The_Wireless gets its name from references in old movies to "the wireless" as some sort of avant-garde technology. The name is also a reference to the dipole-dipole mechanism behind the nonradiative transport of electronic energy.

The_Wireless serves as a:

• marketing tool, helping ABL Research, Inc. gather "outside information" and identify customers
• promotional tool, putting ABL and its views on the World Wide Web
• research journal and tool, to filter and analyze external research in the context of internal research
• management tool and journal, for learning about outside approaches to research management as well as analyzing internal activities by recording them in a business-plan context
• storytelling device, offering opinions relevant to science

Tying these together and putting them on a network produces an interface to ABL. Because this interface is so important to ABL, The_Wireless must be an interface par excellence. The content must be specific and complex; full of high-quality information, interpretation, and investigation; and cover the "spectrum of opinion" with civility, supporting dissenting opinions in an evenhanded rather than polarized manner.

The content is relevant: it does not attempt to predict the future but the present; it does not attempt to answer, "What is most likely to happen?" -- but rather, "What has already happened that will create the future?" We study new developments and technologies (the radically new: Things Never Seen Before, Thoughts Never Thought) with learned ignorance and creative misunderstanding. To bring a different perspective, we let go of preconceptions and have the patience to follow our curiosity instead of hyperventilating and following the crowd.

The interviews on research management not only point us towards other interesting companies but also set the stage for another round of questions -- perhaps more speculative in nature, thus extending to industry the approach in Third Culture. This answers the question, If you could talk to anyone, who would that be? And speculation leads to the philosophy of science and other topics, with a medieval aesthetic.

Furthermore, the marriage of this content with the Web produces an extranet. Sharing the interface presents a view of the culture of science: cultural visualization. At Visualization '95 in Atlanta, someone asked Bob Spence of Imperial College for his opinion on the progression of visualization: from scientific to information to ... what? Professor Spence speculated that it would be cultural visualization, which he described as the visual equivalent of the Sony Walkman. I didn't know what he meant, but his reply was sufficiently confusing that it made an impression on me.

Two weeks later, I saw the film Strange Days. When Ralph Fiennes' character removed the CD-ROM from a portable disc player, I began to understand what Professor Spence had meant. -- Ariadne's Thread

Last modified: 12/19/2000