There's a parallel in business software development here. Often a programmer can toil in obscurity from his business counterparts, frustratingly producing no tangible output, until one day he press the big green button, and all the underlying code he's fleshed out comes together to produce something visible and dramatic.

The progress doesn't exist until it touches people in a way they intuitively understand.

What nanotech needs is a youtube video of a bucket of slop spontaneously organizing into something useful.