Denise (I hate do the

Denise (I hate do the cross blog talk thing, but feel I should clarify something I said earlier), I know that the “those that get it and those that don’t” may sound exclusionary and “us vs. them” but I think there’s a slight misunderstanding. Anyone writing anything for the fun of it has all my respect and admiration. Yeah, that includes everything from Athens to Zeldman. I’m trying to think of an accurate analogy here, and I guess one would be driving. I’m saying some people “get it” and drive for the fun of it, and I’m constrasting that against people that get paid to drive, or only drive to get to work. So think of a person in a porsche boxster driving along a mountain road for the sheer thrill of feeling the g-forces, and constrast that with someone who is a chauffeur that drives people around for a living and doesn’t even think about driving while doing it.

Maybe that’s not the perfect analogy, but meeting someone that works for USWeb/CKS or iXL, and hearing that they don’t have a personal site, and haven’t touched one since their days in college back in ’96 makes me think that they don’t get the web. They build commerce sites because their employer tells them to, and they don’t understand the greater scheme of things, how wonderful it is that someone in Australia, Africa, and India may be reading something you wrote and might email you their opinion. The internet is a significant technological invention, on par with the Gutenburg press. Anyone can write an email to anyone else on earth, anyone can put up a page and share their knowledge, and if everyone did this, the collective information would be an accomplishment that would have far reaching benefits.

Just thinking about it completely blows my mind, and many other people I know feel the same way. But then, I’m meeting people that don’t share that feeling. They’re working for a web company, but they’re not participating in the “global conversation” (if you’ll allow me to use cluetrain marketing-speak), they’re just following orders and hope their stock splits soon before they vest.

I guess that’s what I mean by “getting” the web. I hope everyone someday understands what we could be doing with this thing, the Internet, and doesn’t dwell on the immediate financial benefits from the recent explosion in internet development. The “getting it” crowd isn’t exclusive. Anyone is invited, everyone is welcome, and I know more people are “getting it” everyday.