Howard Rheingold is one of the world's gurus of cyberspace and digital culture. An author, journalist, and editor, he is also a visionary, a futurist, and a synthesizer of today's ever-changing communications applications.
For more than 15 years, Howard Rheingold has been on the leading edge of the cyberspace revolution, as a participant and an observer, and his forecasts, advice, warnings, and dreams have been shared with audiences around the world, eager to stay abreast of developments in this fast-moving field. His books have been published in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese.
While knowledgeable about the technical and commercial possibilities of these merging communications media, Howard Rheingold is especially interested in the human and the policy issues that inevitably result from the adoption of new inventions. He has a proven track record of being able to identify the way our lives, businesses and institutions are going to change tomorrow as the result of technologies that are emerging today. In the 1980s, he forecasted the rise of the Internet. In the 1990s, he wrote about virtual communities. Now, he is looking at the astonishing changes that are going to take place as the result of today's mobile communications, ubiquitous computing, geographical position sensing, and social reputation technologies.
Howard Rheingold has written about computers and their implications in such best sellers as The Virtual Community (1993), Virtual Reality (1991), Excursions to the Far Side of the Mind (1988), and Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Amplifying Technology (1984). In 2000, MIT Press reissued revised editions of Virtual Community and Tools for Thought. Mr. Rheingold's present forecasts about what he calls "Smart Mobs" are the subject of his current book. Perseus published his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, in Fall 2002.
In 1996, Howard Rheingold launched his own electronic business called Electric Minds, a second-generation web publishing company. In 1997, he sold it to Durand Corporation and is at work on a new book exploring future technologies.
Rheingold Associates, his latest enterprise, is a consulting network (www.rheingold.com/associates) that helps commercial, educational and nonprofit enterprises build online social networks and knowledge communities.
Rheingold shows his audiences a real-time, real-life, uncensored glimpse of the new cultures and societies emerging on the nets. Then he helps them understand the questions about their businesses, personal lives, political freedoms and social values they need to be asking themselves. Although he usually does not speak from a prepared script, Rheingold customizes each speech to the needs of each specific audience. He has shared his excitement, concerns, and solutions with dozens of prestigious organizations, associations and corporations worldwide. Below is a sample of some of his clients:
- The American Library Association
- British Broadcasting Corporation
- Sprint Telecommunications
- Pacific Bell (now SBC)
- Canadian Telecommunication Alliance
- Harvard Graduate School of Design
- Ford Motor Company
- Dentsu (largest advertising agency in the world), Tokyo
- Hakuhodo (Japan's 2nd largest advertising agency), Tokyo
- The Science Museum of London
- The Smithsonian Institute
- Researchers at Apple, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, Paramount, Philips, LucasFilms and IBM
He has also had appearances on CBS News, NBC Today, ABC Primetime Live and Good Morning America, Macneil-Lehrer Report, NPR Fresh Air, Marketplace, and Talk of the Nation, BBC Horizon, Canal+ in Paris.
Howard Rheingold lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. He was educated at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
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