Rebooting Britain from the Bottom Up

Much has been written, blogged and Tweeted about NESTA’s Reboot Britain event that took place earlier this month. The fact that #Reboot Britain nearly overtook #Michael Jackson as the most tweeted phrase on Twitter reveals what happens when you get 700 of the UK’s digerati in one place at one time.

Now that the hype has died down, one of the things that I’ve been left thinking about was the speech delivered by Martha Lane Fox's speaking in her new role as the new government Digital Inclusion Champion.

Fox (co-founder of Last Minute.com) highlighted the 6 million whose social and economic disadvantages preclude them from joining the digital revolution. She pointed out that recent studies showed that those familiar with the web earned more, performed better in job interviews and could save money by shopping online.

She said that increasing the use of online services would not only improve the lives of those 6 million people, it would save the government money too.

"It should matter to all of us because 80% of government interactions are with the bottom 25% of society. By keeping that 25% offline you are inherently keeping the cost of government high."

Fox and her team have got their work cut out as the challenges in resolving the thorny digital inclusion issue are complex. But fortunately there are lots of examples of good practice to draw on.

Back in the early 90’s when I was involved in setting up services to engage disadvantaged, often disruptive, and so called ‘hard to reach’ young people, I discovered the power of simply providing some Apple Mac computers with access to the internet, music programming and video editing software installed.

The kids who wouldn’t engage in a normal school environment would willingly turn up for the training sessions on how to use the software, and once trained could sit down working independently and collaboratively on their projects for hours on end. They did it because they could see the benefit of doing so. It put them in control and allowed them to do things that they were interested in.

One the other end of the spectrum, the thing that got my 94 year-old Grandfather to go online was Skype. When he saw how he could stay in touch with his children and grandchildren (and even great grandchildren) around the world, he was sold instantly.

So instead of falling into the trap of thinking that the challenge is about getting people to do what we want them to do online, let’s focus on helping people to do what they want, then they might just take up what we have to offer.