I don’t have the strength
To get up and take another shot
And my best friend, my doctor
Won’t even say what it is I’ve got
- JUST LIKE TOM THUMB’S BLUES

Gather round, children. Let me tell you about my Dad. He’s a wonderful, smart man. He taught me to play chess when I was 3. He is also an orthopaedic surgeon, which means he fixes broken bones and things. He comes from a long line of doctors, which I broke when I turned out to be a computer geek. He worked for many many many years in government hospitals until, about ten years ago, he moved from the operating theatre to the courtrooms, working in the medico-legal world.

Here is how it works. Someone gets injured somehow. In South Africa where I grew up, it is normally a car accident. South Africa has one of the worst road safety records in the world. It is often whiplash. Don’t ever get my Dad started on whiplash. Seriously.

Anyway, the insurance companies need to reimburse the victim for medical bills, loss of earnings, psychological trauma and other goodies. And this is where it gets tricky – you need to put a dollar (or ZAR) value onto all of this. It is complicated even more when some victims (either fraudulenty, subconsciously or due to lawyer’s pressure) fake or exaggerate their situations.

Which is where the experts come in. Both the insurance fund lawyer and the victim’s lawyer need to ensure that they have medical experts on their benches. And here is the cool bit. All the senior orthopods in South Africa know and respect one another. Most of them will represent both the patient or the insurance fund – they don’t play favourite.

So the two doctors will sit in the courtroom, recognise each other, and think to themselves “Oh look, they’ve got Doctor {insert name here} . He’s a good guy who knows his shit and will fairly represent the situation.” And, more often than not, they’ll quickly come to a fair and equitable agreement. The doctors normally don’t even open their mouths in court. They just sit there like finely tuned bullshit detectors and only get involved when the bullshit levels rise. However, if either side lacks a respected expert, things can drag on a whole lot longer and end in a mess. Of course this isn’t always the case but, as I understand it, it is pretty close.

So what? Well here is my point. I’ve recently been engaging a lot of third parties product and service vendors. And I’ve been really fortunate to work with people from these companies that really really know what they’re doing. And, they seem to think I know what I’m doing. Which has made the entire process quick, painless and fair. Both sides know what a fair day rate for consultants is. Both sides know which products are real and needed for the solution, and can smell snakeoil a mile away.

So, the moral of the story. When engaging third parties, make sure that you have someone on your team that knows the industry backwards, and make sure the third party knows that you know. Secondly, make sure that the third party has someone that knows their industry backwards and doesn’t just sprout hot air.

You’ll save yourself a fuckload of time and stress. Trust me. I’m a Doctor’s son.

One of the best things I’ve done in my tech career is to respect the importance of ‘The Old Girl’s Club’. Honestly, it’s nice to have a circle of trusted female friends in the tech business who gets the world you live in, and with whom you can share a glass of wine and a laugh on the road as easily as debate an acquisition or analyst report.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been lucky to connect with a few ex-colleagues, thankful that between family and work and travel pressures we can find an evening to unwind and catch up.

So why have these last few encounters left me feeling so agitated and frustrated over the prospects of these dear friends? It’s because some companies are toxic to female ambition. Anecdotes take on the power of reality when pooled. When story after story of stalled promotions and broken career promises all sound exactly the same, there is more than coincidence at play.

From what I hear anecdotally, can it really be true that an enterprise software company has less than 2% female representation at the VP or above layer? I’m curious to find more industry stats on this… so please pass them along. I think we are ripe for a little transparency in this area.

Some info that was shared with me this afternoon:

In Silicon Valley companies, men and women in technical careers are equally likely to hold mid-level jobs, but men are 2.7 times more likely than women to be promoted to a high-ranking tech jobs such as vice president of engineering, or senior engineering manager – from 2009 survey

According to the U.S.-based National Center for Women in Technology, 41 per cent of women leave technology companies after 10 years of experience, compared to only 17 per cent of men; 56 per cent of women leave at the mid-level point. If current trends continue, NCWIT says, by 2016 the information technology industry will be able to fill only half of its available jobs. ITWorldCanada article 2010

Why do I care? Because companies that lip-synch commitment to diversity and innovation need to own up to their lack of execution. Because the women who feel stuck and trapped need to figure out a way out or up and remember that there’s a whole other world out there. Because in this world of tech that values communication, new modes of collaboration and an embrace of trusted personal communication via social media, new skills need to rise to the top of the food chain.

