Tim Berners-Lee invented World Wide Web creating 21st century mass media

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

by Michael J Morris

Tim Berners- Lee 'invented' the World Wide Web just over 25 years ago, but chances are you have never heard of him. If he hadn't, it is quite likely you would not be reading this article, or for that matter anything else online.

In 1999, Time magazine named Berners- Lee as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, saying, "He wove the World Wide Web and created a mass medium for the 21st century. The World Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He designed it. He loosed it on the world. And he more than anyone else has fought to keep it open, non proprietary and free."

In  November 2009, Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web Foundation in order to "Advance the Web to empower humanity by launching transformative programs that build local capacity to leverage the Web as a medium for positive change."

Anniversaries of the World Wide Web don't get much media attention today. Its inventor Tim Berners-Lee is not well known outside academia.

But Berners-Lee may be the single most important person since Guttenberg in changing the way we communicate. I was so privileged to spend an afternoon listening to him in 1996 while attending a conference "The Internet Beyond the Year 2000" at the University of Toronto. 

To be honest, even though I had developed and was teaching in one of the first graduate programs in New Media Communications in Canada at College of the Rockies, I had no idea who Tim Berners-Lee was before that afternoon.

MJM at COTR circa 1996

Perhaps most striking about him was his great modesty.  Here was one of the great thinkers and scientists of our time, and he had no need to be 'the sage on the stage.' After giving his talk, Berners-Lee sat on the edge of the stage to take questions.

The first question was from 'Dr Somebody' from 'Some University', who started his question with "Dr Berners-Lee.." and before he got any further, he was cut off by Berners-Lee who said, "Tim will do." The professor didn't get it and again said, "Dr Berners-Lee." only to be cut off with "Tim" and a shake of his head. The room broke up.

He was asked many questions but one that stuck in my mind was, "What would you do differently now." Berners-Lee replied after a moment, "I realized I didn't need the forward slash." Again the room broke up.

MJM 2015

I was delighted to see on Wikepedia that he confirmed it years later after I heard him speak at the University of Toronto. In a Times article in October 2009, Berners-Lee admitted that the forward slashes ("//") in a web address were actually "unnecessary". He told the newspaper that he could easily have designed URLs not to have the forward slashes.

 "There you go, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he said in his lighthearted apology`.

He was also asked about the process involved in inventing the web and how long it took. He said that he had been "thinking" about it for a long time and then one day simply decided to get it done.

Perhaps the single most impressive moment I saw of Berners-Lee was at a showcase of technology and industry. Students from Confederation High School in Nepean had created a web page, and Berners-Lee, hands behind his back, went up to them and asked some questions. At no time did he identify himself as the inventor of the web.

After he left I went over and asked the students if they knew who their visitor was. They didn't and when I told them, like students everywhere, they were afraid they had made mistakes. I assured them Berners-Lee was likely delighted to see their work.

For those who don't know exactly what he did, Berners Lee wrote the first Web clients and server and defined the URL, HTTP, and HTML specifications on which the Web depends. He was then working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory.

Knighted in 2004 by Queen Elizabeth, Sir Tim Berners- Lee is now the director of the W3 Consortium and is a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Berners-Lee commented that,  "the web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for social effect - to help people work together - and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations and companies..." 

A year later, I was back in Toronto, speaking at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Journalists on the topic of whether or nor I thought the internet could be used to defeat politicians, or conversely, help them win. I said "Yes" resoundingly on both counts. The best example so far of a winner is Barack Obama..

Interestingly, oldtime journalists, to which I belong at least by age, disagreed with me vehemently, while young students tended to agree.... be interesting to see if positions have changed almost 20 years later.

All to be expected perhaps when I think that most of the folks at College of the Rockies back then, never thought email would really catch on. Yet, we are still failing in many respects to maximize the potential of the World Wide Web, but that is a story for another day.

But with websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and so on we are getting there.

For me, to have been able to spend time listening to him has to count as one of the most truly memorable moments of my entire teaching career,  and now that I am retired I remain a Web junkie -- but not a techie!   

My email is mj.morris@live.ca

"Town and gown" coming together offers potential for Cranbrook but college sits in isolation from community

By Michael J Morris

As Jake McInnis was stepping down after 11 years as president of East Kootenay Community College, now College of the Rockies in 1993, I chatted with him about the possibility of Cranbrook becoming a college town.

At the time I was a faculty member at the college and editor of Insider, a faculty magazine. In the interests of full disclosure in writing about the college, I became the first elected faculty member of the college board of governors, and took early retirement in 2000.

The college was first established in Cranbrook in 1975 but in the beginning classes were held in various buildings mostly in the downtown area. The college web site said it operated from 17 different locations but by 1982 the Cranbrook campus was opened. It also hads a presence in other communities.

Jake arrived from Vancouver Community College as the present campus was being completed.

During our conversation, Jake, as we all called him, referring to it as an "incredible benefit" to the entire region, and that the potential was "incredible" not only for the benefit it provided to students but as an industry, providing jobs.

As one who went to university in Waterloo, Ontario just as the two universities there, University of Waterloo and Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier University) were in their formative stages, I was able to witness the beginnings of a Canadian college town. Over the years beginning about 1960, it's been most beneficial to Kitchener-Waterloo to become a college (university) town. 

In my four years in Waterloo, businesses sprung up simply to serve the university community. It has continued.

Over the years, just as I generally love downtowns, I have added campuses and college towns to my list and at the risk of angering all my British Columbia readers, my favourite campus is the University of Toronto where one can wander about, ending up at Queens Park, University Avenue and  into the heart of downtown Toronto. I spent hours exploring the "neighbourhood" when I attended U of T -- and yes I have roamed about the University of British Columbia campus too.

So I welcomed the opportunity to ask Jake about the possibility of Cranbrook as a college town.

His reply: "I actually think of the concept of Cranbrook as a college town. It is quite conceivable that it will become one - a Canadian college town." He was making the point that college towns are much more common in the United States.

"The college could eventually become the principal employer in Cranbrook. It is an ecologically, socially and economically sound industry."

Well, Jake retired, 22 years have now passed, and Cranbrook is no closer in the "college town" sense of the word to becoming one than when we had our chat for the Insider article. A college town becomes the centre - socially, economically, culturally -  with spin offs into all aspects of community life.

But, another comment Jake made has come true. "The college is an important and valuable resource throughout the region. We've won. We're on track. We look like a college. We act and behave like a college. We are known and understood as a college."

Don't get me wrong. The college contributes greatly to the economy of Cranbrook and region, as it sits in splendid isolation from the rest of the community at its local campus. And that may be just fine as far as Cranbrook goes. In large measure, the college sits on the outskirts in town, known best to those who have some direct connection to it as students, employees or those who may periodically visit for some function being held there. Jake saw so much more potential, and sadly 22 years have passed, and in many ways, COTR is still a stranger in a strange land, of, but not really an integrated part of the community in which its main campus is located.

Let me share one interesting deleopment on college towns from an article on college towns from Wikipedia:  "...notable development since the 1990s is the surge in popularity of retirees relocating to college towns. Retirees are attracted to these locations because of cultural and educational opportunities, college athletic events, good medical facilities (often at teaching hospitals affiliated with medical schools), a low cost of living, and often a pedestrian- or public transit-friendly development pattern. Several development companies now specialize in constructing retirement communities in college towns. In some cases the communities have developed formal relationships with the local institution."

Maybe, just maybe, it is time for "town and gown" to come together to maximize the potential of each to make Cranbrook a more vibrant place for everyone. 

My email is mj.morris@live.ca