Brief

Here's a summary the brief we've been given:

New ways of working and your grandperson*...

Perhaps ‘new ways of working’ sounds like a young person’s issue, but important demographic changes are happening in Scotland, and elsewhere:

- people are living longer and often staying active long into their retirement years

- jobs tend to be less physical, and many people are even reluctant to retire...

- and employers are increasingly aware of the knowledge, experience and wisdom that is lost

when they do

- many older people are more independent but also wish to travel to visit remote family, both of

which require money...

- at the same time, there will be less younger people in work whose taxes etc. can support state

pensions

All of which suggests that we may end up needing to, or wanting to, carry on working beyond the current retirement age of 65. So ‘new ways of working’ is as relevant to your grandparents’ generation as it is to yours.

Your grandperson and networked objects

Your grandpeople may seem surprising potential users of networked objects. Networked objects become interesting because grandpeople may or may not have ever used a PC, and whilst many are learning how to, others may not be interested or be too intimidated by this: simpler objects

- networked objects - can make the amazing possibilities of computers, the Internet and interactive media electronic media accessible and engaging to older people. There is so much more we could be sharing across the generations, whether side-by-side or across the world. Technology could be helping us cooperate, rather than dividing us because you can’t write shorthand and your grandmother can’t use Automated Speech Recognition; you can’t tell the weather from the clouds and your grandfather can’t log on to a forecast website; you can’t use a compass and your older neighbour can’t use GPS, etc., etc. (these are certainly not the best examples – you will be proposing better ones!).


As you can see, lots of restraints but even more possibilities