After the latest such dinner I tweeted my frustration…. That glass ceiling is pink for a reason. It’s stained with the bloody cracked skulls of all the women who have been bashed against it. And then just gave up and left.

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Clayton M. Christensen

Before I went to EMC World and marveled at how the management was missing the boat on the cloud and was diving wholesale into Case Management, I was told that I had to read this book.  After EMC World, I broke down, purchased it, and then fought to find time for it.  The book is over a decade old, so what was the rush? Let me tell you, I am glad I found the time.

I was told before I read the book that it was going to make me a little sad and despair for the future of Documentum.  It did in a way, but it also helped explain everything that was happening.  It actually increased my opinion of some people at EMC.  I am going to talk about the specifics to EMC, and other legacy Content Management vendors, in a subsequent post.  For now, let’s dive into the book itself.

Pass the Disk Drive

Christensen starts by explaining the basic problem.  Well managed companies have no problem keeping up with sustaining technologies in the market.  Need better performance?  We can innovate that for you.  The issue is around disruptive technologies.

He observed that no matter how good management was, there was an inherent inability for companies to respond for disruptive technologies.  In fact, it was because they were good managers that they were unable to respond effectively to the disruptive technologies.

Disruptive technology, by there very nature, do not fit in existing markets.  They start small and do not provide the capabilities required by existing customers or the profit-margins required by companies.  They don’t lead to double digit growth so they don’t get picked for investment.

When evaluating sustaining technologies these market and profit concerns are dead on, but they lead to very smart companies missing the boat on the technologies that will one day supplant them as leaders.

This point is driven home, ad nauseum, by Christensen using the disk drive industry.  I now know more about that industry than I ever wanted.  I also know that this is a problem that can impact any company, and will likely impact all companies.  Starting from a disruptive technology past does not immunize you from the risks.

To be sure, more examples from other industries are used as well.  It doesn’t matter if the innovation is fast (disk drives) or slow (excavators), disruptive technology has a way of wiping the previous generation off of the playing board.

One reason is quite simple.  Products add more functionality and capability with each new version.  Typically this occurs faster than change in the minimum consumer requirements.  This change does lead to more customers that need more, but adds capabilities that go unused by most of the market.  While leaders are making products better, the disruptive technology appears and offers lesser functionality, but in a more convenient and reliable package.  This new product finds a new market, which allows the the product to evolve and gain functionality until it hits the minimum requirements of the mainstream market.

When this happens, it is too late for the existing leaders.  If they haven’t successfully attacked an upper market, the attack from below may wipe them out completely.  Regardless, they will lose their mainstream market lead.

I’m over-simplifying quite a bit and leaving out details, but that is why there is a book.

Do We Just Quit Now?

So the obvious question is, What can be done? Well, that depends on the nature of the disruptive technology.  How does it fit in the organizations values and processes?  How accepting will the value network (suppliers and distribution network) be to the change?  There are a lot of questions to be answered before deciding on the appropriate action.

The simple, generic solution seems to be to create a spin-off or to acquire a company to run as a subsidiary, thought this approach is not always the answer.  With a little Enterprise 2.0 mythos, Christensen says that the resulting organization needs to be able to fail, and in fact, it will fail along the way.  The key is to not fail so big so there are enough resources remaining to take the lessons learned and make course corrections.

The book is relatively light on recommendations and spends more time talking about the perils and less upon the remedies.  I guess that is why he wrote more books later.  That said, if you can’t identify a problem, the solution will do you no good.

Who Needs to Read This?

Simple.  If you run (i.e. in management) an established product company, physical or software in nature, you need to read this.  If you are in Marketing in one of those companies, you need to read it.  If you are in Sales, it wouldn’t hurt.

If you are running a start-up, I wouldn’t worry too much at this time.  Just keep in mind that if you are successful, then it will apply to you one day unless you take a buyout before it matters.

If you are in a leadership position at a legacy Content Management company, and you haven’t read this book already, go buy it from your local bookstore or download a copy Now!  Don’t wait for shipping, it is too important.

In my next post, I’ll tie this more directly into the Content Management industry, with a focus on EMC because I am most familiar with them.  Keep in mind, every first-generation Content Management company is in the same situation.

I recently received an email from someone whom I will call…Socrates.  He asked a question and I wanted to share it for discussion publicly.  First the question, then my reasons for the public discourse.

Laurence, I have been working on Documentum since version 2. I am now working on DCM 6.5 sp3. I find that the quality of the product is going down every release. What do you think?

