My thoughts on the new gen of digital nomads:

1. It does make the virtual offices and temp workspaces that are popping up everywhere the norm rather than the unusual in another decade.

2. The digital nomads will fight against the silly rules that limit their creativity on the job. But these rules let their boss sleep comfortably at night. But the boss will have to learn to live with a few sleepless nights. After all, the boss may be sleeping well tonight but will not be able to sleep in a year from now if the company does not remain at its peak of competitiveness.

3. As for coddling the new Millenials as described in the 60 Minutes story, that may be OK for a few years. But the world is not remaining the same. For example, this US economic downturn and credit crisis has not even slowed down China or India or the Middle East. The only thing that might slow down the world economy is the price of oil, which the US, China and India have almost no control over. The economic power of the US economy is being replaced on the world stage. US companies and Millenials can enjoy the advantage that the large US economy has now, but things are going to get even more competitive.

4. I would say that the one remaining advantage that the US seems to have far more than many other nations that is the creativity of its workers. Other countries are filled with workers that work 10 hours and more per day. But creativity counts for more. Just look at things like the top Hollywood franchises and Apple’s iPod/iPhone. I believe that US creativity is the result of its free and open society. Other countries can create the same creativity in their people if their governments are willing to increase the freedoms that their people have. Their people have to feel comfortable with trying something very new and with completely failing. Not an easy thing to learn.

News stories seems to abound lately about the unruly Millenials and how they are both extremely ready for the digital future and extremely ill-prepared for life in the real world. 60 Minutes rebroadcast their story on Millenial job seekers and their boomer managers this weekend. From this 60 Minutes story, I got the feeling that the boomer managers really wanted to give their Millenial employees a timeout in the corner to think about what they did wrong and to stop mouthing off.

Sadly, it has been said before, but for the GenXer’s. My favorite take on “the young will revolutionize the US economy” idea is a story called “Computers Are Our Friends” in Forbes Magazine back on May 8, 1995. A terrible title, but the summary is a bit better.

Grungy? Maybe. Lazy and apathetic. Not at all. The so-called Generation X is the most entrepreneurial generation in American history.

Just the term “grungy” shows how dated this article has become. Sorry for the lack of a URL link so that you can read it in full. This article is only available in the old magazine. That means “paper”. (Turns out that paper is good for more than just delivering those Harry Potter novels.)

To summarize this article since you cannot view it on the Net, it says there are these things called “computers” that might have a big effect on the US economy in the next few years. It also says that the GenXers are very comfortable with computers and this new thing called the “Internet” so they will be the generation that creates whole new businesses where none exist now.

So basically, you can take this story (or anyone just like it for the last 15 years) and substitute GenX with Millenial to get a news article of “the young will revolutionize the US economy” idea.