The rise of the digital C-suite.

In developing a sociology of the digital age, much has been made of the emergence of the “digital native” generation—those born during the era of PCs, the Internet, cell phones, iPods, and other digital tools—and how it interacts with information differently than earlier generations.

A similar approach can be taken when looking at the impact of the digital lifestyle within corporate walls. The introduction of the IBM PC in 1981 and the subsequent ubiquity of the personal computer on office desktops presaged the development of the digital C-suite, as executives who launched their careers during this time understood the value of digital communications.

Forbes Insights, in association with Google, surveyed 354 top executives at large U.S. companies (those with annual sales of greater than $1 billion) to examine how they locate business-related information. A clear generational split became apparent from the results. For the purposes of this report, we have defined each of these three generations on a technological baseline.

Generation Wang

This group is made of executives who entered the job market prior to 1980. These over-50s advanced in their careers with a terminal on their desks, but may still be equally or more comfortable with non-digital forms of communication. Not having been raised in the PC age, they are digital immigrants, conversant in computing while thinking in their native analog tongue.

Generation PC

Those whose career starts coincided with the rise of the PC in the early/mid-1980s, Generation PC members are the digital settlers of the corporate world. Generation PC came of business age with word processors, spreadsheets, and desktop presentation software, and it was the first group to send email, build Web pages, employ search engines, and see business move to the Internet. Now that its members are 40-50 years old, they are an increasingly dominant force in the C-suite.

Generation Net scape

The generation whose careers began with the growth of the Internet in the 1990s, Generation Netscape is the most Internet-savvy group. The under 40s don’t know an office without email or home pages, and they are the most willing to leverage the newest wave of Web-centric tools and experiment with emerging technologies. Members of this group are entering upper executive ranks and will be a growing influence on the C-suite.

To see these generations more clearly, consider the early career trajectory of a partner-track attorney at a top-tier law firm. In the formative stages of his/her career, a Generation Wang attorney may have written briefs by hand or dictated them to have them transcribed by the “word processing department.” A decade later, the Generation PC attorney may have pulled out volumes from the firm’s law library before crafting his/her own work directly in WordPerfect on a PC. The Generation Netscape attorney may never have cracked open a leather-bound legal text, instead using only online research databases.

Throughout this report, we have sought to examine the different information-gathering habits of these three generations, and how they are changing perceptions of the C-suite.

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