Insight into the Millennial mindset: The impact of Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 Laetitia Lorna Cook
Currently, workplaces in industries across the board are made up of four (or more) unique generations, each comprising people with a unique way of thinking. One such a generation is the Millennials. Industries such as real estate and construction, which are faced with burning issues brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), could benefit from an understanding of the Millennial mindset.
There is a Millennial saying that goes: “If you’ve got a wicked problem, you’ve got to hack it”. In the online space, a hacker’s intent is not malicious, but rather aimed at resolving complex (or wicked) problems by thinking out of the proverbial box. As a generation, Millennials are more comfortable with this notion than their Baby Boomer or Generation X predecessors. While their predecessors would typically hold strategic planning sessions in boardrooms with committees when faced with urgent and serious challenges, Millennials have hackathons in collaborative working spaces like WeWork. These events comprise a diverse group brought together on an ad-hoc basis to prototype solutions, which are usually technologically based, in order to resolve complex social conditions. 58
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The focus is on implementation rather than over-analysis and prolonged planning. Interacting with disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics, blockchain technologies and devices that share data via the Internet of Things (IoT) through seamlessly integrated connectivity (5G) are generally complex to members of the previous generations, and are often perceived as being threatening. The captains of industry in the real estate environment who hail from these previous generations are also faced with what is known as Society 5.0, in which people’s lives are made more comfortable and sustainable by continuously adding value and creating new services in age-old industries.
