I used to teach continuing education classes for a local community college and there was a marked difference between teaching leadership classes and teaching tech classes. For the most part, people felt they could learn something valuable in the leadership classes, even if they were being forced to attend, no one was worried they could not keep up. In the technology classes, many of the participants were visibly overwhelmed before we even started and some even vocalized it as they walked out the door:
“I’ll just slow the class down. I am the dumbest one here.”
A lot of people feel like technology is changing too fast to keep up with it. No matter how many boot camps, workshops, or online courses you complete, it all seems to be moving much faster than you are. Some people sum this up with “I am not a tech person” or “I’m fine with the tech I have.” To me, this looks a lot like someone standing still on a moving treadmill.
There is a growing gap between those who consider themselves tech savvy and those who don’t.
There are many studies on the matter, basically pointing to age, gender, race, and economic differences as the “reason.” My conclusion is the current “best practices” approach to tech training is not working for people who have not chosen tech as a career.
This is a major problem because every job requires technology of some sort. Take a look at your local help-wanted ads and tell me how many jobs there are that do not involve tech at all.
What about you? Are you usually excited to go to tech training? Do you feel like everyone else is faster than you? Are you ever overwhelmed? Do you feel like you can keep up with tech? Are most of the people around you feeling the same way?
