Researchers and customers, companies and citizens, will coproduce technologies … Personal computers and computer-mediated communication offer ways for people to think about ideas and procedures … The innovations that emerge from that computer-aided thinking are more valuable to organizations than the hardware that helped individuals come up with them. The relationships between people in organizations are more important than the hardware and software that makes it easier for them to communicate. Using computer-based tools in an atmosphere that fosters storytelling, improvisation, and informal communication is a way of harnessing silicon to amplify the powers of minds and working communities.
Predictor: Curtis, Pavel
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Howard Rheingold talks with researchers Mark Weiser, Pavel Curtis and John Seely Brown at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Rheingold writes: ”JSB [John Seely Brown, Xerox VP and PARC director] foresees PARC in the center of a revolution, not just in information products but in technology design and production. Researchers and customers, companies and citizens, will coproduce technologies. Now that we know how to build tiny machines that can amplify our thinking, let’s dissolve them into the countertop, the desktop, the hallway, says Mark Weiser. Let’s find ways to facilitate informal, imaginative communication among coworkers by harnessing the narrative form that can cause MUD addiction, says Pavel Curtis. As the technology disappears, let’s fill the space it leaves with storytelling, says JSB. Personal computers and computer-mediated communication offer ways for people to think about ideas and procedures, and to communicate with one another. The innovations that emerge from that computer-aided thinking are more valuable to organizations than the hardware that helped individuals come up with them. The relationships between people in organizations are more important than the hardware and software that makes it easier for them to communicate. Using computer-based tools in an atmosphere that fosters storytelling, improvisation, and informal communication is a way of harnessing silicon to amplify the powers of minds and working communities. ‘A new transparent knowledge medium that supports communities of learning and workers – a medium which helps us help each other,’ as JSB puts it.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Human-Machine Interaction
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: PARC is Back! After Fumbling the Future, Xerox PARC is Back With a Visionary New Director, Bright Researchers and Amazing New Technology
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.02/parc_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney