Welcome to the DorkbotColumbus blog!
I came across Dorkbot in early 2006, and - in my position at the time promoting IT and computer science careers in Ohio for the Ohio Board of Regents - it seemed like this might be a fun way to break out of the conceptual box that technology people often find themselves in. I also got some friends in Cleveland excited about starting something there also.
There were at least two reasons I was attracted to the Dorkbot idea - and wanted to explore starting a local group.
One reason is that Dorkbot is about mental exercise and play. And we need more of that. We get so focused on very narrow problems that we may be in danger o of forgetting how to look at the world in the playful ways that can generate new insights and new approaches. Our lives are fraught with problems - many of them caused by technology. Why not take control and use that same technology to have some fun? It has to be good for everyone.
The other reason for my interest is a little heavier. The state and the country desperately need more people to get involved in IT and computer science -related careers. But these technology careers have gotten a bad rap. Either they pictured as a bunch of geeks who live by the light of a computer screen, and have no lives the rest of us might consider "normal." Or the profession is considered a dead-end because of all the press a few years ago about out-sourcing, the Internet bubble bursting, and an absorption of everything "technological" into a consumer environment that required no "professionals."
None of this is true. Certainly IT professionals can get caught up in their work - as do insurance people, medical people, retail people and virtually everyone. But it is no more a natural consequence of the IT profession than it is of any of the others.
And certainly the technical jobs took a hit in the 2001-2003 timeframe - but every segment of the economy has its cycles, and that's all this was. Planners now indicate that we are are as much as 50% behind in filling available jobs in the US - and (with the growth of the business and the retirement of the boomers) it may only get worse over the next 10-20 years. In short - If you've got talent and training you are likely to get a job!
So where does Dorkbot fit in? Well, the Dorkbots around the world explore every aspect of life with technology. Sometimes the results are horrific, in an amusement park kind of way. Sometimes they are great fun. Always they are interesting - and they represent a way for all of us to play with new perspectives and new ways of solving problems.
In a sense, many of us are in the pipeline business. It is our job to move people and ideas into positions where they can be happy and productive. That's part of what teaching is all about. It's part of what mentoring is all about. It's a large part of what any management position is all about.
So Dorkbot is a chance to come at all these issues from a fresh direction.
Personally, I have been involved with technology - and it's use - all my life. As an undergrad in the English Education department at OSU, I wrote programs to understand English well enough to automate the process of scoring readability (by age and grade groups). After holding a number of management positions in widely disparate industries (apparel manufacturing and sales, airlines, publishing), I settled into electronic publishing. I was involved from the earliest days in the development of the standards for compact disc as a content distribution medium for computer control - the multimedia business. I returned to Ohio in the mid-'80's as Director of Development for the Applied Information Technologies Research Center (AITRC) - a collaborative R&D center that suffered from too lilttle collaboration. And I started a trade association for those who were exploring the hazy but exciting potential of CD-ROM, for story-telling and entertainment in ways we had never before had access to.
When the Web made it apparent that an always-on Internet with virtually unlimited capacity was going to change the CD-ROM business radically - I went to work for CompuServe - an organization that had provided me a communications life-line for years. I eventually managed all the famous forums on the service, as well as other publishing and development activities. Among other things, we arranged some of the first interactive programming matching network television with online forums and live commentary - even running a nightly radio talk show (with Eliot Stein) combining online delivery with member interaction via the featured forums.
Some years after AOL took over, I left CompuServe/AOL, and took some time to explore. Oh yeah and there was that year I spent recovering from colon cancer - get those scopes done, people! In 2004 I accepted the honor of coordinating the Ohio IT Clearinghouse project at the Ohio Learning Network for the Board of Regents. Since then I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the drivers of higher education in Ohio, and seeing first-hand what the challenges are. I am concerned not only with promoting the IT professions - but also with facilitating every Ohio citizen acquiring the basic computer skills he/she will need to meet the requirements of the 21st century. To accomplish this - we are introducing the International Computer Driving License (ICDL).
So I am very involved with melding technological progress and real human solutions to problems. I see Dorkbot as a tremendous opportunity to connect with the humor and the adventure that get people excited. Let's go have some fun with electricity!!
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