This year’s International Women’s Day slogan was #MakeItHappen, so we did!
Web developer Sharon Jackson and I launched We are Wow. A new venture;
”Simplifying the Digital World with fun and cake!”
Like most people who rely on computers for their work , and don’t we all now days – I have a real love-hate relationship with new technology. For most of us it’s like having a car, it’s great when it works – and don’t we take it for granted, but when it breaks down… Oh boy! Cars have been around long enough that most have us at least have a rudimentary grasp of how cars work so that we can make an educated guess as to the problem. But with the digital world it is all so new still. Most adults did not grow up with computers so our parents didn’t teach us what to do, and getting our heads round it all can be pretty darn stressful.
I am a social media trainer and what I do is simplify things so that people can
- a) Understand the digi tools at hand and
- b) Get excited about using them themselves.
Sadly what I see time and time again is business owners, who are totally competent and intelligent, feeling terrified and intimidated by the digital world, not because it’s complicated, but because no-one has ever simplified it for them. Because we have a huge language gap between people who are tech’ experts and the rest of us.
This was really bought home for me when my website got a virus before Christmas. I am not intimidated by the tech world and I am comfortable with managing my website on a day to day basis, but because I can’t and don’t want to do everything, I leave the maintenance of it to a company who know what they are doing.
As it has turned out the problem with my website has gone on and on and we are all pretty fed up with it. But what frustrates me the most is that we do not seem to share a common language and so don’t communicate well. As I told my story I started hearing of lots of other small business owners having similar problems. As a result, perfectly intelligent and dynamic people are left feeling disempowered and blinded by the tech’ speak.
I remember that it used to feel that way when I took my car to a mechanic. I had no idea what the guy’s words meant and he could have charged me anything for flicking a switch for all I knew. There were even basic mechanic skills for women courses being run by adult education because of this issue.
But then the successful garage owners (and we have a brilliant one in Galgate) have learnt to use the customer’s language when explaining things. And the same will happen with web designers as we move away from those who won’t speak human.
In the mean time Sharon and I are here to help bridge that gap.
We are business women who work online and we are educators with an interest in building community. So we want to enable everyone to make informed decisions about web related issues.
We will be running sessions ranging from; The essentials that you need to know if you want a website, what you need to ask and how to interpret the answer! To simple coding and how to use the many wonderful free digital tools available. And we guarantee that there will always be cake and laughter!
We will be working with small businesses, community groups and not-for-profit organisations and we hope to encourage more young women to consider IT careers, because we have a real shortage of those skills.
If you would like to know more about We Are WOW check out our webpage WWW.WeAreWow.UK or email Jane at Jane@JaneBinnion.com