At the end of August 2005, I quit being a technical evangelist.
Evangelizing in this industry is almost equivalent of marketing. Tell them something good, to lead their attention and to let them do good for ourselves hopefully at their own initiative. I used a lot of industry's favorite buzzwords including ReST, Web Services, XML technology, as well as Web 2.0.
Everytime someone uses a buzzword in their articles, presentation or interviews, they will be challenged what it really means. When I said Amazon Web Services supports ReST, almost everytime someone challenged me we were not as ReSTful as we should be. OK, we may not be.
Who cares the crap, then? We have been receiving millions of requests daily and quite a few people have been make living with our services. Nobody in that crowd really cared about how ReSTful we were. They cared more like we operated better not to stop their business, and how we aren't in their ways. It turned out that being ReSTful helped people write better applications, but being ReSTful is not the purpose of our services. And don't forget, being not ReSTful enough didn't do us any bad, because our services are one and only, or superior than others anyway.
Web 2.0 is a buzzword. How misterious or even devilish may it sound, it is just another buzzword which produces nothing, which serves nobody. Just don't waste your time to "calmly think about the definition and meaning of the word deeply". "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life". Someone else who will make money by just let people like you waste your time.
SOAP, Web Services, Services Oriented Architecture. In these words I had a lot of dreams. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what they were. Now they all disappeared and the remaining are well built services around the web who serve customers better. Spreading buzzwords has done me nothing but a few opportunities to see a few people I wanted to. That was good, but now it is enough. Spreading buzzwords doesn't excite me anymore.
At least that was why I quit my job last year, and started working for the team I belong and love. Just write code, just produce cool services, just sell your cool products. Don't give a shit when someone says you are not Web 2.0. F them off and serve your supporters. After all, just think about something would not be awarded. JKondo-san told us so.
Yes, totally, I'm in complete agreement with you.
I also like chicken.
Don't get me wrong, but all that being said, we still need a sort of momentum out of it. Exactly as you said, all generations come to the place with some dreams and illusion. For good or evil, it's nothing but the opportunity they get inspired from, or even the one they are motivated to complain about. It's not what we have to abide by, but it's what all the fashions have been meant to be. Aesthetically bad buzz (especially in main stream) is bad, but yet better than damn sad silence of cool alternatives holding water. I once used to love Bon Jovi, but I'm confident to say that it's not a pink elephant. History repeats itself for each generation. That's it. :-)
Yeah, you know, I am 34 now. I wish I was as innocent as I was at age 25.