One of the basic rules of starting conversations with other people is letting the other person do most of the talking. People like talking about themselves. So the old lady in the article violated that rule. That isn't to say that just talking to people instead of actually talking with them will never work. You might be lucky and the person you talk to just happens to be very interested in what you want to tell them, but it is rather unlikely.

Once you have shown that you are interested in someone by listening to them and thereby learning about them, you might sometimes find that they might also be interested in something you can share with them. The easiest way to get someone interested in you is to first get interested in them.

It's a pretty simple principle, but since people like to talk about themselves they often do not follow it.