Theodor Holm Nelson
Designer, Generalist, Contrarian. Known for coining the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" ('63), and as Founder of Project Xanadu¬. Current positions: Project Professor, Keio University in Fujisawa, and Visiting Professor of Multimedia, Southampton, England. He holds degrees from Swarthmore and Harvard. His books include: "Computer Lib/Dream Machines", "Literary Machines" and "The Future of Information." He also coined the terms: "softcopy" (ca.'67); "compound document"; "electronic visualization" ('72); "dildonics" ('74); "virtuality" re: computers ('75) and "micropayment" ('92). Mr. Nelson received the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award '98 at WWW7 in Brisbane. The Nelson Award is given at the annual ACM hypertext conference for best paper by a newcomer. http://www.xanadu.com.au/ The Structure and Boundaries of Information We need ways to store information not as individual "files" but as a richly connected literature. Hypertext is not technology but Literature: the information that we package and save (first just books, newspapers and magazines, now movies, recordings, CD-ROMs...). The design of tomorrow's literature determines what our species will be able to keep track of and understand. The principal issues of media design should be a matter for public understanding and debate, as they vitally affect tomorrow's understanding, freedom and hopes for human survival. The important issues of information-- structure, continuity, persistence of material, side-by-side intercomparison-- must not be left to "technologists." Such issues include maintaining connections in the ever-changing body of media contents without regard to where they are stored, as it moves among locations, and maintaining continuity in creative work-- whose project boundaries and names are constantly overlapping, changing and interconnecting. The real projects of real people interpenetrate and evolve. Yet the inane tradition of hierarchical files (no different on the candy-coated interfaces of Mac and Windows from what it was before) requires that work stays in one place with a frozen name even as the ideas and contents change. This must be fixed. The real problem is much harder. See schedule.	program BILL BUXTON ANDY CAMERON MATTHEW CHALMERS DANIEL DÖGL BILL GAVER NEIL GERSHENFELD ANDREW GLASSNER PAUL HAEBERLI TOM HEWETT BREWSTER KAHLE PANU KORHONEN DOUG LENAT JO LERNOUT RALPH MERKLE THEODOR H. NELSON CELIA PEARCE MARK PESCE HANI RASHID BILL SCHILIT DAVID SMALL MARCO SUSANI JOHN THACKARA MICHAEL FREEDMAN TURNER WHITTED ANTON ZEILINGER
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