You can listen and read all you like, searching out a path for yourself – but sometimes the best advice comes to you via the most unlikely routes. In this case, I stumbled across a jokey whine about the limitations of HTML and other web technologies… together with a harsh reply that somehow struck me: (paraphrasing) I worked with the guys who built these things and I can tell you the enormous effort that went in. If you don’t like it, STFU and contribute! The author of the reply apologised for being so abrupt, but the sentiment made quite an impact upon me. Perhaps more so than ever before, the opportunity is there to improve the technology that we use and the world around us. The Internet has made it easy to find and to form groups to tackle issues that need attention. The Open Source software movement has provided a blueprint for open collaboration. It has never been easier to get involved. For me, this was the slap in the face that I needed – a harsh but fair reminder that, by my own rules, it was time to work a lot harder to get involved and to apply myself. The reality is that I still have a lot more to do. What really got me thinking, though, was the collaborative sentiment to this call to arms: contribute. That’s what I need to do. It’s too easy to get bogged down with the missing pieces, to see even small problems as insurmountable because you don’t have all of the answers. But it’s not always necessary to do everything yourself: you just need to create the momentum or help to build it for someone else. And so, I will hone my skills, talk to people and actively look for ways to participate in improving something that I care about. Finding problems is all very well, but finding problems that you can solve is infinitely more useful.