I want to break the rules. Why don’t you join me?

Specifically, I intend to break my own rules. In fact, I broke my first rule with the first word of this column. In my nine years as a Computing journalist I was always taught, and in turn taught others, never to use the word “I”. Readers don’t want to know about the writer ­ they want to know what the writer knows.

These days, with the rise of the self-obsessed blogger, use of “I” is endemic. But for the purpose of this article, let’s ignore that for now.

You see, for once this column is about me, so it’s difficult to avoid the personal pronoun. The reason it’s about me is because this is my final, valedictory scribbling before I leave Computing for pastures new. And if the departing editor can’t break his own rules, what has the world come to?

What a nine years it has been. In my first month, I wrote about the collapse of dot com darling Boo.com, and gurus everywhere said: “The internet? Pah! It’s just another fad.” I guess you would agree that things have moved on a lot since then.

Let me tell you what has changed most for me. Before I became a journalist, I worked in the IT industry. In those days, whenever I met someone new in a social situation, the inevitable moment would arise in conversation when they would ask me what I did for a living. I would say: “I work in IT.” They would say: “Oh,” and spot someone else to speak to.

As a journalist, things got better. “I’m a journalist,” I would answer. “Really? How interesting,” they would reply. “What do you write about?”

“Technology.”

“Oh…”

But recently, things have changed. “Technology? That must be interesting,” they say, before telling me how cool their iPhone is, at which point I say: “Oh…”

I once wrote a column in defence of geeks. The world needs geeks, I said. Geeks nodded appreciatively. Everyone else said: “Oh…”

But now, everyone is a geek. Even my mum enjoys texting away. Everyone loves technology ­ OK, we’re not quite at the stage where they all love technologists too, but hey, it’s a start.

However, those in IT need to consider why everyone is a geek. To me it’s clear: non-geeks are developing new technology. They have made it easy to use, fun, fashionable ­ sexy, even. The most talked-about IT is the simplest ­ a junior programmer could write an application that publishes 140-character messages onto a web site. Apple managed to become an iconic brand by making products for people who didn’t like technology. It’s about technology without all that complex geekery that IT used to imply.

And yet, I bet if I walked into most IT departments, I would be confronted with complexity. Much of that is the legacy of historic IT purchasing, but it’s also a legacy of historic IT thinking. Complexity is good, it keeps techies in a job. But it doesn’t make users like you much.

We are near a time when IT-savvy users can create their own applications or access someone else’s in the cloud, bypassing the IT team altogether. And what a waste of the skills and ideas in the IT department that would be.

Technology is changing the world. But are those in IT still stuck in their old ways? It is time for IT to come out of the datacentre. It is time to break the rules.

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