The reason that I am bringing it up publically is because I don’t have a clear-cut answer.  As with products from most vendors, some releases are better than others.  I also only have direct experience with Documentum since the 4i release at the end of ’99.  To top it off, I haven’t used every component, much less every component of every release.

Of course, I have some concerns.  I saw Rick Devenuti speak at EMC World and he seemed preoccupied with addressing quality issues.  Whether these are long-standing or new is something we can discuss at the end, where I have a couple more thoughts.

In between, I am going to share some of my “quality” stories here, both good and bad.  I’m hoping that Johnny, Scott, Lee, and Robin all chime into the conversation.  Please do so yourself.

Remember, there is no “right” answer.  We are merely looking for experiences.

Life with 4i

I entered the Documentum world less than a month after the release of Documentum 4i.  The “i” should tell you all you need to know about the timing of the release.  I am hard pressed to describe the highlights of the release, but there are a few a gleaned while working with my colleagues who were old hands at EDMS98.

• Workflow: It was new in 4i, replacing the old router method.  It had some issues with larger, more complex, workflows, but it was also the 1.0 version of a major feature.  Documentum worked hard to get it fixed, but I remember old Bob cussing at the machine when it would blow-up.
• RightSite: Was better than EDMS98, but man did it have limits.  This wasn’t a quality thing though, just a limit to the technology and design.  All web interfaces were pretty primitive back then.
• Goodbye WorkSpace: That desktop client was an old standby.  The install was kept around by Documentum techies for years and used until the old DMCL library was removed.  That shows a lot of quality in WorkSpace and in the backward compatibility of the DMCL over the years.

That is my baseline.  Interesting days.  The Workflow issues made me worry about quality, but back then I was more concerned with learning the complexity than dealing with the quality.

Carving a Path to 5.3

There were some basic iterations of 4, but with the 5.x product, there were some issues.  I didn’t deal with a lot of them as I waited until 5.2.5 to put it into a real production environment, but forget 5.1 and 5.2.  There were a lot of general issues.

There was a lot going on in this release.  Everyone’s favorite was the new Web Development Kit (WDK) and the growing usage of the DFC.  I think the Java Method Server may have been new in the 5.x release, but that is a little fuzzy.  If anyone knows for sure, please share.

5.2.5 was okay, but 5.3 was a total nightmare.  Forget the core product, the issue was the new Index Server.  FAST was “fast”, except in getting it to work correctly.  There was a large difference in the wilds of the data center from the clean world of the Documentum test-beds.  It took several service packs to get it right.  I think SP3 was the SP where you actually had to blow away your index and start over.  The lessons learned from this debacle have led to a much more conservative course for releasing the new Enterprise Search Server.  The slow pace to release is frustrating, but so was search blowing-up in production.

By 5.3 SP4/5, life settled down.  Since then I don’t think I’ve upgraded because I had to upgrade, only because I wanted to go ahead and do it.

Which brings us to the world of 6+…

Attack of the D-Versions

Starting with a large number of presentations in 2007 talking about D6, every version has been referred to as Dx.x.  I think some people in the marketing department wish they hadn’t let that one hit the slides at EMC World 2007.

Aside from that, I’ve been following a simple approach, only upgrade to SP1 or higher of any version.  Since I’ve done that, I’ve only had two real problems.

• LDAP Synch: To be fair, this is suffering from old age.  They have spent a lot of time trying to fix it, but I keep having to find all sorts of new ways to work around it.  It works great for smaller user populations, but when you start to cruise past the 5,000 mark, things start to become fun.
• Federations: This isn’t a loss in quality. This stems directly from the fact that the Federation process hasn’t changed in 10+ years.

Now, I know that there have been problems here and there.  I know the Branch Office Caching Server had some issues when it first came out.  I also know that most of the products that I see having issues are usually shiny new “1.0″ products.  The core Content Server has been doing fine, as have many other products that are just “evolving”.  While it is a shame that you don’t want generally want to install the first release of a new product, that has actually been consistent for years.  I also use the same approach with Microsoft and other major vendors as well.

There is a lot to test, and a lot of permutations in the real world.  There will always be things that aren’t found in testing because you and I will always be throwing these products into unclean, old, cluttered repositories that EMC just doesn’t have lying around.

So the real question is two parts:

1. Have you seen lots of issues in existing products that seem to be creeping up in each release?
2. With new products/major features, have they been more problematic or do they have the same (or less) issues than previously released products.

