Doug Engelbart Documentary Website
Have you ever used a mouse? Have you followed a link on a web page? Sent an email? Used a window on a computer? Used video teleconferencing? Then you live in Doug's world.
Back in November I posted some links to videos of Doug Engelbart's incredible work in the 1960s with technologies that I wouldn't use daily almost for another 3 decades: the mouse, windows, networking, email and more. It was awe-inspiring to see video of the birth of these literally world-changing technologies. Really incredible stuff.
There's a new website called Doug Engelbart's Invisible Revolution which has been created to track the progress on a new documentary about Doug and his effect on the computer industry (world?) as we know it. As they're planning on interviews with just about everyone in Silicon Valley, they're blogging about it (!) and putting clips online for viewing. Pretty rocking if you ask me. Right now, in addition to Doug himself there's also a clip from our favorite SmartMobber, Howard Rheingold who met Engelbart 20 years ago while writing Tools For Thought. Very cool stuff...
In addition to the neat stuff about Doug we're learning on the site (that he's still around and still interested in everything) you get to see a little behind-the-scenes about the process of making a documentary. I don't know if all documentaries are made this way, but its quite the shoe-string operation with the producers doing a lot of their work in Starbucks. ;-) Having gone to college New Hampshire and knowing several people who interned for Kevin Burns before he was the PBS superstar we all know now, I've got a general idea of what it's like (it's not Hollywood). This site is pretty interesting, if just for that.
Check it out... hopefully they'll put up a PayPal link or something up so we can help make sure the documentary sees the light of day, hey?
-Russ