Howard Rheingold - Author & Futurist

Laptop at the ready, Howard enjoys working in his beautiful "garden office" in Marin County, California.

It's appropriate that Floridata's very first Celebrity Gardener be someone whose thoughts, opinions and predictions have shaped both my technical career and this web site. In the mid-eighties I discovered computers and a short time later began reading author Howard Rheingold. At that time Howard was involved in developing The Well, the celebrated online virtual community. His ability to anticipate, describe and lucidly write about trends in technology, communications and society has earned him the repututation as a true pioneer of the Electronic Frontier. In the 90's Howard was editor-in-chief of The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog and a couple years later was a founder and Executive Editor of HotWired magazine. He has written on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to virtual reality to cell-phone enabled "smart mobs" - and beyond...

Howard raises trophy size sunflowers in the Bay Area's mild climate.

Howard lives in Marin County, California, where his garden is situated just north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. For the past 18 years he has lovingly tended a tiny lot of about 2000 square feet in one of the world's most beautiful places.

Howard writes: "I must confess that my two greatest loves have to do with direct sensual pleasure on my part: Being barefoot on my lawn, and eating fruit fresh off my own trees. So over the past 18 years, I have planted, pruned, fretted over, and harvested from a pear, apricot, plum, apple, peach and fig tree. The lawn uses no poisons and is a thorough mongrel of a dozen various grasses, but I do water, fertilize, and mow - barefoot, if possible."

Howard demonstrates that it doesn't take a lot of space to make a great garden. In addition to the fruit trees, the mild climate of the Bay Area allows him to grow vegetables throughout the year including cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, squash, peas, peppers and 10 foot high corn and sunflowers.

Here's one of my favorite essays about how trees provide clues to a cosmic riddle or two and it's called The Shape of the Universe. Read more of his texts.

These days Howard describes himself a "professional virtual community builder" and is the founder of ElectricMinds. He is the author of several books including the classic The Virtual Community. His latest book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution addresses topics like "Wearable Computing" and "MobBlogging and Journalism".

I anticipate that you'll see more of the Rheingoldian influence on Floridata.com as our site evolves and we are able to develop more community oriented facilities. So as you might imagine I am extremely pleased to welcome Howard Rheingold as our first Celebrity Gardener!

Jack Scheper 11/24/03; 12/1/03

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