Love it or hate it, technology is changing our world. In this glass-half-full column, JOHN HARRIS looks at one of South Australia's great technology lovers, who turns 80 on Monday.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, we should not fear greatness: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some just have a great mother-in-law.

I find myself fortunately in the latter category, after a quarter-century of counting the mother of my beloved bride among my best friends.

This weekend, alma mater-in-law celebrates her 80th birthday with a gathering of friends and family from around Australia and as far-off as the United States.

My first encounter with this amazing lady was when I pretended to work as technology writer at The News, Adelaide’s afternoon newspaper that cradled the fledgling media empire of Rupert Murdoch.

Diane Beer was the newspaper’s medical writer whose scoops included the terrific yarn of a former SA motorbike cop, who had his sex changed from man to woman, then fought a bureaucratic battle to change the gender on her birth certificate.

After the demise of The News, Diane worked as press secretary for media Mike Rann during that tiny part of modern ALP history when he was not leading the Labor Party: He’s never looked back since.

She also established the Australian chapter for the Romance Writers of America, and, during a 12-month sojourn in the US, founded the Sacred Church of the Quivering Flesh, of which she is an anointed bishop. Running her post-retirement business, Market Media, she helped launch the writing careers of many aspiring South Australian novelists.

Yet, when reflecting on a career of remarkable achievements, I marvel most at Diane’s attraction to technology.

Since buying her first computer in the late 1980s, Diane has owned Macs and PCs, set up and managed websites, published electronic newsletters and now enthusiastically uses Facebook to stay in touch with family members scattered around the country.

In fact, it was during an Internet-powered search for the genealogy of her Cummings family lineage that Diane became a titled lady of a small estate in the Scottish Highlands.

Her landholding comprises a tidy little piece of Caledonian clay that measures just one square foot – an opportunity she unearthed at the website http://www.scottishhighlandtitles.com/.

Diane is a long-standing advocate of the value of electronic books, having purchased an early e-book reader many years ago. Although she has yet to get her hands on one of Apple’s shiny new iPads, it’s just a matter of time.

Diane even learned how to use MYOB’s accounting software to keep the financial wheels from falling off my business for several years when I had the trainer wheels on.

The difference between Diane and people who eschew using technology is that she has never seen it as a threat, just as a challenge and an opportunity.

So, if you’re at a loose end on Monday, July 5, raise a glass to cheer the amazing Diane Beer.

John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia. Email jharris@impress.com.au.

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