Guy Kawasaki (Apple Fellow) writes in his advice to entrepreneurs this week's Always ON magazine (the follow-up to Red Herring)

"...Don't be proud. At Apple, we wanted Fortune 500 CIOs and VPs of IT to use Macs; they were the proud pack. But the pack that adopted Macs were secretaries, administration aids, newsletter editors, powerpoint users.....the salt of the earth." This attitude has helped become the success it is today. They weren't proud about who their users were, and it shows in their profits.

Incumbent telcos and Governments could learn from this acceptance and support of grassroots. The failure of Aramiska last week and the other communications difficulties and complications suffered by rural areas are a prime example.

This new essay by Lindsey Annison (ABC co-founder) looks at the risk to innovation and the economy of ignoring grassroots thinkers.

Guy Kawasaki (Apple Fellow) writes in his advice to entrepreneurs this week's Always ON magazine (the follow-up to Red Herring)

"...Don't be proud. At Apple, we wanted Fortune 500 CIOs and VPs of IT to use Macs; they were the proud pack. But the pack that adopted Macs were secretaries, administration aids, newsletter editors, powerpoint users.....the salt of the earth." This attitude has helped become the success it is today. They weren't proud about who their users were, and it shows in their profits.

Incumbent telcos and Governments could learn from this acceptance and support of grassroots. The failure of Aramiska last week and the other communications difficulties and complications suffered by rural areas are a prime example.

Rural areas suffer poor telecoms as the incumbents seek to cash in and sweat the copper asset with an inferior legacy broadband product. Unwilling rather than unable to connect the 'lower orders' (rural populations). We see the farce of Exchange Activate in Scotland (limited to 512k connectivity and 1-5 ISPs always starting with BT who won't allow sharing of the connection to reach those beyond the technical DSL limits), the impact of Aramiska's demise, and the growing number of ‘Notspots’ in a 21st century knowledge economy which has countries such as Korea, Japan and even Estonia now leading the way.

Preventing grassroots thinkers communicating successfully is holding back grassroots innovation - and this is very much two-way communication, not just sit-back-on-the-sofa and receive a broadcast from those who choose what you watch/listen. No wonder the rural ecomony is struggling and new job creation is stalling – people will move to the towns if they can’t get access to the modern resources they need to grow successful businesses. And modern telecommunications are the lifeblood of the Knowledge Economy.

You can hide in your ivory, fibred towers in London, but it only makes grassroots thinkers ever more determined to be heard and to overcome problems. As the blogosphere grows, new tools are made available. Open Source VoIP, Skype, and podcasting, which really are free, are adopted by more and more people for communication.

This all became deeply obvious yet again at this week's Colloquium. Even the FTTH Council and BSG and DTI are unable to permit virtual attendance at events, and yet we can do it in a village hall in the middle of nowhere without a budget.

If I were a telco, I would start to panic about the determination to leapfrog legacy technologies by grassroots innovators. Your business plan may well unravel.

If I were a civil servant, I would get out of my office occasionally and check out how communication is now taking place. Often for free, or with help given freely and willingly by an ever-growing community.

Grassroots innovation shows how to use technology to overcome business and government decisions that make no sense and hinder our progress.

Dismiss us with the implication that we are of less value to society than others, and hence don't need connectivity, laugh at our ‘non carrier-class’ approaches or call us yogurt knitters at your peril!

An original essay by Lindsey Annison, co-founder of the Access to Broadband Campaign