My mother saw the first signs of the comeback, and it made her very happy. But in a way, she had always known the value of her designs, so it was not a big surprise.

Several years ago, I was creating a Christmas present for the family, a self-published cookbook featuring recipes my grandmother had collected and created over decades. While interviewing her for the biographical section, she began to talk about her courtship with my late grandfather.

My childhood memories of my grandparents are of a wonderful, complementary couple. While my grandfather had a spirited, humorous personality, my grandmother is gentle and poised.

Our robots are not being built from a kit. There are no pre-selected parts and no TA's to 'check us off' and to make sure we did our work.

In my experience, the content strategist is a rare breed who's often willing and able to embrace whatever role is necessary to deliver on the promise of useful, useable content.

I expect this to be a significant area of ballot initiative in 2006.