Other food for thought…was Rick harping on fixing new quality or old quality issues?  I suspect old.  Is the “focus” on quality just typical marketing, realization that they need to fix it, or something they are going to fix instead of innovating further?

Let’s figure this out…

Originally introduced for the Formula 1 racing circuit, energy drink company Red Bull have introduced The Red Bulletin, an innovative printed magazine, that enables readers to ‘interact with the printed copy’.

In the words of the magazines editorial team:

This magazine sings, dances, flies and even scores a touchdown…

Here’s how it the interesting initiative works: By simply holding the magazine up to the webcam on your computer you can take it ‘beyond the page’ and into the world wide web. The cover for example will link through to a video package explaining exactly how augmented reality can enhance your reading experience in a way you almost certainly never imagined, with music, film, animations and more.

The Red Bulletin is a global magazine published each month in eight countries with a total circulation of 4.3 million copies (!). Labelled as an ‘almost independent magazine’ it is a modern lifestyle magazine covering news from the world of Red Bull, including a recent feature with Clint Eastwood.

Austrian-based Imagination has worked behind the scenes to create the webcam augmented reality experience. A close look at the URL also reveals that FatWire Content Server is powering the website. If you don’t have a copy of the printed magazine, you can even download it (link to August edition) and print it.

I’m not sure how many actually uses this and whether other companies with less circulation could benefit from it as well, but it certainly provides for a nice wow effect.

   Here is the second part of
my notes from the TEDxBoston that occurred yesterday. I have heard a lot about
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) but have not attended before so I was
pleased to see how it worked. Here are my notes from the second group of
sessions. These
are live notes, only slightly edited, so please excuse typos, etc.

Cesar Hidalgo from MIT began
this segment by covering global economic development. He said that one of the
issues is that diversity is not spread evenly. He introduced several principles
to address global economic development. First how many capabilities does a
country possess, rather than resources. He used legos to represent capabilities
in his visuals.

Here is more on Cesar’s lego
theory of development thanks to Eric Andersen. Typically, GDP is seen as a function of
just a few inputs (i.e. different types of putty using Cesar’s imagery).
These are capital, labor, and some kind of technology input. The types of
labor and the types of capital are more or less interchangeable (just as putty
is). Of course, economists know this is a massive simplification of the world,
but it is useful in helping describe an extremely complex reality.

Cesar
proposes a new approach that will help take into account a bit more of the
complexity that's out there in the world. He calls it the "lego"
theory of development. If we look at those countries that are wealthy, we see
that they produce products that require many different types of inputs or legos.
Further, wealthy countries don't specialize in one or two products (in
contradiction to a simplistic interpretation of comparative
advantage) they export many different types of goods. If a product is very complex, it can be best produced
by the few countries that have all the requirements.  You need to match capabilities with product requirements for
growth. How do you accumulate capabilities?

Another principle is
having the capabilities centralized. The industrialized countries have a great
concentration of capabilities in a centralized manner.  He showed how this increased
concentration of capabilities occurred in Malaysia as the economy grew. Cesar
feels that diversity of capabilities predicts growth more than traditional
inputs. This would argue for increasing the diversity of capabilities through
effective education.

Felice Frankel, a
photographer, provided a session titled more than pretty pictures. Felice
covered three main ideas. She said the process of making a visual
representation clarifies an idea. This process requires decisions that
encourage reflection. Second, the process of making a representation should be
collaborative. Third, the process of making a representation teaches. This
third principle is her real passion. I certainly agree with her points and there
has been a lot of research on this concept.  Muhan Zhang next very movingly performed a Mongolian
instrument.

John Werner and MacCalvin Romain
covered learning out of the box. MacCalvin told us how his creativity was
criticized in elementary school. However, he was shown that his interests could
turn into a career through Citizen’s Schools. John discussed how US education
is following behind the rest of the world.  He discovered that schools tried to keep the community
outside of the schools. Fifteen years ago he and others started Citizen Schools
to help expand the resources that students are exposed to.  John gave examples of bringing business
teams into the schools to create more learning opportunities.  He said there is a lot of potential for
people to help. Eight million people do jury duty each year, What if there was
education duty?  If we just two
percent of the scientists helped we would double the amount of science teachers
available to our kids. Good ideas.

