Last night was open house at my daughter’s middle school. Dozens of us forty- and fifty-something parents dutifully sat through each teacher’s orientation. By the fifth presentation, the majority of us were sufficiently dumbstruck by the near total replacement of hardcopy communication tools with online solutions.
Each teacher had a blog site where students could check class schedules, daily curriculum covered, homework assignments and send comments or questions. Grades would no longer be dispensed quarterly through the mail. Instead you could check your child’s progress up to the day via a private link on the school’s site.
And if your child’s soccer or field hockey game is cancelled last minute, no problem. Just list your email or text message information on the school’s sport site, and you’ll automatically get notification.
One mom sitting next to me was literally paralyzed. “Thank goodness I’ve got my kid to explain to me how to use all this online stuff!”
I often get the question: “How do Boomer women relate to technology?” The cross-generational influence via their kids is huge. To this end, Apple computer’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative is more than an educational boon -- it’s a brilliant marketing strategy to get technology in the hands of not only kids, but their Boomer parents as well.
How is your marketing tapping into cross-generational influencers?
--Mary Brown
