“I expected a younger audience”

David Wilcox said, while waving a conference brochure from 1985 to the participants of the latest BIM event I went to.

If he anticipated a hip audience in their twenty-somethings, that were only just alive when the early BIM he was referring to came to the market, he would have been disappointed.

The roomful of addressees in their solemn and predominantly black, Sunday-bests were mostly David’s contemporaries.

Equally ‘cool’ was the reception when numerous other speakers’ kept alluding to the dangers our industry was facing, because at present we ignored the needs of those we may hope to employ in the future.

I have plenty times attempted to persuade my peers in the industry to pay more attention to how their children communicated these days to be able to read from the faces of those present that they were unconvinced.

I could just about quote their thoughts ‘verbatim’, list the various shades of “no way we are going to be driven by today’s teenagers’ actions” and “I had to earn my stripes through hard work, they will need to, too”...statements solidified into cynical-smirks they had not even attempted to hide.

From all of the misguided excuses people use for dodging BIM, these kinds amuse me most.

Where do these people live?

Don’t they ever come across teenagers?

Eldest daughter is turning 21 today. Happy BD Barbara!