About Reframe It

John Seely Brown

John Seely Brown is the independent co-chair of Deloitte's new Center for Edge Innovation. He is also a visiting scholar at USC and advisor to the Provost. Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include new models/modes of innovation for the 21st Century, new forms of communication and learning in the network age and digital youth culture.

John, or as he is often called—JSB— is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of Brown University and the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, Varian Medical Systems) and private boards of directors. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals. In 2004 he was inducted in the Industry Hall of Fame. With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002, and with John Hagel The Only Sustainable Edge (HBS Press, 2005) which is about new forms of collaborative innovation.

JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences He has also received four honorary doctorate degrees from universities in USA and UK. He is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part artist and part strategist, JSB's views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.