Finally I got a gap to update my own website. It’s been busy with clients and since they always come first, updating my own site kept being delayed. But finally it’s done and personally I’m pleased, because it means I get to blog as well now, and it’s on my own site which means the traffic comes to my site.
The idea behind the blog part is to start letting clients (and potential clients) know more about what they can do to with their website, with social media and also to encourage them to feel less scared about computers. Coming from an IT background (that’s Information Technology for those who don’t know the term) I found it interesting and even a bit amusing that there are plenty of people out there who are actually afraid of computers.
Having given some training in basic use of computers this has come up quite a bit, and it’s mostly amongst older folk who didn’t grow up with computers. Which is quite understandable. I mean what I know about fixing cars is not much, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend that anyone gives me a set of spanners (do you use those in cars?) and points me to their car engine. So I understand when people quiver when they sit in front of a computer. Maybe they picture the keyboard biting their hands. Or the hammer in the cartoon coming from the behind the screen and beating them over the head.
Ah yes, way back then there weren’t these wonderful flat screens and gazillion byte disks and fancy games. I remember the black screen with green serif fonts. Oh, that ages me terribly doesn’t it, so let’s move on…
What gives me great pleasure is seeing how a person who was afraid, who was told (by family nogal – sies jong!) they would never master this monster called Computer, who thought a mouse could only be a hairy little thing with a tail, are now happily clicking away on said mouse, one-finger typing on a keyboard and staring into a webcam chatting to their grandchildren in Australia.
But I digress. I started out about websites. My thoughts do tend to wander sometimes though, so forgive me if what you thought you started off reading about turns into something else halfway through. But it’s related really – there are many people who run businesses yet are still afraid of computers, and who think that a website and Facebook and Twitter are things they can do without. Maybe they can, for a while. But if the competitor is doing these things and you aren’t, then the potential for losing clients to this competitor is great, because more people are scouring the internet for things they want and need these days than doing so on foot. Technology is not going away and it would be wise to invest in it if you are in business today.
