TAO/Persona Simona

Persona description of Simona, a consultant for adult education association of NRW (vhs-Landesverband NRW)

Personal characteristics

Simona is a woman of 39 years who lives together with her two children (14,12) and her cohabitant in Cologne. She has a new job as consultant for adult education association of NRW (vhs-Landesverband NRW). Her job is to consult local adult education centres with regard to Web 2.0.-Activities (courses, services and learning-communities) for older people over 60. Simona is a cultural anthropologist with a focus on communication science and expert knowledge in management. In her former job at seniorweb.nl she got experience working with older people and new media, later on she was engaged in new media studies as an assistant at the universty of amsterdam. She is determined in the pursuit of her goals, has good diplomatic skills and has a rather critical attitude towards technical novelties.

Simona’s professional goals

Simona wants to distinguish herself with her new job and wants to be a key person, she is culture and education orientated and has a sense of mission for older people concerning the use of internet for active aging.

Key Stakeholders in Simona's job

The management of the adult education association of Nordrhein Westfalen

• Wants to position the adult education association as a key organisation with a proof of competence and a positive track record for new media education with regard to different target groups, notably elderly people
• Wants the adult education association to provide effective advisory and support activity for the local adult education centres
• Faces pressures with regard to the adult education association's legitimization as an umbrella organization
• Is innovation oriented
• Expect Simona to effectively promote new media courses for older people among adult education centres and to establish herself as a well-respected consultant in this field in order to underscore the adult education association's leading role

Local adult education centres

• Their mission is to activate new target groups and commit them
• They constantly need to develop new offerings and education services (some of them do so pro-actively, others more reluctantly)
• Dependent on attractive educational offerings
• The use of Internet and new media is an issue among their target groups
• They are interested in recipes and instructions for course concepts and train-the-trainer courses
• They vary quite a bit as to their needs and demands and are therefore interested in an adaptation of strategies and measures to their local situation
• Some centres are quite innovation oriented, others aren't

Course instructors (free lancers)

• They want concrete course concepts with a curriculum to implement it
• They are interested in course concepts that leave enough space for them to adapt the concepts to their own pedagogical conception
• Many of them cultivate their own style in order to distinguish themselves from their colleagues
• They need certifications in order to acquire new jobs and to secure the existing one, formal recognition of their continuing education is important to them
• They are very heterogeneous with regard to their attitude towards innovation - some always tend to go with the latest trend, while others are rather "old school"

Difficulties/Challenges to expect

• Convince the local educational centres in order to get them on board
• Customize offerings for the local educational centres with the least extra effort possible
• Put diverse methods and pedagogical tools at the disposal of the educational centres, help the centres to adapt the methods and tools to the local situations
• Find effective instruments for advertising and public relations to promote the new course offers
• Deal with the friction between marketing, course content and technology

How Simona could profit from support offers

• a pool of several support activities for local educational centres
• toolbox with modular know-how, methods, instruments for activation, cooperation and integration for elderly people
• know more about the requirements of local educational centers
• a decision tree / decision matrix to develop the best strategy for local educational centres
• toolbox with best practices, Ideas, new opportunities
• toolbox with different web 2.0. tools
• adequate marketing strategies for the target groups
• Community of practice for exchange of experiences and to get feedback from other professionals