers. For example, they may casually walk away from tasks that do not hold their interest. This willingness—or perceived willingness—raises concerns that the new generation of workers will require constant stimulation to remain engaged in a project.

Attendees at the New York event seemed to think that the onus was on company managers to find more creative ways to engage these workers, possibly by changing the process for developing and completing projects or even by creating a less "corporate" work environment.

Finding ways to better engage and hold Net Natives' attention is not the only challenge. Despite all of the opportunities that today's marketing professionals have, for example, to harness new technologies and skills, to build incredibly creative and engaging promotions, there are some drawbacks. Chief among them: a loss of control.

Carmaker Chevrolet learned about that lack of control firsthand, Johnson said, when it tried to use viral marketing to promote its Tahoe sport utility vehicle. Partnering with Donald Trump's now-defunct TV show The Apprentice, this division of Detroit, Michigan-based General Motors Corporation asked viewers to create their own videos, with captions, as the basis for a new marketing campaign. It was not a success. Needless to say, hip new ideas do not always translate into better corporate strategies.

Despite these and other challenges, managers have a tremendous opportunity to harness the talents of a new generation of workers and to translate these abilities into a competitive edge for their companies. Johnson, along with the rest of us, is eager to see how collaborative skills—learned from watching TV and playing video games—mastered by Net Natives will provide these modern-day workers with the knowledge and experience to succeed in business.

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