Quotable Quotes: Tim Berners-Lee

I'm borrowing Sima Odugbemi's Quote of the Week here:

Berners-Lee’s belief that his invention is unfinished has turned the geek into an activist. “The web is a social invention as much as a technical invention,” he says. “It’s the whole cat and mouse game between the readers and writers that makes the web work.”

The quote comes from Financial Times writer Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, in his September 7, 2012 article, "Lunch with the FT: Tim Berners-Lee"

I have long believed that tech support is 80% psychology and only 20% technology, so this resonates.  The web is at least 50% social -- nothing shocking there, but we tend to forget that technology alone does not make a thing "work."  If it did, then, as the article also points out, then GOPHER from U-MN might be our world wide web right now.

Techies can forget that the solution is not "the thing." It's the USE of the solution that's the thing.

So techies, don't blow off the public speaking courses, don't deride Powerpoint, don't ignore the phone calls of your communications/outreach teams. Embrace social.