I’ve spent the last 25 years in personal and organisational development – helping individuals and those they work for to release as much of their potential as they can.

One of the things I have found is that the barriers to that release are often far less than people imagine – in other words, they are often limited by their perception of what is possible, rather than what really is. Michael Jordan expressed this recently when being inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame, when he said that “All of the boundaries to my progress are in my mind.” And one of those “boundaries” is resistance to change.

I’m also of the generation that went through their education without the benefit of PCs or even electronic calculators, the so-called ‘silver surfers’! And when I speak to my contemporaries about using their PCs to do anything more than e-mail family and friends, they fall into two camps – the PC literate, who use modern technology and networking platforms as part of their job, and those who don’t or keep the use to a minimum.

And sometimes, those who fall into the latter category surprise me. A friend and colleague of mine who appears to be very modern in his approach to life, had a PC fail on him as he hadn’t understood the importance of anti virus software!

It’s easy for us to mock and scoff, but there are plenty like him, especially when you look at those aged 60 or more. We know the average age of the population is increasing, that people are living longer and that during the next 10 years, the percentage of the population over 60 will increase further. My step mother is over 70, and her mother is still alive! This would have been unusual 20 years ago but increasingly it is becoming the norm.

A challenge faced by those who are computer literate, who have an on-line presence, who are trying to reach out to their customers, will increasingly be how to reach those who are not confident with PCs, let alone Social Media. How can we make the initial access simple and non-threatening and then hold their hands whilst confidence and trust develop.

If we don’t address this issue, we run the risk or marginalising a large percentage of the population and of not maximising the number of people we reach out to.

What strategies do you have for reaching those in, or approaching, their ‘golden years’, or are they not a concern of yours?