Imagine this pretty little girl who comes in and tells them their whole world is changing before their eyes and it’s time to take their heads out of the sand and pay attention. Imagine she begins to tell them their employees won’t talk to them – they want to text and iChat instead. Imagine she tells them the way they’ve always pushed sales out to their audiences no longer works. Would you shake your head and say, “She’s not my generation. She doesn’t know hard work.”? They do.

In fact, last week, the man who introduced me said, “The more resistant you are, the better Gini is, so put all your baggage on the table and let’s have a real conversation.” And resistant they were…which really is fun for me because now there are enough case studies that I can pull up on the screen and show them why they’re wrong.

But the fact of the matter is that they’re still resistant (a gross stereotype; not all of them are) and one audience member a few weeks ago said, “I’m just going to retire before Gen X and Gen Y are the real decision makers. I can’t take where all of this is going.”

Which brings me to…is social media forcing retirement?

Alright. I know that was in jest and that it’s out of frustration. This same man is incensed about citizen journalism and the way we’re getting our news, instead of getting it by reading the good ‘ol Wall Street Journal while you drink your coffee at your kitchen table. As if I’ve had something to do with all of this. That whole don’t shoot the messenger thing? Yeah.

But it does raise an important issue. Are CEOs going to just get by in this technology age until they retire and let someone else worry about the young ‘uns?

If not, read it here.

While fully realizing I am not a Fortune 100 CEO (yet), I run a business, I have staff, I have people who have left, I even have employees who have been “sacked”, and there are lots of people out there who don’t find me amusing or intelligent (much to my mother’s dismay).

Yet, I have a presence online because it’s pertinent to the brand and because people want to have access to the people who run the organizations they buy from…they don’t want to talk to the PR department or to customer service. They want to tweet Zappos and know they’re talking to their CEO.

There are CEOs who do a phenomenal job of using the social networks, even though they might have angry shareholders, unhappy customers, and even “sacked” employees.

I don’t agree with the Newsweek article stating that the Fortune 100 CEOs should not be on social networks. Consumers are even more skeptical today of large corporatations and the ONLY person who can change that perception is the CEO. If they’re absent from the discussion, it only is going to create more problems for the companies.

As I always say…this is not Gini Dietrich’s trend. People are moving online, and at rapid paces. It’s time to get out there and communicate with ALL of your constituents.