Technology Challenges in an Aging Population

Challenge      Being an IT manager for a rural power co-op means that often I am having to explain new  concepts and technology to aging board member.  Most of our board is comprised of senior  level farmers and ranchers.  Trying to get them to relate to technology changes and needs is not  as simple as explaining that technology is changing and we have to change with it, they want to  know why, they want to know how and they really just want to understand the needs for these  changes.  In order to do this I find that storytelling is a great option since I know my audience I  knows farming.  Most times we start talking about the technology challenge and end relating the  technology challenge to something that the user knows about.  It is sometimes difficult to get  these “old farmers” to open up and admit they do not understand the technology but they really  enjoy talking about their farms and themselves.  There is almost always an “ahaaaa!” moment  when I know I have related the right technology to the right item that the board member/farmer  can understand and relate to.    Application      In using storytelling I get the audience to understand that a change needs to happen and why  that change needs to happen.  This is very important if we want to keep our technology and IT  practices current.  One example was shifting our current in office server and application to an  external hybrid cloud service.  This was one of the first times some of our board member had  heard about the cloud and data storage as a service.  So the explanation had to be in three  relatable parts.

1) What is the cloud and why do we need it?   2) Why is data storage as a service better than ownership.  3) Why do we need a hybrid of the two vs one or the other.

It took some time to figure out the best analogy that I could explain it to them however we  ended up trying to explain in terms of storing cattle in a rented field.    So the cloud became a rented/leased field where a farmer could drop his cows off at and pick  them up later either all of them or some.  This was the actual physical cloud explanation.       Then carrying this example further the leased land was easy to explain as a farmer can rent  the field when the need arises, this can be due to poor conditions of one his own fields, or an  unexpected increase in population.       Why a hybrid solution, once again back to leased land, the farmers understood that owning the  land is necessary to ensure that some data/grazing land is available right away and the cattle do  not need to transported as far.  As well, owning land too far from your home means  unnecessary trips to check on the grazing land.  So for our day to day storage and work, we

needed the data available now and at our fingertips as opposed to data we only use once a  month.     Insight      What really came to light for all of us in the room when we first tried this method is almost all  processes can be related in a way that people that are not knowledgeable in an area can  understand. Sometimes just changing the subject matter from something that is intimidating to  something your audience can relate to and tell you about will get them more engaged in the  discussion and provide them with an understandable perspective.  Now, whenever I have to  present to the board I have to think what can we relate this to in our environment as well some  of the other managers have taken this approach when dealing with complex power frid/need  issues.

