jimbo: time magazine's person of the year

You can imagine Jimbo’s surprise this morning about discovering he had been named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

First of all, just let me say that, unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I would like to thank of those who had an influence on my life. Many of whom read this blog regularly and I’d just like to say that I couldn’t have done it without you.

Secondly, let me say that I would like to thank all of those with whom I will share the award. I would like to thank all of you personally and individually, but there just won’t be sufficient time.

By the way, here is the story.

Time's person of the year.

Time has named anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web as their person of the year. It just dawned on me. You are person of the year, too. Congratulations on a job well done and on your selection for this award. It couldn’t have gone to a better person.

Perhaps in our lifetimes, there has been no other event that had a greater influence on the advancement of civilization than the popularizing and commercializing of the Internet. While the Internet has existed since the 1960s, its popularization during the mid-1990s was the watershed event that will define our era. You will recall there were a large group of forward-thinking individuals who seized upon the idea of commercializing of the Internet. Many of them are still around, even though the majority of them and the companies they founded have died and will be buried beneath the sands of time.

The medium they all nurtured has now stretched its power and influence to most every end of the earth. The Internet is like freedom and like civilization. While a few totalitarians still manage to keep the Internet and the exchange of communication from their people, it will only be a matter of time until they will be pushed aside by ideas coming from a cable or tower and flickering on the screen of a monitor.

You will also recall that the sitting President at the time, Bill Clinton, assigned his Vice-President to enable this new-fangled technology, which they dubbed “the information superhighway,” to insure its rapid growth and advancement. Their legitimatization of this technology represented one of the primary functions of government: that is the advancement of ideas of, by and for the people.

It will be poetic justice that long after the settling of the dust and ashes of the Republicans who doubled over with laughter and rolled in the aisles at their 2000 convention at the suggestion of the Vice-President having enabled the internet, the name of Al Gore will probably be the only one of this generation remembered 2000 years from now.

Yes, I accept this award on behalf of all of us. Thank you very much.

At least, that is our acceptance speech, here in Jimbo’s world.