The Summer Hire– A Treasure Trove of Talent!

     Now that school is out, many firms hire summer employees to help in the business.  Some of these hires are interns, some high school/college age students that are working during the summer for some extra money for school in the fall.
      One of the key factors that high school/college age interns provide is a well connected sense of technology.  Most students today are very social media savvy, know about facebook, Linked in, Foursquare, Twitter and any other host of social media platforms.  This is an ideal time to use that expertise to teach the rest of your staff how these technologies work.
      Having a “lunch and learn” where you buy lunch– OK, pizza, sub sandwiches, Chinese take-out, whatever the team wants is one way in which you are able to learn some new material from the summer hire.  There is not one social media modality that folks over 35 really know.  If the bulk of your team is over 45, I submit that most do not know how to text on a smart phone.
      Now, this can be fun and instructive at the same time!  Your summer hire will be thrilled to share his/her knowledge with the other team members.  The more senior team members may be reluctant to ask the “dumb” question, however, if you don’t know, there are no dumb questions!  Perhaps doing this each week during the lunch hour, one day per week, will help the whole team become more proficient with technology use.
       One of our consultants was asked if he knew how to text?  Yes, was the answer, why do you ask?  Well, the student asking the question correctly ascertained that the consultant was older than the students parents, his parents had no clue how to text, so, by inference, our consultant did not know how to text!  Interesting conclusion– don’t count the more senior folks out regarding technology.  We might surprise you!