An Afternoon with Mark Pesce: The Uncut Version
Emerging Geeks
Mark Pesce
Inventor of VRML
http://www.nets.com/site/scribe/new/pesce/4pesce.ht
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I don't really care for Gen-X. No sense
of personal responsibility. I like MP less
and less each time I hear about him...
(note a total lack of credit to Dave Raggett,
who actually coined the term 'VRML')
Especially interesting note on process:
There are some anthropologists studying the way
Usenet and listservs work, and someone is
actually doing a paper on the VRML specification
process. Now, I chair this process, sort of anyway,
because nothing's official. I have absolutely no
power. I have authoring authority, but no power.
It's an adhocracy. It's a completely open process.
It's a meritocracy - people will listen to you if have
good ideas but they will tell you to shut up if you
don't. And it's all based on the Internet, it's all
based on the fact that we are operating on this
many-to-many communications system. I think
it's a good example of creating a process that
works with thousands of people, worldwide, in an
open forum in a public area, that allows everyone
to reach group consensus on good approches to
problems. And I do this, primarily, because in the
beginning when I set up the list I was very strict
with what people could say and how people could
say it and how they could treat one each other. But
once that happened, once there was a system set
up, it obligated everyone to do it that way and it
perpetuated because it works. It's a
self-government - it's a Temporary Autonomous
Zone.
Anybody know if it really works?
-- Dan Connolly, W3C Architecture Domain Lead <connolly@w3.org> +1 512 310-2971 http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/ PGP:EDF8 A8E4 F3BB 0F3C FD1B 7BE0 716C FF21