A very modest tribute to the late Mr. Adams
The death of Douglas Adams comes at a time that is so coincidental, it coincides with the STC Conference. Relevance you ask? What does he have to do with the STC? Well, let me tell you. I heard Douglas Admas speak at the first (and only) STC conference I have ever attended in New York in 1991. He was the keynote speaker and what a keynote speech it was. To put it mildly, he was extremely interesting and entertaining. I could have sat and listened to him all day even if he had chosen to recite the entire Manhattan phone book, and that would have been far more interesting than some of the people I was forced to listen to who insisted on droning throughout the conference.

His talk and I can remember the topic quite well, had todo with how we communicate and what we do to get in the way of that communication. To explain this problem he talked about how porpoises and dolphins use their sonar to talk to each other and that their form of communication is so pure and simple that they can't possibly be misunderstood. Except when you put man into the equation you create a problem. The problem is man has filled the oceans with boats, ships and all kinds of noisy equipment (in addition to the pollution which also adds to the problem). Adams was part of some study whereby the researchers were putting microphones in the water to record and measure the sounds in the ocean.

The story was punctuated with alot of interesting sound effects that he made himself plus alot of colourful language (some people were slightly offended, but most weren't. The ones who were slightly offended turned out to be jerks anyway.) Anyway, his point was that you add technology into the equation, you get noise and you get confusion. The porpoises and dolphins as it turned out had a very hard time understanding each other with some rather disasterous results. The same thing can be said when we sit down and document a piece of software, things get in the way of trying to communicate, like a terrible interface, a programmer who barely understands any language you know how to speak, or just plain fuzzy thinking. Adams had plenty to say about that as well and naturally it was funny.

After the conference was over, the STC offered each Chapter a copy of the videotape of his talk (on loan only) so that it could be replayed at a Chapter meeting. I have a confession, I got the tape, did present it to the Montreal Chapter (it was a bit fuzzy and badly copied, but hey, that was 1991) but in spite of that I never returned it as I felt that it was a great memento of a very important time in my professional development. The STC gave up asking me for it back many years ago and I think I still have the tape tucked away in a box somewhere. Another confession, I have never read any of his books and never listened to the series on radio. Maybe it's time to round out my reading.....

His death came before he was done and I think had he known he only had 10 more years when I saw him speak would he have done it differently? I hope not. I think he was a breath of fresh air that is timeless no matter when or where you live.

So for those of you in this blog who are in Chicago right now, I hope that the experience of the conference is as wonderful and has as much meaning for you as it did for me 10 years ago.