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From The Vision Thing

1 The Vision Thing

[edit] The Vision Thing

Just stop for a moment and think.

Why did you get into the technology business? Go back to when you first started to learn how to program, design, build or do whatever it is you do. Do you remember your enthusiasm? Do you remember thinking that the skills you were acquiring would one day help you do your part in helping the World? Do you remember thinking that as a developer involved in the Internet industry you were actually involved in something almost noble? That in some small way you were one of the revolutionaries akin to those involved in the Industrial Revolution?

Us too.

Except in recent years we have taken a wrong turn. We are now in a landscape of the banal and irrelevant, all of it screaming at us to give it our attention so that somebody, somewhere can make some money.

We as an industry procrastinate over the definition of 'Web 2.0' and how to make our site fit an aesthetic that is 'current'. We worry about whether animations in web apps are supported by all browsers more than we consider if they are supported by all our users.

And who are our users anyway?

Children who can't afford shoes in Africa are given laptops so that they too can learn the skills needed to write on a 'Super FunWall' and define the solidity of their friendships as nothing more than a button click.

Those in the West are being targeted by advertising executives aware that the piece of furniture in the living room that shouted at previous generations to buy their clients' products is no longer getting the same level of attention.

What happened to the nobility? What got in the way of the revolution? Why are we letting them get away with it?

Are we lost? Maybe.

On the 27th March 2008, Paul Robinson of Vagueware decided to give public voice to an inner niggle. He asked for responses. He started slowly, but gradually it's getting momentum.

We have no vision as an industry. Our skills are being used to produce the useless and mediocre. We're mad as hell, and we're not taking it any more. Want to join in?