Stan's Skunk Works

 

 

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I worked in the field of quality of work life for several decades. During much of that time, I was a consultant to the Bell System while it was undergoing major technological change.

Bell Labs would introduce a new device and the focus quickly turned to training workers to cope with it — often involving confusing, counterintuitive keyboards, terminals that blew hot air into their faces, and manuals written by and for engineers.   Gains in productivity were all too often accompanied by gains in job stress.

Back in my office, to track case studies, literature, and field notes, I used a manual card-sorting system popular at the time: the Royal McBee Keysort. “Manual” being the operative word: a thin rod — not unlike a knitting needle — could separate notched cards into categories. 

 

People were starting to talk about the new personal computers.  They were great at databases and, beause I was working in a high tech environment, I thought it might be a good way to learn this new technology. 

I visited the first, and for a while, the only computer store in Manhattan, Byte Shop, and brought home an Exidy computer.

It was the start of my very own Skunk Works. 

What I really want to share is how I learned from this early computer — as well as how I learned about learning technology.  By doing.

The technology of the personal computer of that time was not at intimidating; In fact, it was pretty funky. Data was stored on a Radio Shack cassette recorder on the same kind of tapes that could hold music.  You loaded it by pushing the play button.

 

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Because of my growing familiarity and apparent comfort with the new digital technology, I was sent by corporate management to visit Bell Labs and come back with a lay explanation of what was going on “behind the curtain” in Murray Hill.
I got to know Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie  who played a pivotal role in the development of modern computing, most notably through the creation of the C programming language and the Unix operating system. 
“If you want to know what UNIX is about, you need to use it.”  With that, they gave me a couple of very thick binders and an account on the Bell Labs Unix Research Computer. My instructions were, “Go play with it!”
Thus, a new addition was added to my skunk works.
My documentary films about job dissatisfaction were restricted to AT&T internal use.  Rumors leaked out. that they were very informative because they combine the depiction of the problem as well as documentary coverage of the solutions. I worked directly with the people who were developing and implementing what would probably be the largest rollout of work restructuring in the world — the Bell System had over one million employees!