It's not just about geeks anymore (if it ever was)

Here's an idea expressed in the Fatman session, the last session on Day 2, which was done Thursday-style, taking notes in a projected outliner, leading a discussion, and pausing to rant on various subjects. Here's one of the rants.

Technology people have been hearing, for decades, that the world revolves around them. It never really did, and there's no more juice anywhere for the belief that it does.

Only when you concentrate geeks in one place can you have the illusion that they're at the center of the universe. They need to believe this for some reason, even though it's not going to make the mortgage payments or put the kids through college, or even create new formats and protocols. For all that you need users -- customers, with money, who will pay for the fun (and you must include them in the fun).

Never has this been clearer in the tech industry. Vision isn't coming from the techies, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Now technology jobs are being exported, we're hourly workers, when we have work. So if we want to rebuild, that's where we start. Reality. We're out of work, to get back we have to sell what we create. How do you find out what users will buy? Ask, then listen.

So we had a conference where the users did the talking and geeks did the listening. BloggerCon.

Doc Searls wrote an excellent essay about Steve Jobs and his technology in 1997. He said "The influence of developers, even influential developers like you, will be minimal. The influence of customers and users will be held in even higher contempt."

Ever since Steve Jobs, all geeks think they're Him. This is a bug. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen speaking of (and to) Dan Quayle, adapted to today's geeks. "I knew Steve Jobs. You're no Steve Jobs."

It's even worse than it appears. The times are such that even Steve Jobs isn't himself. We have to work harder to make a living in technology, this means shifting perspective, and reconnecting with users.

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