After 17 years in the driving seat I am taking a year off from the marvels that are Digital Unite to go sailing with my family. It feels like a rather momentous decision but I am very sure it is also a very good one not just for me but also for Digital Unite.
My DU life began when I started teaching internet classes for older people in London all those years ago; and I now am, as my son noted just this week in my birthday card, older myself (“no offence Mum, but forty three is pretty old”). Once I had stopped laughing enough to finish my cup of tea, I reflected how much has happened also in terms of the widespread use of digital technology in the last decade and a half.
When I started teaching classes for older people, the world wide web was just starting to be used by the general public in the UK. Websites were simple, clunky and one dimensional. Hardware, software and connectivity were expensive and often cumbersome to use - I had to ferret under my desk and manually connect my computer to the internet whenever I wanted to go online at home. A new PC was a significant financial undertaking.
In 2013, we no longer need to sit down at a desk to go online, we take online with us, and pretty much wherever we are and whatever we are doing, we can use the internet to get directions to new places, find seats in cinemas, buy and get a new book delivered within hours, have a chat with and actually also see a friend on the other side of the world for free, even start a petition to Downing Street. A few days ago we were offered a new PC for £24.
Yet while the digital landscape – and products, services and the gadgets that populate it - is almost unrecognisable, the digital skills gap is stubbornly persistent. It is possibly actually more tricksy than it was when we were first taking those tentative steps online. In 1996 relatively fewer people had online and what at DU we call ‘everyday digital’ skills, because online and everyday digital was still not quotidian. It was OK not to know too much. It is now not as OK at all. I am never going to say everyone has to use the internet, but I will keep on saying everyone should have equal opportunity to do so, and that means access (connectivity, kit - whatever that looks like) and skills. And skills is a bit of a catch all, which also scoops up very important things like context, understanding and lest we forget enthusiasm, desire, need. As the barriers to access diminish (cost, ubiquity/ proliferation, choice) the barriers that a lack of skills and understanding presents are still significant: 78% of retired non-users cite lack of skills as a key reason why they’re not online; around 8 out of 10 non-users state a simple lack of interest as a reason for not going online. (Go ON UK).
All this at a time when the government is taking its 650+ transactions with the citizen online, and Government Digital Services (GDS, part of the Cabinet Office) has declared its intention to create online services ‘so good you’ll want to use them’. Having the skills to be digitally confident and capable has never been so important. Luckily, we’ve had seventeen years to get ready for this at Digital Unite and have a range of products, services and a lot of good will and good humour to support you; whatever your digital skills needs – whether that be for you or for people you know, love or represent – I am sure we can help and that we will continue to be able to help.
So, I’m off to sea to recharge some of the batteries that have powered DU forward for quite a few years now. I anticipate returning with renewed vim and vigour and I hope a new perspective that will set us up to power into the next seventeen years. In the meantime my excellent, experienced and dedicated team will continue to deliver Digital Unite’s range of digital skills services and support that hundreds of thousands of people have benefitted from to date. I look forward to re-joining them in June 2014. Until then, do continue to unleash your digital talents – with our support and congratulations.