A little behind = comfortably behind

All most everyone in the office from interns to grandmothers have a Facebook account. An account that they can navigate more easily than their desktop settings.  The reality of this situation never hit me until this morning while reading a post by Ron Bronson "Not everybody has it easy on the web".  We are not a little behind... we are comfortably behind!

2+ years ago nobody in this office had Facebook accounts except student interns.  There were no compelling reasons to invest time in learning an uncomfortable new technology or service.  As a result it took 2 years to become comfortable with Facebook. The same cycle continues today with tools like Twitter. Ron's post closed out with a great point and I'm going to steal it and make a business point of my own:

Some of us mock end users lack of awareness or make assumptions about what people know versus what they don’t. Once you roll your sleeves up and show them that it’s just not that complicated they become converts and bring others along the way. It can be empowering to save people time, money and help them reach out to others. 

Too many folks are being left behind.

It is time to schedule a our own version of the Google 80:20 rule regularly for everyone to become comfortable with these new tools.  Maybe its once a meeting once a month to bring everybody along from the decision maker to the individual that answers the phone.  The decision maker can be an evangelist on the benefits of the technology when staffing and budgeting time comes along.  The person answering the phone or greeting a student at the door is now capable of doing more than handing out a flyer or name dropping the service on the phone.  They can be an evangelist capable of showing the user how to find AND leverage the service.

To be on the edge you must have a comfortable understanding of what will get you there and an understanding uncomfortable times can be some of the biggest difference makers for any business. 

Don't settle for being a little behind or comfortably behind only settle when you are uncomfortably on the edge and teaching others to be comfortable.