Social networkers: Future businesspeople

I know I’m telling you nothing you don’t know: Users of Facebook and MySpace will grow up to have careers. But what I really mean by that headline is that their social networking now is very likely preparing them for those careers, at the very least in the business world. John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, “the world’s biggest maker of data networking equipment,” told the Financial Times that “social networks, collaborative Web sites like wikis, teleconferencing and other technologies that allow interaction on a large scale” are “set to usher in a new phase of productivity growth that could surpass that achieved during the late-1990s Internet boom.” In an interview with the FT, he referred to a new phase of creativity as well as productivity - that will last a minimum of 10 but probably 15 years - enabled by many-to-many communication of photos and video as well as messages.