Image of Poole, Dorset, UK, posted by Barret Bonden at wikipedia.
THE name that computing trainer Tracy Robson awarded to her fledgling business enterprise less than one year ago sums up her outlook with six catchy syllables.The message that using a computer can be as "Easy as A-PC" quickly found a market for the Thornlands mother-of-two's training service, which uses her experience in information technology in the United Kingdom and Australia.
TRACY worked for 20 years with the IT departments of insurance companies. She and husband Martin, with their then two-year-old daughter Emily, migrated to Australia in 2005. Tracy says they lived in Poole, Dorset, and after closure of her employer's local branch she had to commute to London to work. While suffering the two-and-a-half hour train trips, she said to her sales consultant husband: "Let's go to the other side of the world."
THEIR family has grown in Queensland; their son Zac is now two years old. Emily, as one would expect from a daughter of a 'tech-savvy' mum, started her computing career at age three, using a cute little mouse, half the size of the standard and shaped like a bumblebee. Tracy worked for a Brisbane computer consultancy as an IT project manager before starting her own business. She offers "patient and professional" training for people to "learn on your computer at your home and at your pace". Her clients range from beginners to professional computer users who need to update their skills.
A QUALIFIED IT trainer, she has found that many senior people dislike 'classroom type' group training. "There is a lot of free training for older people but many feel silly asking questions and do not really learn what they want," Tracy says. "They need assistance one on one." Tracy gains great satisfaction from empowering people to overcome their fears of computing. She says many find great benefit in the notes she writes to detail the specifics of each session.
HER oldest client has been a 90-year-old woman. "She had bad arthritis in her hands, so I had to show her ways she could use the keyboard and the mouse," Tracy says. "I wrote the full notes on how to do things and what we did and she had something she could always refer back to. After a week or two she loved going online, even just looking for holidays, and she found benefit in checking the train and film times."
EASY AS A-PC offers to beat any written quote on "all aspects of computer training" including email, MS Office, web, shortcuts and photographic programs.
Thanks for joining me to meet the people in the marvellous community of classified advertising. This column has appeared in The Redland Times.
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