Today I overhead a mom in line at the checkout at the grocery store. She was talking about the way that she believes computers are ruining our lives. She says her kids don't think for themselves anymore. Her neighbours' marriages have been ruined. People no longer go out and do things because they are jacked into the digital fix.

The impulse to share another view with her was almost overwhelming, but I zipped my lips and allowed a mental inventory to roll as I was pulling my groceries from the cart and setting them down to be rung in.

I've been a computer columnist with CBC Radio Canada for more than 7 years now, and have had a lot of fun covering the ways that technology shapes our lives. I'm finding myself in a rut, having been directed more back into the consumer end of computing and being pulled away from what makes me passionate about computer technologies at all: how they change people's lives.

So I am wondering if I might ask for your help? It's time to reshape my column lovingly back into something that serves better as an instrument to not only inform but to inspire change. I'm excited, because I know there is an endless feast of great things to explore and share.

What are the most meaningful demonstrations of computers creating uplift in our lives?

If you were chatting with the mom I met today, what is the most compelling thing you might share to change her mind?

How have computers changed your life for the better? What are the best examples of hardware and software to shake things up? How are people applying it in their churches and temples and synagogues in creative ways? In hospitals and doctor's offices and in the hands of doctor mom as she cultivates a healthier tribe? In cancer centers for kids? What are people doing with computers in community centers? Homeless and battered women's shelters? The centers that care for at-risk youth?

Has the senior citizen next door used his computer to launch a remarkable advocacy that's changing lives? What are single mom's doing that's changing their family's world?

Anything. Everything. All of it. No good thing is too small. When it comes to my column, I want to put my energy back into the pursuit of this one thing: how are we using computers to make our lives better?

Let me thank you right up front for anything at all you might be willing to share with me here.

Keeping a warm thought,

Sue.