Doug Engelbart in 1968

Once or twice a week I’m in a meeting, someone blurts out their fantastic new idea, and I have to bite my tongue instead of saying “hey, we thought of that years ago!”

If you’re over 30 you’re probably beginning to have that thought yourself once in a while. My favorite is when someone pops up in a meeting and says “Hey, I had this great new idea that we should use the web [or phones, or whatever] for online learning.”

When I tell them that someone first did this in 1954, why do they get so bent out of shape? (And then  ignore the comment and go right back to claiming the idea as their own…) [Read more…]