Administrators and Technology

As a former administrator in both public and private health care sectors, I have experienced both fear of the unknown and financial limitations as it relates to implementing and using technology. I absolutey believe this has something to do with age Adminstrators (40+), the majority of which have never been exposed to technology, other than what is necessary to bill/claim services and report to county, state and federal pay sources. Today, I have a much better sense of various software and other applications to know the great opportunities non-profits have at their disposal. The trick - articulating that to my former peers in such a way that it does not take them 6 months + to integrate and conceptualize.

I want to help non-profits sore above the current industry standards in this area, but with all of environmental variables impacting budgets, staff resources and knowledge base, this is challenging.

Any words of wisdom which would allow for a 3- minute introduction on the topic?

Welcome to TechSoup! I'm nodding in recognition at your inquiry--I think many nonprofits are in the same boat at having to learn new technologies and ways to make this process less daunting and scary.

I'm sure others will have insights to offer, but a good place to start is our Healthy & Secure Computing program, which has a number of workbooks, resources, and training tools that can give you some good guidelines on introducing this topic.

You might also find this recent discussion to be helpful.

Best,

Megan

I absolutey believe this has something to do with age Adminstrators (40+), the majority of which have never been exposed to technology...

pamaz602,

I respectfully disagree with your basic premise, believing it to be long out-of-date.

Those 40 year old administrators were 15 years old when IBM introduced the PC, 20 years old when it became common in the workplace and 27 years old when PC's had become so popular and inexpensive that marketing efforts moved out of the niche realms and into mainstream advertising.

To be sure, there are still many computer illiterate people out there. But for most of them, it's not due to lack of exposure or availability.

For your effort to be most effective, I suspect that you will need to identify and address several other aspects of human behavior.

-ENO