This morning my colleague Simon Riley sent me a link to this story. Here's what you need to learn to be computer literate

Recently, I helped a very smart friend with a computer problem. She was having an issue with the program she uses most and asked me for some assistance.

The solution to her issue turned out to be simple and involved copying a file into a folder.

“How do I do that?” she asked.

At first I was a little surprised. As I said, this is a smart person, but she did not know how to perform a task that's Basic Computing 101. Like a lot of people — some of whom have used computers for years — she only knows what she thinks she needs to know and isn't interested in stepping outside that box.

That's fine until a user hits an issue that's easily fixed but can't fix it because of lack of basic knowledge.

Simon followed it up with this comment.

"An excellent summary here. I can't help but feel there is a huge gap the market -how do we create digital citizens?"

This is an American story but its the same everywhere, here's a survey done by ConnectUp Australia about the kinds of problems people have with ICT in non-profits there.

And here's the presentation I used at the recent e-engage Your Community conference in Wellington to introduce a forum on the topic, its full of actual  examples of computer illiteracy that I've run into over the last 6 months or so; you might recognise some of them. (it has the audio and runs 15 minutes)

I completely agree with Simon about the gaps in the average user's knowledge, but the real issue is not that there is a gap but rather that there is no market. These tools are being implemented to increase productivity but at a very fundamental level I suspect they are being used by organisations the same way as they use the latest star consultant's 6-sigma best practise for glorious profits and huge bonuses, in other words, as a magic bullet that you buy once and leave to work its magic forever.

• There is far too little money for training at sufficient levels,
• there is no commitment from organisations to use the tools they have invested in to the best advantage,
• there is no time for people to learn stuff; that includes management and governance as well as operational staff
• there is fear that if people are constantly asking for help they will be seen as unqualified or as complainers who will be first up when the next round of redundancies comes in
• there is too much fear that they will break stuff if they do anything but the smallest amount they are familiar with and
• there certainly is no sense that the information is no longer trapped inside a document and that its location, to most intents and purposes doesn't matter.

The commetns on the original story above confirm that this knowledge gap is across countries, economies and even across demographics, the digital natives are as ignorant of their IT tools as I am of how my car works.

So come on, we know the problem, how are we going to fix it? Plenty of room in comments, go for it.

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