Hold on, Grandpa’s buzzing me on Yahoo!
- Posted by Sara on February 11th, 2007 filed in IT & Telecommunications, Services
Opportunity: Senior internet coaching
I was recently talking to one executive in the IT&C sector, who told us about his efforts to introduce his elderly parents to computing and internet usage. The solution they came up with was to have the teenage grand-daughter visit her grandparents and coach them for one hour per week.
As broadband becomes more and more widespread, middle-aged and elderly people will experience the ‘digital divide’ ever more painfully. Their usage scenarios might range from a high-school teacher who needs to check out if his students are merely copying reports they found on the internet, to a specialist in the humanities writing a PhD who needs a solid grasp of word processing tools, to parents of young people living abroad, who would love to use email, audio and videoconferencing to keep in touch with their family - and exchange the latest pictures of the baby.
This might be a very good opportunity for college students to create a coaching business. Putting together a simple teaching plan and gaining a basic understanding of adult learning styles can go a long way towards removing the pain from the learning process. Using part-time students to do most of the work can keep the cost structure low, while ensuring more staff available for the holidays, when working people are more likely to have free time to devote to this. If the client doesn’t yet have a computer and a network connection, more tech-savvy students can help with this. Students would then visit clients in their home and coach them on the basis of their specific needs. Perhaps a ‘tech support’ arrangement could be drawn up, with the client being invited to call their ‘coach’ for support if they get stuck.
This could be initially advertised to Romanians living abroad, who would pay for their parents to get the service. Then the word would spread, and references could take it a long way.
Written by Sara
February 13th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Awesome idea! I don’t know if it will work for my grandma’ , but for my mother it would definitely worth a shot.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Very interesting idea. However, the elder generation (grandparents) would have to have a very strong desire to learn this because 1) it becomes more and more difficult for people to learn new things as they grow older and 2) I’ve noticed that they lose their patience faster . Also, the challenge can be even greater for somebody who has never worked with a PC or a typing machine before and has to learn the basics of turning on/off, restart, including typing and using the mouse. I think more real potential is in the middle-aged population – maybe the ones who could use this to return to the workforce - rather than the senior community.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:21 am
[...] Pentru ca aici se face un prim test al ideilor de afaceri – pentru ca voi ne spuneti daca bunicul vostru ar vrea sa invete sa umble pe net, sau daca ati vrea sa beti ceai la biserica. [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 9:29 am
[...] Sara wrote earlier a post regarding IT coaching for seniors and I would like to take that idea a bit futher. Besides training seniors, I believe there are more types of people that could take advantage of this type of learning. Most people that do not have a personal computer by now, do not know how to use one; this alone being the prime reason for holding back on the purchase. Yet most of them would like to have one, read things on the internet, stay updated with the family or friends abroad, publish their thoughts, play a game or just watch a movie. So, why not provide classes along with the hardware? [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
[...] Sara has spotted in an earlier post the opportunity of coaching middle-aged and elderly people in the complicated internet world. [...]