This year marks the 60th Anniversary of
A Field Guide to Doug Engelbart's
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By 'augmenting human intellect'
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to see what sprang from Doug's Framework | |
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Engelbart did not think of the computer as merely improving human thinking,
but as transforming the processes of our institutions
in a more profound way...❞
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Doug thought at scale. |
Welcome to our 'field guide' to Doug Engelbart's seminal work:
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework,
Douglas C. Engelbart, SRI Summary Report, 1962
This was the final report of a groundbreaking study conducted by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to flesh out his ideas for making the world a much better place in the fastest possible timeframe. His basic premise? In the midst of accelerating change, the issues and opportunities we face would be growing increasingly complex and urgent. If we could discover how teams could work dramatically smarter, better, faster, then all the initiatives tackling important challenges could be much more effective pursuing their mission. Consider it the grand challenge of grand challenges, important to success of organizations, institutions, whole nations, and cross-cutting efforts, large and small.
In the course of this study, funded jointly by SRI and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Doug forged a new discipline he called Augmenting the Human Intellect, with in-depth conceptual framework, research agenda, and strategic approach for bootstrapping the results at scale. This report summarizes his findings and recommendations.
R&D funding ensued, and so the Augmenting Human Intellect Research Center (AHIRC) was born. In a few short years, Doug and his team forged a constellation of breakthrough firsts to herald in a new era in team effectiveness, as demonstrated first in 1968 in what is now known as the Mother of All Demos, again in 1969 with the 'sequel' to the Demo, and beyond. Pioneering firsts included interactive, hyperlinked, networked personal and collaborative computing, which he co-evolved alongside organizational innovations and strategic design principles that were just as profound.
And for his efforts he was recognized with the National Medal of Technology & Innovation, the Turing Award, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, an Honorary Doctorate from Yale, and more, even as he continued pointing to the future through his lectures and management seminars.
And now widely acclaimed:
"In one 1968 presentation, this inventor shaped modern computing"
- Smithsonian Magazine
"One of recent history's most acclaimed innovators"- Inventors Digest
"Visionary is one of the most overused terms in tech, but italmost seems insufficient to explain just what Doug Engelbart was' - Fast Company
In other words, Doug's conceptual framework for augmenting the human intellect drove one of the more revolutionary research agendas on record, and, like Einstein's Theory of Relativity, is still enormously relevant. And yet we have still barely scratched the surface of fully appreciating, let alone achieving, its true potential.
And all this traces back to this one seminal document – the strategic thinking, big picture vision, phenomenal thought experiments, unifying conceptual framework, organizing principles, approach, and application scenarios – which informed and shaped all subsequent work.
Browse with our usual enhanced navigation features (see About Our Website), or other formats as shown below.
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework (1962)
For a full citation, refer to #3 in Doug's Bibliography.
A Conceptual Framework for the Augmention of Man's Intellect (1963) – the 1962 report edited down
for inclusion in the book Vistas in Information Handling, Howerton & Weeks [Ed.], 1963, Chapter 1.
Further abridged for inclusion in, among others:
A Program in Human Effectiveness (1961) – summary highlights of the framework and research agenda. He enclosed a copy of this summary with a letter to Vannevar Bush in May of 1962.
New! A reading of the first few sections of the report by Prof. Gardner Campbell, foremost Engelbart scholar and practitioner of Framework strategic principles:
The research world and market forces took a very different trajectory, falling way short of the true potential Doug Engelbart laid out so clearly in his Framework, and proved out in his own research – now more relevant than ever. He continued to iteratively refine, implement, and evolve his message throughout his career.