Bill Walczak shared more
good ideas on education. His group started a charter school in a community
health center in Dorchester. They involve students in the health care
professions there. He said that Boston ninth grade students who do not go to
one of the three prestige Boston public high schools have a 7% chance to
graduate from high school. At the school in the health center they have
achieved an over 70% success rate through the involvement in the community
health center operations. This is a great model for integrating high school
with the community and a growing professional field. Now it was time for lunch.
More to follow in the next post.

This TEDxBoston session
provided access to a diverse set of themes, some are not directly related to
the major themes of this blog but I wanted to share with you how a TEDx session
flows.  The common theme is
thinking outside the normal and creating innovation. I felt that the message
across most of the sessions was that innovation becomes effective when it
involves innovative way people are engaged with new ideas and technology. I
think this is very related to this blog. 
I was pleased to attend and will be looking at the TED site for more. 

 I was pleased to be invited
to today's TEDxBoston. I have heard a lot about TED (Technology,
Entertainment, design) but not attended before. The TED Conference provides general guidance
for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. This one honored “local innovators who have the passion,
curiosity, and tenacity to change the
world with their revolutionary ideas.” They wanted us to unplug from our
technology but I want to take notes so I can remember what happen and share it
with you. I did, however, unplug any competing technology. I only recognized
one person in their highlighted presenters, Larry Lessing, so looked forward to
seeing a lot of new faces and hearing new ideas.  These are live notes, only slightly edited, so please excuse
typos, etc.

I
went to the simulcast room so I could use my laptop to take notes. The intro
talked about how this is a local event just using the TED branding and format. The session Economic Growth through Crowd Sourcing Dave McLaughlin is listed as the first event, a topic of interest for me lately, but it started with some drummers,
the Marcos Santos Group, to get us stoked up. Crowd sourcing is an obvious
starting point for an event like this. Meanwhile the drummers are good. Next
there was a quote from John Adams, one of our local revolutionaries, and revolutionary ideas is the theme of the day.

The introucers discussed the diversity of the audience including eight dozen CEOs and high
school students. I am humbled to be here.  Dave McLaughlin began with a discussion of horizontal relationships between vertical grouping for
cross-fertilization of ideas.  Boston has
invested to seed these cross-fertilizations for local economic growth through
Boston World Partnerships.  For
example, what is essential infrastructure is being rethought. Horizontal
relationships have become the new connectors.

Susan Avery from Woods Hole
next discussed our global ocean and its role in how the world functions.  The ocean has only been systematically
studied for 150 years. Now since WW2, technology has evolved rapidly to further
this exploration. The hydro-thermal vents are one new discovery that are places
where life forms emerge and were life likely started on this planet. This study
is very important as human impact on the ocean has greatly expanded. 

We have entered a new
geological era with humans as the dominant impact on the globe. For one thing
the ocean is becoming more acidic because of our carbon emissions.  This can greatly impact sea life such as
shell fish.  We view the ocean as a
limitless resource but it is not. The fish at the top of the food chain have
decreased by 90 percent since WW2. 
The ocean is also used as a garbage dump but there are limits here also.
There is a lot of plastic in the Pacific that ends up in fish. If we eat these
fish we eat our own garbage. She also addressed the oil spill in the Gulf. Each
spill is unique so the result is not predictable.

Seth Priebatsch covered the efforts
toward Building the Game Layer on Top of the World.  It is already happening but the market is cluttered. Game dynamics are
already in play but many are poorly designed such as credit card promotions.
Seth said we can build better applications of games using game dynamics. He
said this is important as we have been building the social layer but that is
done. He said Facebook has won this one. How it is time for building the game
layer. It said the game layer will be more important than the social layer so
it is time to think about it in a open way.

He showed four game
dynamics. First, there is the appointment dynamic. People have to do things at
a set time and place.  Happy hour
is one example.  Farmville has more
participants than Twitter and you have to return to water your virtual plants
at a certain time.  Second is
influence and status.  People want
to be cool and status is a great motivator.  School is a poorly designed status game. We could better use
game dynamics to improve participation in school. Third is the progression
dynamic. You have to go through certain granular steps. His firm is working
with businesses on applications of these dynamics to create loyalty, engagement,
and revenue.   Fourth, there
is communal discovery. Everyone works together to solve problems. Digg had a leader
board but it was too successful and had to be taken down. He closed with the
concept that game dynamics is the next frontier.

Mary Gunn discussed two
problems and one solution.  Her
organization, Generations, Inc. pairs older adults with kids in prompting
literacy. It helps both sides and she offers results.  I can believe this. A group next covered the digital
fabrication of homes so you could design homes in an automated way. Then the
specs are sent to a factory to produce the materials in a more cost effective
manner using compressed wood chips.  This also produces less waste, uses smaller trees, and get
homes up quicker. You can more easily do curves.

