Why the idea of 2.0 might have a long way to go.

So, I was a really good son (thus far) on my Christmas vacation to Bayfield, WI to visit my folks.  Aside from the fact that I drove 8.5 hours, and left my beautiful fiancee and one of the dogs at home, (Bode, the other came with me and ate fries in the car), I came under the knowledge that when I arrived here, I would be in charge of helping my Mom setup her new Gateway Laptop.  And if helping a 60+ year old woman with limited tech skills is your idea of a vacation, well, then you might just be a better man than I.

It’s not really the setup point that stressed me out, it was more the idea of sitting down and going over all of the programs, (Mozilla not IE), new sites available, (Facebook)?  What the hell?), and the general ideas of sharing and convergence. 

To those of us that have made our job, livelihood or passion around this modern day technology, most of this is pretty basic.  We look to Mashable or other sites to see how they have improved upon it or what the latest “plugin” is to take us to the next level.  But… what about the other 90% of the world?  What about the 40+ consumer that doesn’t get it or doesn’t think that social media is anything more than a way for high school kids to bitch about their teachers and share pictures? 

This weekend, when showing this information to my Mom and Dad, I realized a couple of things:

1.        It isn’t that they don’t WANT to learn about this information.  It’s more that they have probably tried to grasp something altogether new or foreign in the past, and don’t realize that today’s systems are setup for learning with ease.

2.        There is an ingrained FEAR learning something altogether new.  They have learned and changed throughout their lives and now, many of them, would like to simply enjoy or exist in the world that they have created.

3.        Many are UNSURE of what this type of technology can do for them.  When explained that they can catch up with old friends, see grandkids, and share pictures with people that haven’t seen in years… and do so a) easily and b) on THEIR schedule… they are extremely interested.

4.        They have to UNDERSTAND the idea of Web 2.0 and embrace it.  When showing my Mom YouTube and searching for Watercolor Painting, she was amazed to see that there were hundreds of tutorial videos for free from teachers across the world.

I wrote a post long ago entitled, “When does the map of Web 2.0 become Clouded?” where I talked about the fact that with all of the advancements that we are creating.  The overall question becomes, “In doing so are we simply further distancing ourselves from our clients?”  This is an incredibly glaring question that I think we all need to ask ourselves and one that has a very clear and simple answer.

Instead of simply innovating, we need to explain and educate our clients on how to use this technology and how it will in turn, benefit them.

By doing so, we will not only be closing the gap between the “get its” and the “don’t get its”, but also develop and innovate with the end user in mind.  This is true collaboration and something that many industries fail to do, spending millions of dollars in research and very little in client testing. 

So take a minute.  Call some people that might not be “up to speed” on some of the latest technology out there.  Share with them the hows and why’s to use it, and focus on the end benefits for them.  And while you’re at it, look up my Dad (Rex Dollinger – Bayfield, WI) on Facebook and ask him to be your friend… he’s new on there.

~ Matt Dollinger