Okay, so part of the problem is the vast majority of AAUW members just don’t “get” this. I’ve talked to dozens, if not hundreds, over the years since the IT 2001 campaign, and can’t really name more than 10 who understand that “sending an e-mail with an attachment” is not the pinnacle of electronic communication.

I put up my first web page in 1993. I really thought that communicating on the web was going to be as swift a transition as the PC taking over word processing. Okay, granted, it’s only been in the last couple of years that things like Google docs and blogs have made “putting info out for all the world to see” have made that publishing accessible. But still.

Back in 2001, Jackie Woods hallucinated that I was going to find a way to train all the members in tech issues. [See interview transcript.] Aside from the fact that I just didn’t want to do that (and she wasn’t suggesting she’d *pay* me for it, so what I wanted ruled), it just seemed unwise. There are dozens of “how to use your computer” resources in every community. Our “lifelong learning” thrust should have allowed us to urge our members to take advantage of them.

Recently, I’ve been hallucinating that AAUW is going to come up with a skills checklist and a way to have each branch show that they’ve got at least one member who can pull them into the new age. [See the bbvx.org blog’s training wish list and the aauwtech tags at del.icio.us for possible topics that would need to be shaped into a curriculum.]

Anyone else interested in pulling that together? I’m, frankly, about at the point where I’m not willing to do it as a volunteer…

A recent posting to the state presidents’ list gave me pause. At first I thought it was the archaic memo format. Yes, I complain, when e-mail comes out and it’s not clear who the addressees are, but still that

Date:
Subject:
To:
From:

repeated in the body of the message just seems s-o-o-o-o 1980’s…

But then I realized it was the content that really bothered me. When I tried to forward the message to others, I realized there was almost nothing in the memo that would make sense to anyone who wasn’t already immersed in the busyness of the national organization. This was a call for volunteers to give their time and talent to national committees and there was a reference to Robert’s Rules of Order about term lengths, for goodness sakes, but not a word about what these committees actually did or how they worked.

If you compare my version to their version and have suggestions for improving mine, please let me know.

But I guess my point is that I’m increasingly frustrated with a culture that’s so inward looking I fear that it won’t be able to connect to the outside world even to save itself.