In the back seat of a London taxi, Howard Rheingold talks with me a bit about how information research centers can form around people who attract talented individuals and then “protect” them so they can innovate.
First he mentions Bob Taylor, who was at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where Alan Kay and Bob Metcalfe, among others who I know, did some really innovative work.
JP Rangaswami, at BT, is also a “people connector” and extraordinary manager who in a big-company environment, such as a telecom company, is doing some interesting things. BT’s CEO Ian Livingston, the night before, had told us there are 200 competing companies here vying for UK business and that this bodes well for services and low prices.
Howard Rheingold is my favorite writer. I had fallen in love with his books since his book (Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind ) on 1998