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Just who is our Digital Champion?
22 Jul 2009 | 10.34 Europe/London
As part of its Digital Britain shenanigans, the Government appointed its first "Digital Inclusion Champion." The news that it would be Martha Lane Fox, the departed co-founder of lastminute.com, got nowhere near as many column inches as other aspects of the report. Now, over a month since the announcement, how much do we know about her?
The 36-year-old is thought to have made £18 million from selling her stake in lastminute.com, the travel and gifts website that does exactly what it said on the tin. Since then she's went on to become non-executive director of Marks & Spencer and set up karaoke chain Lucky Voice. So, apart from her previous online success, what put her in the frame to earn £30,000 a year for working two days a week as Inclusion Champ? A lot of the press coverage she does get centres on her near-fatal car accident five years ago, an experience that left her needing to learn to walk again after extensive surgery; an accident that ultimately showed her the role technology can play in "including" people. "It's the incredible human stories that show how it can be transformational in people's lives," she says.
"Technology, in terms of the web, helped me to be in many places I could no longer easily get to," she told The Telegraph. "Being less physically adept makes even the simplest tasks difficult, and yet the web can solve most of these issues. I love shopping, but I hate going into shops, because I still struggle to carry stuff while holding a stick. So, why struggle when you can just go online and often it's cheaper?"
She made her agenda clear right from her first speech in the role earlier this month; her target: "the most socially and economically disadvantaged people we have in this country." "We are really going to focus on the six million that are at the bottom of the pile," she said. "Partly because that's the right thing to do and partly because we know quite a lot about these people - who they are and where they live. It should matter to all of us because eighty per cent of government interactions are with the bottom 25% of society. By keeping that twenty-five per cent offline you are inherently keeping the cost of government high." And with such a speech, it seems she may want to keep her job whether or not the current Government keeps its own; she seems to be appealing to both liberal and conservative ways of thinking.
But according to Ms. Lane Fox, her role as Digital Inclusion Champion (perhaps not best shortened to "DIC") isn't just about saving the Government money - liberals rejoice. "There are three main areas from which people can benefit by regularly using the web," she told The Times. "Communicating better with peers, family and institutions; basic tasks such as shopping; and fun. Things like the BBC iPlayer and gaming should be accessed and enjoyed by all." But don't worry conservatives, apparently getting people online will help the economy too. "People who use the web are twenty-five per cent more confident, and are twenty-five per cent more likely to get jobs," she continued. "The web-literate on average earn ten per cent higher wages, and if you shop online you save around £276 a year."
At £30,000 grand a year, just talk wouldn't be cheap - so how does she plan to actually have an impact? "I will use my address book mercilessly," Ms. Lane Fox says. "People will start to reject my phone calls." It's hoped she could use her contacts to pull together commercial partnerships with the likes of Sky to promote what is popularly called "web literacy." She'll also back community projects, though it seems this is an aspect of her role she has less experience with.
At the end of the day, it's questionable whether a millionaire businesswoman is the right person to reach out to the poor and otherwise "digitally excluded" - or a person they could even identify with. In a recent interview, it seems she may have reverted back to type when she noted that "The top 10 websites are all owned by American companies. How are you going to ensure that doesn’t just continue with every new wave? That is where I would have liked to see more work." We'll have to wait longer than a month to see if she can make a difference to Digital Inclusion - but at least we know now who our Champion is.
Further details at [BBC News]
The 36-year-old is thought to have made £18 million from selling her stake in lastminute.com, the travel and gifts website that does exactly what it said on the tin. Since then she's went on to become non-executive director of Marks & Spencer and set up karaoke chain Lucky Voice. So, apart from her previous online success, what put her in the frame to earn £30,000 a year for working two days a week as Inclusion Champ? A lot of the press coverage she does get centres on her near-fatal car accident five years ago, an experience that left her needing to learn to walk again after extensive surgery; an accident that ultimately showed her the role technology can play in "including" people. "It's the incredible human stories that show how it can be transformational in people's lives," she says.
"Technology, in terms of the web, helped me to be in many places I could no longer easily get to," she told The Telegraph. "Being less physically adept makes even the simplest tasks difficult, and yet the web can solve most of these issues. I love shopping, but I hate going into shops, because I still struggle to carry stuff while holding a stick. So, why struggle when you can just go online and often it's cheaper?"
She made her agenda clear right from her first speech in the role earlier this month; her target: "the most socially and economically disadvantaged people we have in this country." "We are really going to focus on the six million that are at the bottom of the pile," she said. "Partly because that's the right thing to do and partly because we know quite a lot about these people - who they are and where they live. It should matter to all of us because eighty per cent of government interactions are with the bottom 25% of society. By keeping that twenty-five per cent offline you are inherently keeping the cost of government high." And with such a speech, it seems she may want to keep her job whether or not the current Government keeps its own; she seems to be appealing to both liberal and conservative ways of thinking.
But according to Ms. Lane Fox, her role as Digital Inclusion Champion (perhaps not best shortened to "DIC") isn't just about saving the Government money - liberals rejoice. "There are three main areas from which people can benefit by regularly using the web," she told The Times. "Communicating better with peers, family and institutions; basic tasks such as shopping; and fun. Things like the BBC iPlayer and gaming should be accessed and enjoyed by all." But don't worry conservatives, apparently getting people online will help the economy too. "People who use the web are twenty-five per cent more confident, and are twenty-five per cent more likely to get jobs," she continued. "The web-literate on average earn ten per cent higher wages, and if you shop online you save around £276 a year."
At £30,000 grand a year, just talk wouldn't be cheap - so how does she plan to actually have an impact? "I will use my address book mercilessly," Ms. Lane Fox says. "People will start to reject my phone calls." It's hoped she could use her contacts to pull together commercial partnerships with the likes of Sky to promote what is popularly called "web literacy." She'll also back community projects, though it seems this is an aspect of her role she has less experience with.
At the end of the day, it's questionable whether a millionaire businesswoman is the right person to reach out to the poor and otherwise "digitally excluded" - or a person they could even identify with. In a recent interview, it seems she may have reverted back to type when she noted that "The top 10 websites are all owned by American companies. How are you going to ensure that doesn’t just continue with every new wave? That is where I would have liked to see more work." We'll have to wait longer than a month to see if she can make a difference to Digital Inclusion - but at least we know now who our Champion is.
Further details at [BBC News]
aye, we know who the DICs are. Martha will do her best but the remit is hardly ideal. Its like trying encourage people to wash more because it now comes out of a tap. I would have thought her time would be better spent helping the people who desperately want to join the digital world and can't get internet access, like the 3 million who are in areas of BT market failure. Now that would make a bit of sense, she could really get her teeth into that one, and prove to the suits that OFCOM and BT have repeatedly published misleading facts. She could prove that an obsolete victorian network can never deliver Next Gen Access. She could even bend Gordon's ear and tell him his brave new world of global digital natives is gonna exclude the UK. http://www.ted.com/talks/gordon_brown.html
Yep, there is nothing wrong with the lady, just the job description sucks. More poor people don't have access to the internet in rural areas than in urban, but she can't help them. It is not in her remit she says. She can only help the ones who have access and choose not to use it. No joined up thinking in digitalbritain team methinks.
22 Jul 2009 | 11.24 Europe/London