Starting with the January 2012 issue of IEEE Computer Magazine, I am the writer/editor of a monthly column titled “Computing Conversations“. This new column is part of an overall strategy to move IEEE Computer magazine from a purely-paper magazine to a high quality digital magazine with extensive multimedia content.

http://computer.org/computingconversations

The purpose of the column is for all of us to get to know the people that have created and defined the computing field. Much of modern-day computing can be traced to innovations starting in the 1940’s. Never in human history has a major field emerged and matured in a single generation. In order for us to better understand the future directions where computing might be going, it is important to know our past and how we arrived at our current state. This column will be dedicated to meeting and talking to the people in the field of computing ranging from the early pioneers through the current visionaries. Multimedia and video will be an essential part of these conversations so we can use these conversations in our teaching to help explain the field to new technologists as they enter the field.

Using video is important as it allows us to give a face and voice to people in our field and helps form an oral history of the profession. I also hope to produce materials that can be used in classrooms to help students make a connection with the people who have created our field.

Each month, I will write a blog post about the column that will include a brief summary, a link to the video materials on the IEEE Computer Society YouTube channel, a link to my own high-quality archive of the videos on Vimeo, and an audio podcast of me reading the actual column as well as some back story on how the video was produced.

I have been purchasing new video equipment, shooting video, and upgrading all of my video skills to High Definition since September. I have been pestering my friends to review secret drafts of the videos as I worked through technical issues and so it is nice for me to get it going public in the January issue so I can share them with everyone.

The first column is titled, “The Second Order Effects of Steve Jobs” and the second column is an interview with Brendan Eich talking about the creation of the JavaScript language.

I need to thank the outstanding IEEE Computer editorial staff (Judi Prow, Jennifer Stout, and Brian Brannon) for their superb attention to detail and suggestions for improvement in the videos and the columns. And I also want to thank the IEEE Computer Editor in Chief, Ron Vetter from UNC Wilmington for involving me in the editorial board and supporting this grand experiment.

I am looking forward to writing the columns and producing the videos and would love to hear any comments you might have. If you want to follow along a I travel and gather video, you can follow me on twitter @drchuck. You can see who I am interviewing and where I am travelling and get a sneak peek of upcoming material.