Before the first break John
Harthorne discussed starting a startup renaissance. John said that our economic
crisis can drive innovation. He started Mass Challenge to run a one million
dollar global competition on innovation. The finalists get funds, advice, and
free office space nearby at Fan Pier. He said why Boston for this?  Boston is number one on many innovation
measures: more investment per capita, more VC firms per capita, more
universities per capita, etc. than anywhere, even California.  This ends the first group of sessions. 

I plan to attend this the Enterprise Search Summit this November in Washington DC. I was at the last one in NYC in May and the one before in Santa Clara in November 2009. It is a great conference and I look forward to the next one. This session will meet at the same time and place as KM World 2010, just as did last year in November. I will be moderating a day's set of sessions at KM World and writing about both conferences. 

My Darwin colleague Thierry Hubert and I also enjoyed the May 11 – 12 Enterprise Search Summit held in New York. We presented on presented a session, Deriving Order From Chaos Through Discovery and Awareness.  Here is a series of posts that covered some of the points we made in the session (Rising Above the Over Quantification of Content). Here also is a summary of my Enterprise Search Summit 2010 notes on other sessions I attended. 

The organizers at Enterprise Search Summit have give me a $200 discount to pass on to you. Use this link to sign up. Hope to see you there. 

It’s hard to avoid information. Not only do we live in a world full of it, making it nearly impossible to escape, but for some perverse reason, we actually like it.

Is it too much yet?

Indeed, we like it so much that we continuously create more of it and have even designed machines to do this for us as well.  In addition, we frequently compile information into metrics and ratios that describe other information.

A recent survey by a computer company showed that 90% of information was only looked at once after it was created.  The current Basex survey on how knowledge workers work already tells us that 50% of us spend one to two hours of our days creating information – and 15% spend more than three hours.  (If you haven’t already taken the survey, click here to do it now .)

Is this figure simply too high and are we in fact simply creating more information, not for its value but purely for the sake of making the pile bigger?

As we go about our day, it might be wise to cast a critical eye on our work that results in the creation of more information and ask ourselves some hard questions.  One, what is the practical purpose of the information that we are creating, and two, is it important enough to justify burdening others with it?

A quote generally attributed to Albert Einstein notes that “[N]ot everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Perhaps it would do us all good to think about why we are creating so much information, and whether perhaps we could get by with a bit less of it.

Jonathan B. Spira is CEO and Chief Analyst at Basex.

  I have been reading the recently released 25th Anniversary Edition Hackers —
Heroes
of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy.
The first version traced the exploits of the computer
revolution's original hacker. These were the nerds who got their revenge by
being successful and playing a major role in the computer industry from the
late 1950s through the early '80s.  They took risks, bent the rules, and pushed the world in a
radical new direction.

The 25th anniversary edition includes updated
material from noteworthy “hackers” such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard
Stallman, and Steve Wozniak. I did not get involved in the computer world until
the end point of the first edition.

In the early 80s I made the transition from
academia to the business world by joining a firm that did training primarily
for computer firms. As a consultant I led the development of Apple’s first
national account sales training in the pre-Mac era, developed sales training
for NCR’s first personal computer, and wrote about the creation of one Raytheon’s
mid-range computers, among other projects.

The book closes with a chapter on Cambridge 1983 as the
place for the last of the true hackers. 
Being a Boston resident at the time, and still one, I enjoyed this
homage. It closes with a quote from Lee Felsenstein, a Berkeley hacker, “…to able to defy a culture which states, ‘thou shall not touch this,’
and to defy that with one’s own creative power is…the essence.” In those days
it seemed that most of this hacker power addressed positive outcomes. Now while
some hackers have gone to the dark side, this need to push boundaries still
does more good than harm.

It was an exciting time and this book brought
back those years and set the stage for them by going even further back in time.
I wish I had read it then but it is no less relevant now.  Not being technical I have always had
great admiration for those who are and I share some of the other traits such an
obsession for doing things more than interacting with people, I have always
felt connected with hackers even though I do not possess their computer skills.
I think it is a similar obsession that drives my involvement with the painting
I post here on weekends. Artists and hackers are pushing envelopes from very
different perspectives but I feel there is a common core.

I highly recommend this O’Reilly book which PC Magazine named the best Sci-Tech
book written in the last twenty years.