Then goes on to observe how in the business world today, there are definitely those who have progressed… and those who haven’t. He concludes: “There are those organizations holding on to the past, but they will be made irrelevant as we move further into the future and the divide grows. Being afraid is not an option.”

But sometimes you have to wonder! We have our web-savvy, micro-blogging, smartphone-toting people here, and then we have… people who still own a VCR – and still can’t program it! We have tech-support calls with people who don’t know you need a computer to use the Internet, can’t tell when their computer is plugged in, use the CD-ROM tray for a drink-holder, and so on. Each of us can think of one relative who leans on us for tech support at home, re-formatting and re-installing Windows when it gets too clogged with viruses and malware. If we tell them to get a Mac or offer to install Linux, they just look at us with a blank stare. We’re talking in that crazy “computerese” again.

Maybe it will just go on like this down through the generations. As the author notes, some of the people the same age and younger seem to struggle to adapt to technology as much as the older folks do. That’s not a sign of robust progress.

Peter Brittain