Reminiscing

As I wind down my first stint as a blogger, I’m thinking back to other milestones.

In 1977, I used my fax machine. It had an acoustic coupler and was located in Congressman Mann’s office in the U.S. Capitol where I was an 18 year old intern. I was blown away that you could put that phone receiver in there and send a picture.

In 1980, I used my first word processor. For someone who loves words, this experience was almost mystical.

I attended my first teleconferencing industry meeting in 1981 at the University of Wisconsin-Extension. The big issues then were travel cost displacement and distance education. On the trade show floor I remember freeze frame systems and executive videoconferencing systems. (Next August I’m going to Las Vegas for a reunion of the teleconferencing industry – I’ll be tipping a glass with at least 133 veterans of teleconferencing and social computing.) We were all so excited about the possibilities for collaboration in the early 80s. It was a very idealistic and optimistic crew that met at those conferences.

I also remember being an intern at The Institute for the Future around 1983 and using a workstation that connected our Sand Hill Road location to another spot in Palo Alto via voice and video “store and forward”…

Most of the time at IFTF I was working on a Kaypro machine (remember those?). That year was also the first time I met Doug Engelbart. Little did I know that a few years later I’d be using his Augment system on a PC platform. Hyperform (designed by Dean Meyer) was my first introduction to links, windows, structured text and keysets – in 1985.

Fast forward to 2007 where I’ve now completed my first blogging experience. I want to thank Dave and the rest of you for accompanying me. I enjoyed sharing ideas with you.