We need to talk

The other night, Doug Miller from iRobotics had a Tinderbox revelation while reading a science fiction novel. The heroine, he recalls, was

"reading mail and scanning news items her filters and clipping services have culled out of the fire hose of information that's constantly directed at her by the 'net of 2039. Brin's descriptions of the technologies she uses are wonderful. We're seeing the beginnings of some of what he describes in today's syndication, content aggregation and weblogging tools."

Suddenly, he realized that Tinderbox can do that. So he woke up in the middle of the night and set to work. There were problems, of course. Solutions. More obstacles. It all turns into a compelling narrative, and a tech support parable to boot.

"The second important thing to come out of this process today was to remember that it takes interaction with people who see things from a different perspective to generate those 'aha!' moments."