Interdependent Thoughts

It was 20 years ago, April 30th 1993, that Tim Berners-Lee and the CERN Institute released the code for the World Wide Web. A week before, on April 22, the MOSAIC browser was released as version 1.

I remember that week.

I spend most of my time then in the basement of the Electronic Engineering faculty where I was studying. Our student association had its offices there, well away from any daylight. We ran a number of computers there, and since ’89 had the first non-university local Ethernet network on campus running between them, which a bit later got hooked up to the internet. I remember voting in favor of spending 2500 Dutch guilders on the wiring and three ethernet cards to make it possible.

One of my fellow students came in all excited, and installed this thing called ‘browser’. With a few people we gathered around the screen, and saw something like this.

I was unimpressed.

Why was this Web important? So MOSAIC could use inline images. Nice. So CERN had published the code for the Web. Ok. But I didn’t get it. Already for a few years I had been active online on a daily basis from that faculty basement. Using command line statements for remote access and Gopher menus I was perfectly capable of navigating the internet, thank you very much. So to me this World Wide Web that made it possible to jump from document to document, instead of from server to server, didn’t seem all that big an improvement in the information I had available at my finger tips. And who needed inline images anyway?

Even as a kid in primary school, however, I have always been fascinated by how everything was and could be connected to everything. If only you could see it, or had the tools to do it. Since I was 9 or 10, I was into short wave and ham radio because of it, and always ‘playing detective’ to find the hidden connections between people and things that happened (of which I kept stacks of notebooks). Internet made my perception that everything was connected true and tangible and above all global.

Only slowly did it dawn on me that what CERN / Tim Berners Lee and NCSA did, by releasing the WWW code and the first graphical browser, was making it possible for everyone to see and build the web. And not just the geeky types like me in the basement of tech faculties. Only slowly did it dawn on me that, by adding the web to internet, they had opened up my life long fascination with how everything was connected, if only you had the tools to see it and do it, to everybody else on the planet.

The decision has been made, the question answered: Elmine and I will spend the entire month of August in Cambridge.

Last year we worked and lived a month in Copenhagen. This year we’ll strike up camp in Cambridge (UK). Johnnie Moore has kindly offered us his hospitality, and we’re very much looking forward to a sabbatical month with plenty of opportunity for great conversation.

Cambridge boasts a MakeSpace, offers space to reflect and write, as well as all the offerings of a city with a large student population. On top of that London is only a short train ride away. Both Johnnie and Elmine have their birthdays in August, so that too provides opportunities, perhaps even of the ‘BBQ at the End of the Universe‘ variety.

We are already very much looking forward to August!

photo by DaveOnFlickr (CC BY-SA)

Last year Elmine and I lived and worked for a month in Copenhagen (see week 1 2 3 4). To experience a new environment, work with other people, and see what inspiration it could bring us. We’re thinking about repeating the experiment.

But where would we go? Maybe you have suggestions? It could be a city you would love to spend a month, or it could be somewhere you think we really need to visit for a longer period. Let us know, and let us know why.

Based on our experience last year in Copenhagen we have a few rough criteria:

• a stay would be more like a sabbatical than actually trying to do business (a month is great to explore and connect, and do a workshop or 2, but no real time for sustained work with clients unless those assignments are already lined up before leaving)
• a place would need to have a local scene roughly connected to our professional interests,(story telling, creative writing/filming, complexity, open data / open gov, making, tech development) or offer other things that help expose us to new ideas and insights (courses, musea, literary events, festivals, lively neighborhoods). It could be outside of a major city, but within reach of one.
• although not meant as a full retreat, being able to do focussed work (like writing) or withdraw from the general pace of things is valuable.
• an agreeable climate is preferred. October in Copenhagen was generally cold, wet and windy. Not much different from home, but exploring a city means being outside a lot and that is better enjoyed without freezing winds and sleeting rain. It also rules out doing e.g. Madrid in the midst of summer.
• Time wise we have thought of July or August, as it’s a quiet time for client work anyway, which would support a more sabbatical style. It would also increase the number of places with a relatively favorable climate in Europe.

Several cities crossed our mind already, but none of them seem the ‘obvious’ answer or an obvious ‘no’. Berlin (great scene, been there before), Oxford (close to London with scene, Oxford summer school offerings), Dublin, Ljubljana, Barcelona (too hot in summer?), Prague, Milano, Firenze, a Toscany retreat. It could be outside of Europe, but that means leaving business out of it completely, as our market is Europe.

So we’re wondering:

Where would you go for a month? Why?

Where would you want us to go for a month? Why?

Copenhagen, Oxford, Madrid, Trieste