Life With Alacrity
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Allen.
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October 13, 2004
Tracing the Evolution of Social Software
The term 'social software', which is now used to define software that supports group
interaction, has only become relatively popular within the last two or more years.
However, the core ideas of social software itself enjoy a much longer history,
running back to Vannevar Bush's ideas about 'memex' in 1945, and traveling
through terms such as Augmentation, Groupware, and CSCW in the 1960s, 70s,
80s, and 90s.
By examining the many terms used to describe today's 'social software' we can also
explore the origins of social software itself, and see how there exists a very real life
cycle concerning the use of technical terminology.
1940s — Memex
The earliest reference that I can find to people using computers to collaborate with one another is from the 1940s.
Near the end of World War II, in 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote a seminal article on the future of computing in As We
May Think. In it, he conceived of a device he called the 'memex', which today we might call the personal computer:
"A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and
communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with
exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his
memory."
Later on, the article discusses Memex's further benefits to groups:
"And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to
the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the
outranged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code
book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting
items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer
in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be
linked into the more general trail.
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through
them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. The lawyer has at his touch the associated
opinions and decisions of his whole experience, and of the experience of friends and authorities. The patent
attorney has on call the millions of issued patents, with familiar trails to every point of his client's interest. The
physician, puzzled by its patient's reactions, strikes the trail established in studying an earlier similar case, and
runs rapidly through analogous case histories, with side references to the classics for the pertinent anatomy and
histology. The chemist, struggling with the synthesis of an organic compound, has all the chemical literature
before him in his laboratory, with trails following the analogies of compounds, and side trails to their physical
and chemical behavior."
As far as I can tell, this is also the first mention in literature of what will eventually be called hypertext. However, the
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term 'memex' never caught on - - Vannevar's ideas were way before their time.
1960's — ARPA and Licklider
It wasn't until the early 1960s that I find the idea of using computers to collaborate came
up again.
As a response to the USSR launching Sputnik, the US formed the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) in 1958. In l8 months, ARPA has developed the first successful
satellite. In 1962 Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was appointed to head ARPA, and changed ARPA to
offer more research grants to universities. In fact, it was due to his efforts that universities
offered their first Ph.D.'s in computer science. It was this research that ultimately led to
ARPANET, commercial time-sharing systems, and ultimately to the Internet.
Licklider wrote in 1968 in The Computer as a Communication Device:
"To appreciate the importance the new computer-aided communication can have,
one must consider the dynamics of 'critical mass,' as it applies to cooperation in
creative endeavor. Take any problem worthy of the name, and you find only a few
people who can contribute effectively to its solution. Those people must be brought into close intellectual
partnership so that their ideas can come into contact with one another. But bring these people together
physically in one place to form a team, and you have trouble, for the most creative people are often not the best
team players, and there are not enough top positions in a single organization to keep them all happy. Let them
go their separate ways, and each creates his own empire, large or small, and devotes more time to the role of
emperor than to the role of problem solver. The principals still get together at meetings. They still visit one
another. But the time scale of their communication stretches out, and the correlations among mental models
degenerate between meetings so that it may take a year to do a week’s communicating. There has to be some
way of facilitating communication among people without bringing them together in one place."
Here you see Licklider really speaking of more than just communication. He also describes about methods of
collaboration and how people function in groups.
1960s — Augmentation
One of the early ARPA research projects was at SRI, where Doug Englebart, inspired
by Vannevar Bush's vision, set up a research lab that created an elaborate
hypermedia system called NLS (oNLine System). This was the first successful
implementation of hypertext (though that term was not invented until later), and it
was here that the mouse was invented as well as the first on-screen video
teleconference.
Engelbart's seminal work was Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework, which he wrote in 1962. In it he
set out his basic idea of augmentation:
"By 'augmenting human intellect' we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem
situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased
capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid comprehension, better
comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was
too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before
seemed insoluble. And by 'complex situations' we include the professional problems of diplomats, executives,
social scientists, life scientists, physical scientists, attorneys, designers—whether the problem situation exists for
twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever tricks that help in particular situations. We
refer to a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human 'feel for a
situation' usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation, sophisticated
methods, and high-powered electronic aids."
He was also among the first to say that in order to design such tools, we must:
"integrate psychology and organizational development with all of these advances in computing technology."
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