Put up a bulletin board and invite your mayor in on the side just to sit and observe, and he’ll know what his constituents want.
Predictor: Hughes, Dave
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for The Denver Post, Dan Pacheco quotes Dave Hughes, one of the best-known bulletin board users in the United States at the time. Pacheco writes: ”For almost 100 years, the walls of Roger’s Bar have resonated with the sounds of debates over union politics. But lately, another voice can be heard: Tappa tappa tap tappa tap. The keyboard of Dave Hughes’ portable computer, equipped with a wireless modem and reclining comfortably in a side booth, has been going now for 15 years, and its patter is as familiar to the local stiffs as the twangy country music lurking in the air. The man in the broad-brimmed hat is their self-proclaimed advocate in an emerging information economy … The bulletin board is a place for people to come together in dialogue to work out democracy. ‘Put up a bulletin board and invite your mayor in on the side just to sit and observe, and he’ll know what his constituents want,’ Hughes says in his easy mountain drawl.”
Biography:Dave Hughes created the first free, modem dial-up, electronic democracy bulletin-board system in the world. It soon challenged and altered the way local city-wide politics were conducted. It was colorfully named “Roger’s Bar.” Within five years the world’s press had beaten a path to Hughes’ home to report on, and encourage others to adopt an entirely new model of “electronic democracy” Ð a model that could be adopted in any small town in America. Wired magazine said he was the best-known personality on the Internet in 1993. Microtimes Magazine named Hughes one of the 100 most influential individuals in the Computer Age six times between 1990 and 1996. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Government
Name of publication: Denver Post
Title, headline, chapter name: Grass Roots Go Electric: ‘Community’ is Getting Lost in the Shuffle
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=bf8cf84216f5dbbb6e17256167252f58...
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Komorowski, Anne Gabrielle