At 11:39 AM 1/11/2013, Michael Skeggs [email protected] wrote: >Case in point, I am involved in a newish community group who does almost >100% of our coordination online. >We now have a few members who do not have access to email, and only patchy >access to a website. Communicating with them is hard. >They would certainly struggle if the only channel to monitor their income >statements was online.
I can second this with regard to general community. I too lead a group of well educated women, some of whom turn up their noses at converting to computer based communication and record keeping. They lack skills and interest or time. We have a member whose children provided a dongle that came with their smartphone subscription and the account lapsed because her partner objects to direct debit and they have no interest in looking for alternatives because it's just too hard (her words). Another woman is comfortable with her business book-keeping system but is arcing up against moving our accounts to a spreadsheet template. These are our middle-aged members, too. The younger one is coming to grips with email and working with documents as she never had an interest in computers and doesn't really now, so her daughter and husband end up doing the work, but I must admit, she is learning and taking on more herself. The fear and resistance is strong out there. Even in our computer club, there is one guy who is close to altzheimers and with whom I play groundhog day once a month because his laptop refuses to recognise our provided wifi LAN. I'm convinced his radio in his laptop is bad (no software reinstall works), but he keeps bringing it back to us with another 30 min of wasted time trying and telling him once again to take it to his hardware supplier for a fix or at least to show a successful connection. I'm talking almost an entire year dealing with this one. I hate it when he walks in the door each month. I don't know why he keeps coming back, frankly. There is a shift toward improved skills and access, but it certainly isn't universal. And anyone who says a local library is going to fill the gap is kidding themselves. Our local is oversubscribed with kids. Jan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia [email protected] Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space. ~Margaret Atwood, writer _ __________________ _ _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
