Interview: John Seely Brown

Part of my Conversations.net interview series on the impact of the Internet on culture and society.

Date: Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 12am GMT (next day) (international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Elluminate. Log in at http://tinyurl.com/convnet. The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit http://www.elluminate.com/support. Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event.

John Seely Brown is the Independent Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation. In addition, he is a Visiting Scholar and Advisor to the Provost at USC.

Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, knowledge management, complex adaptive systems, and nano/mems technologies. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include the management of radical innovation, digital youth culture, digital media, and new forms of communication and learning.

John, or as he is often called—JSB— is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, and Varian Medical Systems) and private boards of directors. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, "Research that Reinvents the Corporation" and again in 2002 for his article “Your Next IT Strategy.”

In 2004 he was inducted in the Industry Hall of Fame.

With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002, and with John Hagel he co-authored the book The Only Sustainable Edge which is about new forms of collaborative innovation. It also provides a novel framework for understanding what is really happening in off-shoring in India and China and how each are inventing powerful news ways to innovate, learn and accelerate capability building.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001. And in May of 2004 he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Claremont Graduate School. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from University of Michigan and delivered their commencement speech.

JSB is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist.

Part scientist, part artist and part strategist, JSB's views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress

International Advisory Boards

Barcelona, the Government of Catalonia’s Minister for Innovation, Universities and Enterprise International Advisory Panel on Research and Innovation, 2007 -

Singapore Ministry of Education’s International Review Panel for R&D Programme on Digital Media in Education, 2007-present

Singapore Ministry of Education’s, Media Development Authority , International Advisory Panel, 2007 –present

Singapore Management University, School of Information Systems, Advisory Board, 2006-present

Singapore’s Scientific Advisory Board of the National Research Foundation, 2006-present

Honorary Degrees

* 2000 - Brown University - Doctor of Science
* 2001 - London Business School - Doctor of Science in Economics
* 2004 - Claremont Graduate School - Doctor of Humane Letters
* 2005 - University of Michigan - Doctor of Science

Links:

Website: http://www.johnseelybrown.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jseelybrown