Zogby's "First Globals"
- By Professor Prabhu Guptara
- Published 01/31/2009
Professor Prabhu Guptara
Professor Prabhu Guptara is Executive Director, Organisational Development, Wolfsberg (a subsidiary of UBS - one of the largest banks in the world). He is also Freeman of the City of London and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, and Chartered Fellow of the of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; he is also Fellow: of the Institute of Directors, of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures; and he continues to supervise PhD research at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) as well as to be Visiting Professor at various Universities and Business Schools around the world.
Earlier roles include: a Governor of the Polytechnic of Central London, Member of the Council of the British Institute of Management, of the International Federation of Training & Development Organisations (IFTDO), of the Association for Management Education and Development (UK), of the South East Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry.
Judge, 1988 National Training Awards, 1980 Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1990 & 1991 Deo Gloria Prize for Fiction; Chair of the Panel of Judges, Deo Gloria Prize 1992 & 1993.
Experience with an enormous range of organisations including: Akzo Nobel (Netherlands), the Associated Banks Institute (Germany), Barclays Bank (UK), British Petroleum (UK), the Council of Europe, Cultor (Finland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Groupe Bull (France), Federation of Finnish Engineers (Finland), the International Management Association of Japan, Kemira (Finland), Kraft Jakob Suchard (Switzerland), Leadership Academy (Finland), Nokia Telecommunications (Finland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), Sedgwick International Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers (UK), Singapore Institute of Management, Sonatrach (Algeria), Sun Alliance (UK), UNCTAD, Valeo (France), and so on.
Organiser, chair and lecturer by invitation for numerous international conferences, he has contributed widely to radio and television in the UK and other countries (The Money Program, Any Questions) and has written for Financial Times (London, UK), The Guardian, The Times and other publications; articles, for example, in The Gower Handbook of Management, The Gower Handbook of Quality, and the International Encyclopedia of Business & Management (Routledge).
A CD-ROM has been issued of his lecture at the Professorenforum, University of Zurich, titled "Making the World Better - Why it does NOT happen...and what TO DO about it"
Further information available from rbadertscher@coba.ch
His best-known research publication is "Top Executives in the Global 100 Companies and their IT-Competence" (ADVANCE: Management Training Ltd., UK, and Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre, Switzerland, 1998); and he is included in Debrett's People of Today and in Who's Who in the World. Professor Prabhu Guptara lives in Switzerland.
You may not be aware of the American pollster John Zogby (www.zogby.com) but don't go rushing off to his site before you have read the following.
Among his conclusions is: “We are in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of the American character… Away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources.” He describes 18 to 29 years as the “First Globals": a “digital generation” that accepts all races, sexual orientations, and national cultures equally, intent on living sustainably in a unified world.
However, in order to assess that properly, you may want to keep in mind that Zogby comes from a Lebanese Roman Catholic family and describes himself as a Democrat. It may be that this is how that generation likes to think of itself. But is that how that generation actually is?
Well, this generation is undoubtedly digital (at least in the educated parts of the world, which are regretfully not the majority).
But it is worth reflecting on WHY this generation "accepts all races, sexual orientations and national cultures equally". What if this sort of "tolerance" is the fallback from it being too much like mental effort to think about the issues raised and much less effort to simply be "nice to all"?
And what if the interest in "living sustainably" is simply a similarly fashionable floating downstream along with all the other dead fish? I see very little evidence that this generation is prepared to spend more in order to choose "green products" or a "green lifestyle".
I do see evidence that this generation has a potential interest in putting itself to a certain minimum degree of exertion in order to help, but that marginal interest has not been tapped.
And I see no evidence at all that this generation is interested in being any less consumerist than its parents.
Zogby, being a political scientist and a pollster, presumably does not keep tabs on simple economic and financial matters.
If he did, he might notice the simple fact that this generation has higher levels of credit card and other debt than any other generation in history.
