The government’s Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox, made a strong case about the importance of inclusion at yesterday’s Digital Engagement conference.
Explaining that she was drawn to her job (which carries with it what she called “an insane title”) because it offered an “irresistible challenge”, Lane Fox argued that there are two main reasons why we should care about the large portion of society who are socially and economically excluded from the digital world.
Topping the list for Lane Fox was social cohesion. “I believe in an equal society”, stated Lane Fox. As a result the Lastminute.com founder is keen to use digital technology in an effort to avoid creating an excluded “needy sub class”.
As a case study, she pointed to the example of Knowle West Media Centre, a project that is empowering a generation through digital media (for those of you unfamiliar with Knowle West, it’s where Tricky was brought up – this video gives a good idea of what it’s like).
Such projects, argued Lane Fox, “increase education, employment opportunities and give people a voice.”
However, social factors are not the only issues at play for Lane Fox. The “brutal economic reasons” are equally crucial.
Outlining some headline figures from PwC research due out next week, Lane Fox argued that if all children were given online skills and access to online tools, this would result in a £25bn saving to the UK through increased employment. What’s more, if five per cent of those currently unemployed got online and got a job that would result in a saving of £675 million. Lane Fox then pointed out that it cost £44,000 per person to deal with the “bottom 20%” of the UK’s socio-demographic make up and argued that getting this group online, “I’m sure would cut that cost”.
This may sound like wishful thinking on the part of Lane Fox, but with the meat and veg of the research due out next week, we shall have to wait and see how much evidence there is for her arguments.
Lane Fox concluded her speech by outlining her concept for “a race online for 2012.” As part of her vision she aims to halve the number of people who don’t have online access by 2012. “It would be a disaster to allow a digital sub class to develop”, argued Lane Fox. It’s a bold plan, but Lane Fox believes it will help to make Britain a “digital leader”. Surely this can only be a good thing.
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Consumer empowerment will only transform society if it finds a mass expression and reaches beyond the activists and the technologically engaged.
Here are a few statistics to ponder:
■19 million people in the UK are not online
■8.4 million UK internet users do not use any form of social media
■88% of UK internet users don’t regularly (once a month) participate in discussion forums, 80% don’t read ratings and reviews and 95% don’t post ratings & reviews
■20 million eligible voters didn’t bother to turn out for the last local elections in the UK
Amidst all the hype about social media and crowdsourcing, we must never forget that consumer empowerment is not evenly distributed across the population. Millions of people in the UK have neither the means nor the interest in checking out the reputation of their local schools and hospitals online, rating the performance of their GPs or satisfying a long suppressed creative urge, by creating their own movie or soundtrack. Unless we find a way to empower the currently disempowered, the exciting future promised by consumer empowerment will never be realised.
Stuart Aitken
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Member since: 07 Nov 2008
Last login: 19 Nov 2009
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