Can you survive these days if you are not computer literate? Methinks not. I did not always think this way. When I left college, my ongoing rant went something along the lines of, “Damned computers! They’ll never replace the creativity of the human spirit!” Of course in those days, we only had one word-processing thingamajig in the office and we kept it locked away in a room by itself because everyone except the MD’s PA was afraid of it. Roll the clock forward to today and now, if we have an electrical failure at Fortify Services, I might as well go home, because without my computer, I am paralysed.

I had a nice wee chat with Mr Williams on Q102 on this topic:

Hmmm. If you are a senior player, who has added value over the years, maybe, maybe, you can survive if you have one of those amazingly efficient PAs to handle all your correspondence, email, presentations, reports, spreadsheeting and so forth. But do you really want to be that pathetically dependent? And what’s going to happen to you if your position is downsized as a result of a merger or global restructuring effort?

My mother is in her early 80s. She reads the bulk of her news online now, as well as searching for info on her many, many arcane areas of interest. She keeps in touch with family and friends all over the world by email and one day, I hope to persuade her to start a blog, because I reckon Granny Mar could do with the competition … And Mum achieves all this without even a full quota of fingers, having lost one in an accident some years back.

So please don’t tell me you can’t … If you aren’t able to confidently use a computer now, it’s because you have decided that other things are more important, or because you are frightened of moving from your old ways, or because you think you have left it too late to play catch-up. Computers speak English now – no more C prompts or scary DOS commands. If you can’t it’s because somewhere deep down you have decided not to.

I said it on air and I’ll say it again – computer illiteracy is nowadays about as helpful to your career as functional illiteracy. Your choice.