First and foremost, I’m an engineer – a boss once suggested that my epitaph would consist of that single word. An electronic design engineer, specifically, though I do not limit my thinking processes to that field – I can’t. I have identified only two talents that I can claim, which are daydreaming and explaining.
I was a somewhat typical 1950’s “science kid” growing up but with an important difference – I had a “smarter older brother” who always knew more than I did (he is now a famous emeritus professor of evolutionary biology). I grew up as the #2 whiz kid in the household and followed my nose into electronic engineering with merely a bachelor’s degree.
I was at Berkeley in the 1960’s while the counterculture erupted and played my part in those events, emerging with a vision of everyday society with few barriers to communication where people were maximally able to help each other realize their dreams. I set out to search for the technologies that would make such a society possible and normal.
By 1970 I came to understand that a network of computers was the tool that would be required. By 1972 I had found another group who had secured a suitable mainframe computer and helped create a project that opened the first publicly-accessible computer-based social media system that year. Our group moved the design through three generations, closing it in 1992.
I explored in the tiny computer underground in Silicon Valley and by 1974 published an engineering specification for a computer terminal that could grow up into an actual personal computer. Next year saw the introduction of the first “Altair” personal computer kit – it needed just such a terminal capability and I was swept into the emergence of that industry.
Building upon the thinking I’d put into the spec I designed the first plug-in card that opened the computer’s memory to view through external TV or monitor. Immediately after that I was able to design a full computer incorporating my display design – before the Apple ][.
As the personal computer industry mushroomed I was asked to design the first affordable portable computer – the Osborne-1. It was a wild ride and I got to see the startup scene from the inside – right up to the company’s bankruptcy. After that I remained as a design consultant, except for eight years at Interval Research Corp.
Now, at 79, I view the social media landscape and am asked whether or not I’m sorry for what I (and all the people who worked with me) have done. My answer is a resounding NO and I have finally written the book* that explains not only why, but in good engineering form explains how and why it needs to be redesigned. Next I plan to work on my version of how it should be designed.
My book should be read by everybody who is dissatisfied with the social media landscape and who wants to move forward away from “move fast and break things”. When you widen your horizons it will become clearer how we got to the present and why the future can be made much better.