For 'the makers of things:' An inaugural moment

There are days when the attitude of a nation is reflected by the one in charge, and this day -- like so many others, even recently -- is one of them.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted -- for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009

It is good to see reason and fortitude emanating from the highest point of the land today. Like millions of others, including those outside America, I was moved and inspired by the words of the new US President, not because I hadn't heard such words before. Indeed, a great deal of my enthusiasm comes from who was speaking, and what he's managed to accomplish.

For the first time in way too long, the leader of my country was speaking both for me and to me. In the excerpt from President Obama's inaugural speech I've cited above, he acknowledged a fundamental truth about who we are as a people and a nation that many of us as individuals have set aside: The dynamics of this country are, in themselves, a technology. The economy we live in, the social fabric of our society, the businesses that sustain us -- all of them are technologies. They are the mechanisms of our lives and culture, built over the past few centuries by the ingenuity and the sweat of tinkerers and laborers, masters and -- yes -- slaves.

We as Americans thrive through our reliance upon an economic, social, and mechanical infrastructure, every facet of which is threatened not so much by change as much as the resistance to change. One reason we've let this threat go largely unanswered in recent years -- until it comes rapping at our front door in months like September -- is because we still tend to take our leadership stance from the one at the top. We look to the one in charge for our tack, our approach, the messages we give the world, and the attitude we assume. And for years, there has been less and less and less of a precedent, if you will, upon which we may base our own approach to our work and our lives. So many of us blamed President Bush for missing leadership after the hurricane struck Louisiana and Mississippi. But the financial crisis that has beset us now...Just whose responsibility is that, really?

We look to leadership to give us a model upon which to guide our lives, as we should; but when there is a vacuum at the top, we do tend to wander aimlessly. This afternoon's message from President Obama is that this aimlessness can and must stop now.

It may seem a little hypocritical for the publication that just a few weeks ago filed countless reports from the Consumer Electronics Show -- that quintessential model of technology consumption -- to be saying now that the time is at hand for us to start thinking less of ourselves and our personal gadgets and gizmos. In recent days, we've been consumed ourselves with the dazzling notion of miniaturizing the very essence of communications technology into something you can hold in your hand or even wear on your wrist, something that's portable, fashionable, and cool.

But there is another technology that, though not portable or fashionable or most of the time cool, sustains us as a people. Behold the world, our technology at large. Borne and often improvised of our collective ingenuity, our society and our economy are intricate, non-proprietary parts of a skillful technology that we collectively hold in our hands. What threatens it is our collective inattention to each other.

And this inattention must stop now, as our new President has proclaimed. The change that, until now, you've heard in campaign slogans, will be practiced here at Betanews. We will be shifting more of our attention to technology at large, and the people who not only depend upon it but contribute to it.

You and we, willing or otherwise, are the developers, programmers, and engineers of our collective technology. We hold in our hands more than the power to connect, but the power to engage and to inspire. If leadership does emanate from the top, then let us now use the new President's model as a blueprint, that we may aspire to redevelop our world into something that is more efficient, more livable, more workable -- something we will proudly pass to our children and our successors. Let's not wait for the appointment of a national CTO or the issuance of a policy statement, or something that plays to our love of gadgetry. We have a job in front of us that's bigger than the devices in our hand or our car or our briefcase. There'll be time for them, but it's time now to think bigger, plan more broadly, and to do more with what we have.

For the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things, we re-dedicate ourselves and our mission.