Sowing my OATS
Sorry for the hiatus. Just returned from New York, where I spent a busy few days seeding new opportunities. I don’t usually discuss my work on these pages, but this particular situation is more public-minded than my general run of activities, and also extracurricular to my primary engagement with the Borg, so forgive me while I bend your ear for a few paragraphs.
Much has been written about the “digital divide” – the gap in technical proficiency across incomes and geographic regions. But another important digital divide is demographic. Personal computers took hold as high-end consumer devices in the late 1980s, and in the workforce a few years before that. However, up until just a few years ago, there were large numbers of job classifications, including many high-end professionals and executives, who never had to have any contact with computers in their lives or their jobs. As these folks retired, they found themselves in the unfamiliar position of being behind the curve, unable or reluctant to embrace the new communication, information and entertainment technology.
The uneven penetration of personal computing at the upper end of the age bracket becomes more critical in light of the growing costs of serving this population with medical, social, financial and general lifestyle services. Online technology poses not just a convenient and desirable way to reach these people, but one that is increasingly necessary for reasons of cost-efficiency. To cite a common if trivial example, just last month, several major American airlines imposed fees of $5-$15 per ticket on transactions not processed over the Internet, because they claimed they could no longer be price-competitive with airlines and online travel agencies whose online sales strategies allowed them to operate at lower cost. Imagine the same issue with Medicare, dealing with amounts an order or two of magnitude greater. Seniors and older adults who lack the skills and access to technology will not only find themselves at a disadvantage as consumers, but those trying to serve them will be saddled with higher structural costs that could easily be avoided by reducing the demographic digital divide.
I wish I could claim credit for thinking of all this first (and coming up with a plan of attack), but that distinction belongs to Thomas Kamber, Ph.D., a veteran New York political activist and non-profit wallah (as well as a dear old college buddy). Fresh from a stint with the more income-oriented digital divide group OneEconomy, Tom realized the potential for a similar effort targeted at seniors. The result was OATS – Older Adult Technical Services – a new non-profit aimed at connecting seniors with the online resources to improve their lives by building skills, encouraging the development of senior-friendly technology and applications, and creating incentives for commercial providers to better engage with the senior community.
I have little to no experience in the world of non-profits, but have spent so much time and energy over the past few years worried about the social and economic implications of technology that I recently turned pro. I also bear the scars of having developed a few business plans in the 1990s, and for these reasons – plus the opportunity have me around to indulge in mayhem and depravity in New York for a weekend – Tom invited me to join the Board.
OATS is still very much a work in progress. We’re still hashing out the business plan, throwing up early versions of the Web site, and networking promiscuously around New York and elsewhere to find the right combination of willing partners to get us through the next year or so of planning and development. Living through the dotcom era in Seattle taught me not to invest my hopes too deeply in ventures so early in their development, regardless of the soundness of the underlying concept. However, this one seems very much like the right idea at the right time, and meeting the team for the first time in New York last week gave me some confidence that we might be able to get some traction here. Stay tuned.
Tomorrow we return you to your regularly-schedule political ranting.
9:50:36 AM 
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