The coolest names blogger in the country, Mauricio Freitas, posted here regarding some less than savvy users who he has had some correspondence with.
For those who can’t be bothered reading his post – the crux of the issue is that there are lots of semi (or not even) computer literate people who have in recent times got net connections as the price has reduced. Mauricio asks whether the holy grail of 100% access to fast, reliable broadband is much use given the aggregate level of the current users.
A similar analogy is building an entire railway track network – only to realise we’ve got access to the current rolling stock with no more available in the near future.
Hand in hand with the push for a wider availability of broadband, we should be looking at upskilling the national aggregate to be able to make the most of the technology.
In my own business we have a suite of e-commerce tools that our retailers can use to view, customise and order our product. What do the retailers do? You guessed it – send faxes. It would be interesting, along with the empirical evidence of broadband availability and uptake, to do an analysis of aggregate technological ability and aversion to new-tech uptake – methinks we’d discover some depressing figures…..
Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 
[...] 21st, 2007 An excellent post by Wil Schroter here that relates to what Jim and I have been talking about with regards design of software and [...]