I work for a large conservative BigCo, but have been using Ruby for  
some time now - sort of unofficially.
Recently I managed to get approval to train other people in Ruby so  
they too would be able to use it.
My first training session begins tomorrow with a small (but  
enthusiastic) group.
Funny thing is, I sent out an email to see who would be interested,  
and *all* the responses I got back were from older people (as in  
older than 30 [being generous :-) ]) who's backgrounds were in Cobol  
and mainframes. They're not exactly up-to-date with latest  
programming ideas (none had even heard of Ruby) but they're pretty  
smart and I can't wait.

Just writing this as encouragement for anyone in the same position as  
myself.

Cheers,
Dave