The baby-boom generation occurred roughly between 1945 and 1965 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, when, following World War II, these countries experienced and unusual spike in birth-rates. The term "baby-boomer" or just "boomer", is now widely used to also encompass people born of that generation that did not mirror the sustained growth shown in these countries.

The "echo of the boom", occurred roughly 30 to 36 years after the boom, and this generation is sometimes referred to as "echo boomers". Following this theory, then, the "echo boom" generation, immediately follows the so-called "MTV" generation and immediately precedes the "Internet" generation, and is powerfully significant to us as a society for a couple of key reasons: First, they are the last born to appreciate the changes of the digital revolution and the rise of the Internet and computer technology - which I will return to, and secondly - and most importantly, since about 1996 and with a long tail stretching to 2011, these people are leaving college and entering the working population - within another decade or so, they will be defining society for us from the top, as has been done with societies from the beginning.

But why is that significant to us? Well, for the first time, our college graduates have technology as part of their general personal resource kit - its part of them - as much a part of them as television was for us, its not an add-on, they assimilated it as they were growing-up rather than having to awkwardly adapt to it as an adult - when you think about this, it has colossal significance in every facet of life - from interpersonal communication to paying bills; from booking concert tickets to having a dialogue with our long-lost Aunt in Outer Mongolia. The impact of a technically savvy adult population is, and is going to be, immense.

Nevermore significant is that than in the subject of how we interact with our children and young people, and how they interact with their peers, and though today's emerging parents have assimilated digital technology in their youth, today's children are technically savvy from day one - they have never known life without a cellphone or Instant messaging.

And, of course, even though our echo-boomers are savvy themselves, the goalposts continue to move - technology was a shift for them, but it stayed pretty much where it was for several years, today's youth are assimilating technology "on-the-run", with technology obsolescence for many products in less than two years.

Bob Mellor is a senior business technologist with over twenty years experience in the IT industry. He is accredited by the British Computer Society as a Chartered IT Professional, and currently Technology Consulting Manager at Bermuda Microsystems Group. He can be contacted on bob@bmg.bm