As a child of the 70s, I’m not exactly a ‘digital native’. And I
wouldn’t call myself an early adopter – always having to be the first to get
the latest gadget. Instead, I like to consider myself a digital grown-up.
That means not using technology (or digital, or new media, 2.0, or social, or whatever today's buzz word is) simply for its own sake, but only
where it is truly the best way to meet the objectives of and needs of the
organisation, and the people it serves.
I have always been interest in the practical application of user-focused
technology – starting with anafter school coding club at age 10, where I turned my basic
lessons on the classroom’s fancy new "TRX-80 microcomputer" into
“personalised-while-you-wait” adventure books sold to fellow students at the
school fair.
This continued into my professional life, where in one of my first jobs, (after regularly pestering the IT manager at my PR firm about ‘that mosaic web thing’) I was asked by one of the senior executives to join him in starting up a ‘new
media’ group to make the most of this new way for our clients to relate to
their public directly, rather than having to go through journalist
intermediation.
I remain committed today to the same passion for using technology to
meet an audience’s needs and measurable business objectives as I did then,
when, for example, I (I hope diplomatically) declined to add animation to a client’s
logo, on the grounds that while it might look impressive, the download times it
would add (in those days of dial-up modems) would have significantly reduced
access for the organisation's target audience of researchers and journalists whose main
interest was quick, accurate, timely data -- not whizzy graphics.
And sometimes I just sink into a comfy sofa with a coffee and a magazine, with no desire to click, buy, watch... Technology is one answer - but not the only one!
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