Hugh Macleod has a post titled "Best thing since Cluetrain" about a speech that Ben Hammersley gave at Les Blogs last December. 

I was there and this speech was great. It was one of the few at Les Blogs where only one person spoke. I've seen Ben speak at a number of events over the last few years and if you ever get the chance to see him talk, I would fully recommend it.

One of the questions that he asked was: "who has a job, that if they went back in time, they could explain to themselves?"
 
He added some timeframes and there were people in the audience who couldn't explain what they do now to themselves a year ago, simply because the technology didn't exist. This can cause problems as these people, who would definitely be considered early adopters - and would therefore be very aware of what is happening in this space - need to make sure that they can not just explain what is happening to other like-minded people, but also to people who don't do this every day.

I've worked for, and with, a number of start-ups. It was once said to me that, for something to really fly, you need to be able to explain the idea to your Grandmother and for her to understand it. I used to think that this was true - and still do to an extent - but if people don't think of new ideas and concepts which you can't explain, and make decisions based on feelings, rather than cold hard facts, we'll never progress at the pace which is possible. Ben is one of the people who can inspire others to make those difficult decisions.