Bridlington a-go-go!

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Created on Thursday, 21 October 2010

It was a fabulous day as we drew up in Bridlington’s station from Hull and the sunshine really set the tone for our trip.  The entire Race Online 2012 team had come to the town to encourage people to use the internet for the first time.  We picked Bridlington as it has one of the lowest uses of the web in the country but the council are very actively wanting to address this. I was keen to do two things – to meet lots of different people and have the chance to hear how they do or don’t use technology and also to see if our Race Online 2012 partners could offer a more joined up solution for people in the area.

We went to about 5 different venues all of whom had opened up their ICT to help people learn. I loved having the chance to sit down with people who I could help use the internet for the first time - like Bob in the resource centre (where the UK online centre is located).   It never fails to excite me watching someone see the results of a search they have just done tumble out before them.  Bob chose fishing equipment as his first topic and was slowly convinced that it was pretty cool to see every single 6v dry cell battery he could want in front of him.

We travelled between the Job Centre Plus, the 3 mobile bus, the library, one of the schools and McDonalds talking to people and giving them a taster of the web. I met some fantastic people and saw the challenges of helping them but also the benefits when you do. There were many highlights – walking into a McDonalds to hear two 80yr old ladies talking about dongles, watching a man in an AgeUK pop up training spot realise about the existence of dating websites and seeing a man who has severe reading difficulties realise he could search on ebay and not be frightened.

I think we all learnt a lot – I was struck by how everything happens, even in one relatively small town you find a microcosm of the UK. But the 2 big things I will take away are firstly that motivation is such an important barrier to internet use. It sounds too obvious to type but I think it cannot be said enough. You need to show the non-liner that something they are interested in is online and then they are more likely to be hooked. Incentives help. Of all the venues we had organised, McDonalds was perhaps the busiest as people could be tempted in for a coffee... Secondly champions are vital.  I will work hard at the national level to keep this up the corporate and political agenda but I will be useless without regional, local and individual championing.  In all of the sites we visited there were individuals who were the digital champion for that place – it makes an enormous difference to have that leadership and enthusiasm. Every council should  find champions, every library and every JCP has already made that pledge to our campaign. We need to celebrate people that spread the word – both formally and informally – surely the 30m of us who use the web every day can find and support the 9m who don’t?

Thanks for having us Bridlington – especially all the champions and the very patient Paul and Janice at the Marton Grange B&B who looked after us so well – I recommend a trip!