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Do expectations affect Web 2.0 adoption?
By Christine Martell | August 13, 2007
I was talking with an ASTD-Cascadia member who told me he didn’t have time to read a blog. That was really interesting to me, since I think of reading a blog in terms of a couple of minutes. It wasn’t the first time I had heard this, and it is particularly interesting to me that I most often hear it at ASTD meetings of some kind, which take a whole lot longer than a couple of minutes.
I don’t think there are a huge number of trainers into blogging yet. Many of those I have run into are focused on e-learning. And we know the biggest group of trainers fall into a 35-55 year old demographic that have lower WEB 2.0 adoption rates.
How does thinking relate to gaming?
I ran across a keynote speech given by Karl Kapp on Games and the Gamer Generation . The segment I was particularly interested in appears in video #3. He talks about the differences in thinking required for the games of the boomer generation versus those now.
Many baby boomers will remember Pong from 1972. There was a paddle to move, and a ball to hit. Pretty simple. To win, you needed to recognize the pattern and have some kind of hand-eye coordination.
Karl suggests we compare that to
today’s Second Life where you need to co-create the process, and discern whether you can trust another person to co-create an environment where you can achieve your goals
Which may be totally different than every other person’s goal who you meet there.
Expectations about computers
Karl separates those of us who learned about computers as adults (digital immigrants) and those who’s life it has always been part of (digital natives). As a digital immigrant, I started using an Atari 800 in the early 80’s, followed by a Mac SE in 1987. For someone at the tail end of the baby boomers, I am fairly technically capable.
This got me thinking about expectations about computers. My expectation of a game may be simple, but my expectations of computer software is that it will be complex and difficult to learn. Is it opposite for a digital immigrant?
It has taken a lot of time to learn Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Freehand, all the Microsoft Office products, and Quark Xpress, among others. I have wrestled with cross-platform compatibility, file formats, and a host of other challenges trying to get multiple people to work with the same files. I don’t expect it to be easy.
Recently I have been struggling to figure out how to integrate all the bookmarks I have been saving in delicious, Firefox at home-Windows/home-Mac/office-Mac, starred posts on Google Reader. I expected to have all sorts of compatibility problems. Guess what, it’s actually easy. The online software takes care of it.
How does this impact adoption of Web 2.0?
I continue to be surprised at how easy some of the Web 2.0 tools are to use. It is MUCH easier to create a blog with Wordpress than a website in Dreamweaver. However, before I did it, I was thinking about how hard it was going to be. Not that all the new software is easy to use, but I think the relationship of the user to a desktop application is quite different than the relationship to an online application. Could some of the lower adoption rates of Web 2.0 by the baby boomers by related to what their expectations are of computers?
As trainers, if we want to adopt any of the new Web 2.0 tools, we will have to think about how various learners might respond to the technology. As training designers, some things may be easier than we think.
Other posts on similar topics- Web 2.0 in Learning - Part 1: RSS
- At some point, it all came together–and I did not even do that much!
- Adopting Wikis in the Workplace - a Must See
- Headsets for screencasting
- Gaming & Simulations conference
Topics: - Social Learning SIG |
August 13th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Fabulous post. Great thoughts. There are a couple reasons why these technologies are taking us by storm - and taking us off guard:
1) They are easy to use, as you have point out. They are not complicated. That is one of the beauties of these services is that anyone can pick it up and run with it. It is possible to make them more complicated if you want to customize them, but there isn’t a need to.
2) They are free and open source.
These two factors have facilitated the adoption, especially among younger crowds who are more technically savvy. But, as you stated, unlike the adoption of computers, the learning curve on how to use them is lower. The learning curve of WHY to use them, however, is as strong or stronger than the introduction of computers. And this is where the real struggle happens.
If there isn’t a strong WHY then there isn’t adoption, no matter how easy the tool is. Enter you and I - helping others see the WHY.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:54 am
I showed a friend, who had spend hours making a website for herself showcasing her interest in making jewlery, how to make a similar site on Blogger in less than 15 minutes. Her WHY was to communicate her interests to the world and to invite others to interact with her about her interest. Without her WHY she wouldn’t have bothered no matter how easy Blogger was. I suppose a person has to be an evangelist of sorts creating the WHY.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I am a digital immigrant. That’s a refined way of saying ‘old guy’. I have been using computers for a long time and yet I still have a lot of resistance to adapting new technologies or even upgrading my software.
I am also constantly being bombarded with updates on what the latest new web tools are, because I share an office and am a business partner of the post’s author, Christine Martell. Christine has always been a lot quicker on the uptake about technology than myself. She is the reason I cannot sit back and think that maybe, someday I’ll check out some new technology. No, No we’ve got to adopt now!
Which brings me to the tried and true Nike expression of ‘Just Do It!’. What we as less technologically savvy people have to understand is that even though the younger people may not have the experience of their ‘elders’, they have the know-how to market themselves and deliver training and consult and coach and and and….that many of us never dreamed of. They’re using these technologies to get ahead. I’m not talking about the ‘Red Menace’ here but just about what I perceive to be competitive advantages.
I have to say that as much anxiety as I sometimes have about exploring these new tools, there truly is a much shorter learning curve then when computers first came on the scene. Gone are the days when you need to know 15 commands in order to accomplish one task. A lot of these web tools are relatively easy to use as far as the basics go.
I encourage people to try them. They can make a big difference in your business or profession.
Adapt, adopt and thrive.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Robin,
You are so right that easy doesn’t matter without a good reason and motivation. It still amazes me how blogging tools can create an online presence so quickly.
I think about the time I used to have to spend just optimizing images for the web. Now we can upload to flickr and with a few clicks there it is on our blog. Although I must admit I still find myself futzing around in Photoshop. Some detail control is hard to give up.
Tom,
Think of what it will be like when we hire our first digital native. You think it’s hard to keep up with an adapted digital adopter!