'Douglas' Vision' by Richard Creasey
Created | Updated Feb 27, 2003
When did I first meet Douglas? I can't be positive about the year, but it feels like August 1987 at the Edinburgh Television Festival.
Douglas, as Douglas, writer, speaker, guru 'extraordinaire' and I, 'surprisingly' successful (given that I was and am) dyslexic documentary commissioner, were sharing a platform with three other people. Our subject 'what happens after television.'
I remember the two of us were uniquely paper-free as we walked, under the harsh glare of the spotlight, up the platform stairs, Douglas was clutching his grey Apple PowerBook while I, of course, went to my chair empty handed on the grounds that I was never at ease reading notes.
So we talked, Douglas and I, and talked and talked. Our three platform sharers seemed as amazed, interested and indeed as spellbound as the audience. My primary role turned out to be of the 'what do you think?' nature. Douglas just thought out loud.
He outlined what the internet would do for the world, a couple of years before Tim Berners-Lee came up with the 'world wide web', he was already using email, when the rest of us were still stuck with letters and faxes. And he outlined how one day even the BBC would be democratized by an audience that generated masses of free, plentiful and hugely useful content. And Douglas was, of course, spot on.
Less than ten years later Douglas, Robbie Stamp - who was in the audience, and I set up shop together and soon were launching h2g2 that guide, our guide extraordinaire to Life, the Universe and Everything.
