Course Helps Cary Seniors Navigate Social Media

Glenaire resident Claire Latham and daughter, Barbara Marley, familiarize themselves with Facebook at the launch of Signal Hill's new social media course, Getting Connected.

Cary, N.C., Aug. 19, 2011 — Determined to become social media savvy, a group of Cary, N.C., seniors are taking part in a unique course aimed at opening doors to new friends and experiences, lifelong learning, and intergenerational connections.

Or, as 80-year-old Claire Latham explains, the four-week course is helping she and her 51-year-old daughter ‘get with it.’

“With our grandchildren avid Facebook users and even our president speaking of ‘tweets’ and ‘twits,’ it’s time to step up to the plate and become educated,” says Latham, a resident of Cary’s Glenaire continuing care retirement community.

Halfway through The Signal Hill Company’s Getting Connected course, Latham says she and her daughter, Barbara Marley, are tackling the once-daunting digital divide with ease.

Latham says: "Our cheerful instructors, brimming with patience and enthusiasm, are leading us through the mire so we may enter the real world of social networking.”

In developing the course curriculum, Signal Hill, a Cary-based leadership and communications consultancy, drew from its expertise in the mature media arena. With a 20-year history of working with seniors and a client base that includes national leaders in senior living and health care, Signal Hill is well positioned to expand the course – first here in North Carolina, and eventually, beyond.

The course is an outreach component of Senior Correspondent, Signal Hill’s online publication driven entirely by the stories of older adults. The year-old Senior Correspondent has given thousands of older adults a digital platform from which to capitalize on the power and possibilities of the World Wide Web.

Daniel Pryfogle, Signal Hill’s principal and creative director, says contrary to popular belief, older Americans are keenly aware of social networking and very much want to be a part of it. It’s learning how to access it that can pose problems, he says.

“Older adults are the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. in terms of social media, but what we are finding is that social media is not as intuitive for seniors,” says Pryfogle. “Our course keeps reorienting them to basic tools they can use again and again, and it gives them a common language and foundation they can build on.”

Latham says she and the 13 other class participants appreciate Signal Hill’s nuanced approach.

“Coming from “the dark ages” as I am wont to say, I often feel lost in a wilderness of the ever-changing world of technology," she says. “I value the opportunity to become enlightened about a small corner of what to me is a vast unknown.”

Getting Connected is taught by Signal Hill’s social media gurus, Mallory Flynn, digital storytelling specialist, and Assoc. Director of Communications Cathy Gordon, author of the book, “Marketing Your Business in an Interactive Age.”

ABOUT SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Senior Correspondent, www.seniorcorrespondent.com, is a new media venture driven entirely by the stories of older adults. A first in citizen journalism, Senior Correspondent provides people 60 and older a platform from which to share their “seasoned view of the world.” Here, older adults report on their lives and their world — politics, technology, work, money, health, travel and the arts. Correspondents include journalists and essayists, bloggers and pundits, professional and non-professional writers. Senior Correspondent is a venture of Cary, N.C.-based Signal Hill, a respected leadership and communications consultancy founded in 1999 by journalist and award-winning mature marketing expert Daniel Pryfogle.

ABOUT SIGNAL HILL

Signal Hill is a leadership and communications consultancy that outfits organizations for adventures in story. Founded in 1999, Signal Hill uses narrative-based practices to help leaders draw upon the power of their stories and multimedia approaches to get the stories out. Learn more about Signal Hill at www.signalhillspot.com.