How Baby Boomers Manage Digital Technology

The pattern of education is the key to make sure seniors don’t fall behind.

Stay tuned and you’ll learn what pattern of education has to do with seniors and digital technology.

Chances are you know somebody between the ages of 12 and 30, maybe your child, grandchild or some other relative. You’ve seen them doing multiple things at the same time: uploading videos, downloading music, texting to a friend, watching a movie, and on top of that also interacting on Facebook. This is the new generation grown up in an entirely digital environment. It’s not only the latest generation but also a global phenomenon that’s here to stay.

It’s a generation adapting a new way of thinking, working, socializing and interacting in general. As seniors we grew up with an entirely different way of thinking, seniority typically gave authority based on continued education and achieved experience. For the first time, a younger generation is the authority on something that is changing the world, and all due to the fast growing digital technology.

The old traditional education institutions are suffering and in some cases, they have problems to fill up the programs with students.

Was it a coincidence that neither Bill Gates, Steve Jobs nor Mark Zuckerberg ever concluded their university studies?

Being a baby boomer taking a serious decision a few years ago to enter the world of digital technology, I found out very quickly that the people to teach me how it all works were much younger than myself. Many people in my generation still have a problem to accept this reality as they were taught that a “real teacher” you could trust, must be older than yourself to have all the necessary education and experience.

Most baby boomers or senior people not taking the step towards the digital world, block themselves out on this obsolete dogma, and just refuse to listen to anything that has to do with digital technology.

All the rest, which fortunately seems to be a vast majority, adapt them to the new way of thinking. The silent digital revolution is going forward with impressive speed, and like or not, but young or old you need to make your bank transactions through the Internet, you need to book tickets of all kinds on the web, and pretty soon the Uber system will be the only way to order a taxi.

As a baby boomer with a typical management career in the corporate world, the digital technology together with my mindset correctly in place got me into the online marketing two years ago.

All the new words related to digital technology scare away a lot of people, thinking that this is rocket science. However, it is like learning a new language. You start from scratch and of course, you have to study vocabulary to understand the “language.”

Overcoming that little hurdle, the rest is just a step-by-step training from the very beginning (for newbies and technophobes like me) to the set up your business.

Like all serious businesses, it takes time, effort and you need to prepare for failures and frustrations. But with a plan of activities worked out in detail, you will find a community around you to help you out with any obstacle. The success will come sooner than what you can imagine.

As a senior person, we don’t want to risk a huge amount of money and the investment cost to enter the online business is “peanuts” compared to old traditional business start-ups, including franchise adventures.

The digital technology can give you the lifestyle and the freedom that so far only existed in your dreams.

With the correct mindset and a burning passion for being your own boss, thanks to the digital technology, it can be a reality today!