Fastest Growing Users of Technology

 I've been talking to some very knowledgeable people in New York about this blog, and frankly they are skeptical that something like this is needed. Many of my contemporaries are very savvy about technology already, and don't need someone to walk them through it. They've been chatting away and getting push email on their Blackberries for ages. Some of them adopted the Palm Pilot and happily used that personal productivity product for years, using the stylus to make notes to themselves and the calendar to keep track of their lives.

Yet, both anecdotal and empirical evidence makes me believe that many of my peers are just now jumping into the technology waters. Take a look at this research from Accenture
that found that "Boomers are embracing popular consumer technology applications nearly 20 times faster than the younger generation."  One of my fellow bloggers in this space talks about it in his blog  The Savvy Boomer.

I'm finding that people my age who buy expensive phones, don't use them to their potential. For example, most smart phones these days have calendars on them and you can enter important events into them while you are out and about. If you take your phone and hook it up to the computer, it will usually "sync" the calendar on your computer with the calendar on your phone, so that all events are the same wherever you go. This feature has been available for years on many different phones, not just the iPhone, but not everyone who has a smart phone has figured out  how to use it.

Another great feature of the calendar on many phones it that it will remind you of your appointments ahead of time, so you have time to call if you've forgotten or are late. Yes, I know that business users have relied on this feature for some time. I think it is just now that the trickle down effect has gotten this kind of technology to the rest of us. What do you think?