"Praise of technology is unfashionable, but truly, this is an age of miracles. Consider the “lowly” cellphone. Had I seen such a device thirty years ago, my conclusion would have been that it was the artefact of an advanced future or alien civilisation. We are now that future, that alien civilisation - even if much of it, sadly, might be perfectly familiar to Charles Dickens, Genghis Khan or a caveman."

Marianna Smith is a director of fm2x limited. Marianna has a degree in information technology and worked with BT developing very large Oracle databases for cellphone billing. She specialises in user requirement elicitation, documentation and rapid prototyping. Marianna is not a technophile:

"People want their IT to be like their refrigerator: you put your food in, it keeps it cold. It breaks, you buy a bigger new one in a fashionable style and matching colour, at a good price with a good environmental rating. People with a real life don't care if the light really goes off when you shut the door or what coolant it uses. They just want cold food without any hassle."