My 5 Min Rant at ICE08 conference in Toronto

The Techno Peasant Empowerment Manifesto

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you a sinner, a heathen, a digital pagan if you will. What is wrong with me that I must point out the folly of those less fortunate than myself? Those poor sods who will never know the joy of spending hours in the basement programming a Sinclair ZX81, the wily buzz I feel when a truly cross platform project is created, or that using Google Apps makes me feel like a man. They...just...don't...get it.

So, there it is. The cry of religious frustration for us the disciples of the binary code. "They just don't get it." The phrase that separates us; the whisper in the ear and the pointed finger of difference. They are not like us. They don't understand. They will never be as geek as we are.

"Who are they?" I hear you bellow. Well, we could talk about old people, I mean, people older than us anyway. But that's not who they are. Vint Cerf the father of the internet isn't a 'they', Bill Gates isn't a 'they', and Apple co-founder, Woz, certainly, isn't a ‘they’. They are the people who haven't kept up. Who haven't slaved alone in dark rooms with only the friendly glow of the monitor and the typing of the code to keep them company as their high school social skills withered like grapes on the vine. They haven't canceled a date to save money for an iPhone, they don't know that TED is not a person, and they didn't cry when their school was put on the waiting list for the Apple IIe. They...haven't...paid...their dues.

Now, it's our turn, us of nimble mind and questionable social graces; of open source and beta stages. We are the new power and how we wield that power will show our true colours to the world. We have beliefs and openness. Sharing and joy. We love technology. We embrace technology. Technology, we believe, will save the environment, the government, and the future of the human race.

Therefore, I ask you, one and all, to stop using the awful phrase -- "they don't get it". We are above this. Rise up. Empower a techno peasant you know. Show them the way to the geek alter. “How?”, I hear you cry. Install the Facebook app on their Blackberry, help them understand peer to peer networking, show them the power of Basecamp, download Flock as their new browser, give them the power to make a digital change in their lives and the lives of their families without fear.

Let me be clear, I am not saying you need to become their 'geek on call' like we all are for our mothers, grandmothers, and those beautiful nubile women struggling with their laptops in coffee shops across this great nation. No, I am asking that you give back to those less fortunate than yourselves. The technologically challenged unwashed masses. The people for which the world of binary is like watching a slasher film on meth - terrifying yet strangely pleasing.

In the end it is all about fear my friends. They fear technology. They fear those who understand the technology. And the fear -- it paralyzes them.

In closing, I ask you to sally forth and free our beloved techno peasants from the shackles of analogue by gently coaxing them into the digital age. They are our next clients. Without them, and the masses that follow, we will once again be relegated to the rank basements of suburbia.

And that, my friends, is no place for the saviors of human race.

Thank you