Fame

Fame
: One of the neat thrills of coming to blog conferences in Boston is seeing Dan Bricklin. I’m in awe of the man. If you don’t know why that’s a big deal, that’s a shame, and here’s why:

Bricklin really made this revolution happen. He co-created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, and that is the single thing that made computers useful. Making things useful is, in my mind, a high art. Jobs and Woz made computers cool and accessible. Gates made them, depending on your perspective, rich or evil. But Bricklin made them useful. That is what put computers on every desk in the world. That is what allowed them to be connected, in turn. That is what led to the Internet, after all.

Anyway, over wine and cheese last night, I was standing in a group with bloggers including Bricklin and he pointed to another blogger (sorry, I can’t remember who) and said how excited he was to get a link from that person. He spoke with the excitement of a Chicago mom getting called on by Oprah to speak on camera.

“But, Dan,” I said hesitantly, “you’re the… legend.”

“But I’m not a legend to me,” he said.

Even Bricklin loves blogjuice.

: At the technology session this morning, Bricklin (too briefly) got to talk about the future of these tools and all they need to do. He wants to be able to place and edit photos and edit text fluidly. It will take millions of dollars in development, he says. But it could be done in open-source…