Every August, the Education Department at Wisconsin’s Beloit College publishes a Mindset List to remind the school’s faculty — and the rest of us — what the world looks like for the incoming freshman class. Most of this year’s freshmen were born in 1990. They will enter the workforce in 2012 not knowing some things that may have shaped your perceptions about the world.

— Among them:

• They’ve never known a world without GPS satellite navigation systems.
• Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
• They’ve never seen an X rated movie (though they may have seen NC-17 films).
• Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
• The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno.
• Caller ID has always been available.
• They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about nothing.
• Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
• Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
• They’ve never known a world in which Sammy Davis Jr., Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jim Henson were alive.
• IBM has never made typewriters.
• Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.

To be sure, much of this is mere trivia. But it goes to the core of our communication with young workers. Asking a young colleague to drop the dime on you when she lands in Chicago or telling a design team you want them to create an E Ticket Ride will require a little more explanation.

Think about it…

• What didn’t you know when you started work?
• Did anyone go out of his or her way to communicate in your vernacular while you got up to speed on the language in your first company?
• What kind of difference might you make by taking that kind of care where you work?