Learn To Be Digital from the Digitally Fluent

People under age 30 are better at absorbing information and making decisions quickly than any previous generation says Marc Prensky in the article Capturing the Value of Generation Tech Employees. He goes on to identify these young people as digital natives because they are the first generation to have grown up in a digital environment.



Richard Saul Wurman estimates in his book Information Anxiety 2 that today's college grads have spent 10,000 hours playing video games and countless hours surfing the Web and using Instant Messenger, chat rooms, and email.



Prensky refers to the rest of us as digital immigrants -- an older generation that has migrated into the digital world. According to Prensky, we immigrants will never be as fluent in the new technology as the natives. When it comes to business, he suggests that older executives, even those who have been relatively successful digital immigrants, need to be mentored by the younger digital natives.



Prensky is right. There is no greater business trend than the digitizing of just about everything in the twenty-first century. Jack Welch when he was still at the helm of GE had his top 1,000 managers enter a mentoring relationship with young GE employees.



But those managers were the mentored, not the mentors. They were looking to the youngest among GE's multitudes for the understanding needed to lead enterprises. There isn't an organization in the small business marketplace that wouldn't do well to take a page from Welch's book.

To Go Wireless Or Not

A recent In-Stat/MDR survey on wireless phone use found that most American consumers are not ready to go completely wireless with their phone service. The reason: they want lower cost wireless service and better coverage first.



Many one-person and micro businesses are facing the same decision. We suspect those who refuse to cut the wire are doing so for the same reasons. Yet wireless phone companies continue to try to sell bells and whistles such as picture phones, games, ringer tones, broadband access, etc. rather than find ways to better deliver their core product by dropping costs and dramatically improving coverage.



It's tough to commit to wireless when you can't receive calls in your home office because you live in a dead spot. Wireless is great if you are in a major metropolitan area or driving down an Interstate. But for small business people who live in exurbia, or even a rural village, it remains a no-go.



The time is ripe for a company to combine really low-cost wireless and landline phone service -- especially for small businesses. When will wireless phone companies start selling what their customers ask for rather than easy-to-offer add-ons of questionable value? When the market demands it, and that won't be until one of them breaks ranks. The first to offer total coverage or find a low-cost way to merge wireless and traditional phone service will start a trend.

Micro-Businesses on the Rise

David St. Lawrence at Ripples writes about the growing importance of micro-businesses. He has an entire series of posts on micro-businesses that you really should check out.



Micro-businesses are a segment of the small business market. St. Lawrence defines them as businesses that do less than US$1 Million in sales per year. Many of them are home-based businesses.



According to St. Lawrence, more people are starting micro-businesses for the excitement and challenge. They want to be their own bosses and are seeking refuge from the frustrations of the Corporate world.



He says the numbers of micro-businesses will continue to grow:

"...I believe that micro-businesses will continue to grow in number and importance because being self-employed allows people to balance work and family in a way that is usually impossible as a salaried employee with a full-time job.

I agree with David's comment, and I also think there are a number of interrelated factors driving the growth in very small businesses. One such factor in the United States is demographics: the aging Baby Boom population. A significant portion of the population now has the experience, business knowledge, confidence, and financial reserves to opt out of the Corporate world and start their own businesses.

Small Towns, Small Biz

The Kiplinger Letter, in its latest edition (subscription required), reports that small towns in the United States are attracting more college graduates.



Kiplinger says that is "good news for small-business employers in those areas. Young adults are shunning metropolitan areas for quieter towns and cities that offer cheaper housing, easier commutes, good pay and less crime."



Just what are some of these small towns with a pool of young talent? Try: Abilene, Texas; Port Charlotte, Florida; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Greeley, Colorado; Provo, Utah; Augusta, Georgia; Mesa, Arizona; Everett, Washington; and Lynn, Massachusetts.





This is also good news for the economic development efforts of smaller towns. Many small U.S. towns have experienced an outflow of young people -- a brain drain that can plunge a small town into a long slow decline. We all know at least one such place, where most of the young people simply started moving away. Keeping new graduates in a town or being able to lure graduates there is crucial to a small town's economic vitality.

Women Get Less VC Money

Colleague and friend Kirsten Osolind over at re:invention (company) (blog) teamed up with Growthink Research to release a pioneering report, Venture Funding for Women Entrepreneurs.



The report analyzed 1,860 companies that raised over $19 billion of venture capital in 2003 in the United States.



In some ways the report is depressingly predictable. For one thing, the report demonstrates the stark disparity between men and women entrepreneurs when raising venture funding. Key findings:

• Women headed a mere 4.5% of all funded firms and received 4.2% of the capital. This amounts to just 84 women-led companies in the U.S., raising $783.8 million.





• Of those women receiving funding, the largest concentration (44%) was in health care.





• The next highest concentration (30%) was in business software and services, followed by 14% in the connectivity sector.





• Only 217 investors provided venture capital to women-led companies. (It comes to more than the total of 84 firms because investors partner up on investments.)





• Women are not well represented in other key roles in VC-funded firms. Over 1,150 VC funded companies headed by male CEOs did not employ any women executives.
  
  

On the other hand, there was an encouraging note. The report shows that women support other women. More than 45% of the women-led firms employed other women in management roles.



Also, this report is unique in that it captures data not just on women CEOs, but also on other executive women, by type of position. It has some of the most comprehensive, up-to-date data on the role of women in venture backed startups.



The report can be downloaded from Growthink Research.





If you are a woman entrepreneur who has successfully raised venture funding, you are a very rare breed, indeed. When I raised funding and equity partners for a startup several years ago, I didn't realize how rare it was. I never stopped to think about gender, and I am glad I didn't. If I had, I might have been too intimidated by the statistics to try.