I'm at Mashable Connect 2011 for a couple of days. Last night, listening to Pete Cashmore's story of how he built Mashable from a one-man blog in his bedroom back in Scotland in 2005 into the global entity it is today really highlighted the effect the web has had on enabling individuals and communities. Specifically people and companies that were previously way off the beaten track, whether that's Scotland in Pete's (and my) cases, or New Zealand where Xero originated.

Being on the wrong side of the world used to be a huge impediment unless your business had already acheived sufficient scale to have the resources to mitigate and overcome the challenge of physicality and distance. The kind of mitigation epitomised by spending £7,000 to fly 3hrs on Concorde from London to New York to do business. Classic industrial age; "bigger, better, faster, more" thinking.

Today, whether it's a bedroom in rural Scotland, or a city on a remote island in the Pacific, the information age has just blown those old world barriers away.