Please note, this post is written from my personal perspective and does not seek to represent the views of any individuals or organisations I am associated with.
I followed the National Digital Inclusion Conference over the last two days via their (excellent) live stream and found it quite thought provoking.
Whilst I was involved from ‘afar’, it did appear that there were a number of people who were very good speakers, but didn’t really know how to tackle the issue of those members of society who are very much on the periphery of such things, the so-called – Excluded.
Maybe we should be looking more closelyat the reasons why there are members of our society who are excluded. Beware, some of those reasons may prove unpalatable to some! Ok, the older age group (and I’m one), that’s easy, we weren’t around all this technology stuff until late in life, we have had to learn it from scratch and it doesn’t come naturally to us, that is until we get it – and then, we really don’t stop and, given the chance, will encourage others to get online. The committment by Stephen Burns, Community Services Director, Peabody, to take the tools to connect those in care homes is great, I’m sure it could also connect the generations if the families were encouraged to be part of this learning process.
It was interesting that Tom Wright from AgeUK was worried that the ‘Geeks will rule’. Well, maybe they will, and maybe we need to pay attention to people whose agenda is not necessarily political, who share stuff and create stuff and continually question whats ‘useful’, rather than take the time trodden path of ‘doing what we always did’, because you know how the rest of that one goes.
Jobcentre+ took the opportunity to launch its app for iphone, yes, great, I tried installing it (I am lucky enough to have an iphone), and I couldn’t because you need to new 3.0 software which I cannot afford to upgrade to. How many people who are unemployed have iphones? How many unemployed people did JC+ talk to before doing this? Most of the people I know without jobs use pay-as-you-go mobiles since its easier to manage their money that way – they cannot afford monthly bills. Have you seen the price of an iphone on PAYG? About £300! I rest my case.
Tom Loosemore, Head of 4ip, told us how he spoke to some people outside a Jobcentre about the new iphone app, apparently they weren’t impressed!
There was much talk about how businesses, and DirectGov could supply essential services online, all of which could no-doubt streamline and simplify some application processes. Interestingly, the figures Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Minister for Digital Britan, supplied for the numbers of forms, questions and duplication that one person he’d met had to fill in to claim the 8 benefits he was entitled to, was surely a strong case for supporting a ‘single stream’ application process for things like benefits and maybe pensions.
However, a prediction! Remember when businesses discovered the much reviled telephone systems that mean we now have such difficulty speaking to a ‘real’ person? (I had to go through 7 number selections recently to speak to someone at Royal Mail, and don’t get me onto BT or British Gas), we must be very careful about processing everything online. The systems should have good facilities for those who will need to speak to someone. Providing online services should not be an excuse to cut frontline services. If you need to ask a question, there should be someone there to answer it, also not forgetting those with difficulties which may not allow them to complete online applications. And, of course, all this can only work if everyone has access to online facilities.
Back in the ’80s, my employers decided that I should have a car phone installed. At the time, I couldn’t see the point, I had a phone in the office, was I really going to want to speak to people as I drove around all day? I remember my son, a teenager at the time, saying what a great idea it was. I wasn’t convinced. Then, said phone was installed, and it was terrific, I didn’t have to spend hours at the office in an evening returning calls when I could just take them as I was travelling, it saved me so much time. I could also keep in touch with my office (I was a lone worker) so my safety was improved too. The point I’m making is, I needed to have it’s benefits demonstrated to me before I could see how it was useful to me. It’s the same with people getting online. There has to be a reason, and that reason could be anything.
The unpalatable bit is, those in our society who are excluded, is because they are excluded. No job, no prospects, can’t afford interests or hobbies, society has let them down, they feel abandoned, left out and hopeless. They will need a better reason than being able to fill in benefit claims and jobseek for non-existant or poorly paid vacancies to get them online.
I love the internet, but we should remember that until the content has a use it is just information. Until we can discover what might inspire someone to become interested in getting online, then we might as well not waste time and money. This is where the wonderful Talk About Local (@talkaboutlocal) project has been able to create such an interest, and is building communities and inspiring a new passion in people. It’s demonstrating how people can use the online tools to make their communities better, that, in turn, is creating interest and renewed vigour in community activism. It’s a wonderful model of one way of creating this inspiration.
