Level of fame

What exactly makes someone famous in the computer world? Not so long ago, computing was the domain of scientists, engineers and people who could discuss network protocols for several hours without requiring alcohol. It was technical, obscure and sufficiently incomprehensible to guarantee that almost nobody involved would ever be stopped for an autograph.

Tim Berners-Lee is generally credited with inventing the World Wide Web, as he implemented the first communication with a HTTP client. Vinton Cerf contributed to ARPANet and co-designed the TCP/IP protocol, the plumbing that allows the internet to function without collapsing into a smoking heap of incompatible machines. These are not minor accomplishments. Billions of people depend on their work every day.

And yet I suspect both men, “inventor of the web” and “inventor of the internet”, could ride the New York subway at rush hour without attracting anything more than the usual suspicious glance from the person sitting opposite.

I once met professor Ken Musgrave in an elevator in New Orleans and had the privilege of exchanging a few words with him. To anyone interested in computer graphics, fractals and procedural landscapes, Musgrave is an important figure, contributing to films such as Titanic. To everyone else in that elevator, he was presumably just another guy waiting for the doors to open.

Andy Clarke holding a keynote in London.

But the world has changed. Computers are no longer mysterious beige boxes tended by specialists in windowless rooms. They’re everywhere. The Web has become part publishing house, part marketplace, part playground and, increasingly, part popularity contest. And with that comes a new species: the technology celebrity.

Influence today is a strange cocktail of talent, timing, personality, enthusiasm, social skills and blind luck. Knowing your subject certainly helps, but knowing the right people at the right bar after the conference apparently doesn’t hurt either.

Judging from reports coming out of SXSW 2007, there was plenty of good content and even better socializing this year. There was apparently even a VIP room for “A-list bloggers”, which seems like a rather novel thing for a regular convention.

Somewhere between TCP/IP and Twitter, the geeks apparently became rock stars. Welcome to the brave new world. Grab your laptop, update your blog and go claim your Warholian fifteen minutes before somebody else gets there first.