The gulf between the people making software and the people using it is widening. By day, I talk product with Valley pundits enamored by podcasting and RSS feeds. By night, I speak with parents and teachers who can barely plug in their digital cameras. The Valley is hurtling forward on Internet time and leaving a huge mass of frustrated people in its wake.

Most developers probably don’t alienate people intentionally, but I think they forget that their “piece of cake” is someone else’s “$@^!ing computer.” Software demands an impossibly high level of computer literacy. When I install AOL Instant Messenger, it blithely refers to “IE” as if the abbreviation were a standard part of our vernacular. People must decipher dozens of secret handshakes like this every day to earn membership to the exclusive computer club. And it’s humiliating. And they hate it. I know, because they tell me.

As a geek, I certainly have nothing against the latest-and-greatest technologies or the people who work on them. Hey, my life began at TiVo. The umbilical cord doubled as an Ethernet connection. I like new toys.

But as a developer, that’s just not my calling. I don’t think it’s fair that those of us in the club get to ride the computer revolution while everyone else sits on the sidelines, puzzling over the arcane technology we’ve put in front of them. These people think we’re crazy. They wonder what the hell we’re all so excited about.

So even if it means we’re out of step with the Valley, Joe and I intend to show them.