John Seely Brown divides his time between being the Chief Innovation Officer of 12 Entrepreneuring, an entrepreneurial operating company in San Francisco and the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation. In June of this year he stepped down from being the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a position he held for the last ten years.  While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, sociological studies of the workplace, complex adaptive systems and micro electrical mechanical system (MEMS).  His personal research interests include digital culture, ubiquitous computing, design and organizational and individual learning.  He was recently awarded the Industrial Research Institute Medal for outstanding accomplishments in technological innovation and is the co-author of a highly acclaimed book "The Social Life of Information," published by Harvard Business School Press.

John, or as he is often called—JSB—sits on numerous boards of directors and advisory boards, is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence. He received an A.B. degree from Brown University in math and physics and a Ph.D. from University of Michigan in computer science.  John is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part artist and part strategist, JSB’s views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.

March 15, 2001