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This year marks the 60th Anniversary of A Field Guide to 'Augmenting Human Intellect' 0
What it is 1Welcome to our 'field guide' to Doug Engelbart's most seminal work. It all started with a vision for humanity and a comprehensive two-year study of what he came to call 'Augmenting the Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework', culminating in a comprehensive research report, an article distilling his findings for the public, and a concise summary proposal (all found under Find it here below) – which then served as the guiding force behind his award-winning pioneering research throughout his career, and still inspires us today. The aim of his groundbreaking study, conducted by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), was 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, following the core principles set forth in his Framework, 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 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. Find it here 2Browse with our usual enhanced navigation features (see About Our Website), or other formats as shown below. The Research Report 2a
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework | 1962 | 134 pages For a full citation, refer to #3 in Doug's Bibliography. The Article 2b
A Conceptual Framework for the Augmention of Man's Intellect | 1963 | 35 pages – the 1962 report edited down
for management in the book Vistas in Information Handling, Howerton & Weeks [Ed.], 1963, Chapter 1.
Further abridged for inclusion in, among others: Summary Proposal 2c
A Program in Human Effectiveness | 1961 | 8 pages – highlights of the framework and research agenda. Doug enclosed a copy of this summary with a letter to Vannevar Bush in May of 1962. Audio Readings 2cNew! Readings of the first few sections of the 1962 report by Prof. Gardner Campbell for his Framework Annotation site, now available as a collection on our Audio Resources page, here's a teaser:
Resources 3In Perspective 3a
Explore 3a
Then and Now 3bThe 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 the basics in his own research – now more relevant than ever. He continued to iteratively refine, implement, and evolve his message throughout his career.
Selected Press Articles 3c
Selected Engelbart Articles 3d
Learn More 4About Doug 4a
The Archives 4b
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Wordle of 1962 Report