Sunday, May 15, 2005

Ageism

In Steve Hall’s interview with BL Ochman about how he built Adrants into a commercially successful blog, Hall talks about how he fell into blogging:

Hall was unemployed "just like every other blogger" and was between ad agency jobs. "I followed the old adage," he says, "write about what you know."

"I'm 43. I always wondered what I would do when I turned 40. Advertising is very ageistic. There are not many people with gray hair in ad agencies. I never really had a conscious though that I better start a business. I just fell into this. And I love it."


In a country that is becoming grayer this has got to stop. Ageism is holding the whole country back by denying older people the opportunity to contribute to society.

It has long been my opinion that many of the quality and security problems in software and technology come from the pernicious practice of age discrimination. Institutional knowledge and experience with dealing with customers is at least as valuable as mastering the latest technology. It is only by living through an installation and implementation that you begin to understand the gulf between theory and practice. To discard workers with this knowledge is a grave error.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I retrained into I.T. at 39, had a few years working as a contractor. I loved programming and solving problems, we can't all be Guru's, most of us are just solid techis that love what we do,unemployed for 18 months now and 57 years old. Could do with a job, earn some money, but can't get a job stacking shelves, haha and we hear we may have to work beyond 65, I retrained into I.T. at 39, had a few years working as a contractor. I loved programming and solving problems, we can't all be Guru's, most of us are just solid techis that love what we do,unemployed for 18 months now and 57 years old. Could do with a job, earn some money, but can't get a job stacking shelves, haha and we hear we may have to work beyond 65, I retrained into I.T. at 39, had a few years working as a contractor. I loved programming and solving problems, we can't all be Guru's, most of us are just solid techis that love what we do,unemployed for 18 months now and 57 years old. Could do with a job, earn some money, but can't get a job stacking shelves, and we hear we may have to work beyond 65, 'Gis a job, I can do that'