INDUSTRY INSIGHTS :
ON NERVE & IMAGINATION
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He owned us . It ’ s not easy to hold the attention of 100 grade-schoolers , but after 30 minutes of crafting a live sci-fi soundtrack , he had us completely . A 1970s electronic pied piper .
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And then it happened . At the end of his performance , he stepped to the front of the stage . “ One day ,” he said , “ all of you will have a machine that does all this , makes music like this .” Then he pulled out his wallet and held it up . “ And it won ’ t be any bigger than this . It will fit in your pocket .”
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A roomful of little first-grade heads exploded . I ’ ll never forget it : “ It will fit in your pocket .” It was the first time I really ached for a specific vision of the future . For me , the future wasn ’ t rocket cars . It wasn ’ t living on the moon . It wasn ’ t even R2-D2 . The future was having my own little synthesizer , a computer in my pocket that I could use to make something .
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So I waited for the future . At first , I thought it had arrived in 2001 with the iPod . Bam , music in your pocket , just like he said . But that was just a player . It couldn ’ t make anything . It wasn ’ t a creative device . It wasn ’ t until 2007 that I realized that it was the iPhone I was waiting for . Apple ’ s fabulous device was the first thing to resemble my childhood notions of the future . It was the very first time the future finally got here . And I ’ ll be damned if the future didn ’ t fit in my pocket , exactly as promised .
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I don ’ t know who our guest was . I wish I knew his name . His equipment wouldn ’ t fit in my living room , let alone my pocket . Gordon Moore had posited Moore ’ s Law only a decade earlier . The Apple II personal computer would
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And the New York Times was still eight years away from declaring the death of the portable computer . Yet this guy was already sharing his vision for tiny personal computers . Even more remarkable , he had the foresight to imagine them dedicated to creativity and leisure .
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I thought about his promise every few months for the next three decades . And now that this stuff is what I do for a living , I think about it even more . I think about it every time I feel a lapse of imagination or nerve , or when I ’ m tempted to say , “ it can ’ t be done ” or “ I just don ’ t see it .” I think back to the robot conductor of 1977 , and I ’ m inspired to look again , deeper this time . !“ The only way of discovering the limits of
the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible ,” Clarke wrote . There ’ s fresh magic minted every day . It ’ s up to us to have the nerve to see it .
-Written by Josh Clark
ISSUE ONE · THIRDWAVE 121