Originally published at framework – Gardner Writes (see it there)
Our Featured Annotator interview series in the Engelbart Framework Annotation expedition continues with Howard Rheingold, whose work has been tremendously influential on me and many, many others who seek to understand the character and potential of the digital age. Howard’s epic Tools For Thought awakened me to depths in this story that I had only suspected before reading his account. Even more to the point, Howard’s work conveys and catalyzes insight on every page.
In this case, our Featured Annotator brings not only deep insights into Engelbart’s Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, but also a remarkable personal history with that document and its author. As you will hear, Howard met Doug Engelbart not long after Doug’s Augmentation Research Center had ceased operations at SRI. Over many years and many conversations, Howard got to know Doug well, and he brings to this interview a stirring account of Doug as a human being and, as Howard puts it in Tools for Thought, a lonely long-distance thinker.
I have a head full of words, but I struggle to find the language I would need to describe the extent and importance of Howard’s contributions to the planetary conversation about how to build a better future together. He is merrily, definitely, and defiantly, an intellectual philanthropist.
I hope you enjoy the interview.