The New American Gazette: Mitchell Kapor discusses, What\u27s So Personal about Personal Computers? , at Ford Hall Forum, audio recording

Mitchell Kapor, the one-time teacher of transcendental meditation who became Founder and President of Lotus Development Corporation, surveys the future of technology and its implications for our society. Recorded at the Ford Hall Forum on 4/16/1989 and broadcast on the New American Gazette radio program.https://dc.suffolk.edu/fhf-av/1039/thumbnail.jp

The Self-Governing Internet: Coordination by Design

Contrary to its popular portrayal as anarchy, the Internet is actually managed, though not by a manager in the traditional sense of the word. This paper explains how the decentralized Internet is coordinated into a unified system. It draws an analogy to an organizational style in which a manager sets up a system that allows 99% of day-to-day functions to be handled by empowered employees, leaving the manager free to deal with the 1% of exceptional issues. Within that framework, it discusses: how the Internet's technical design and cultural understandings serve as the system that automates 99% of Internet coordination; what the 1% of exceptional issues are in today's Internet, how they are handled by multiple authorities, and where the stresses lie in the current structure; and the differences in mindset that distinguish the Internet's self-governance from the management of more traditional communication systems.