John Diebold
John Theurer Diebold | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 8, 1926 |
| Died | December 26, 2005 (aged 79) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | consultant; writer; |
John Theurer Diebold (June 8, 1926 – December 26, 2005) was an early champion of widespread use of computing and automated technology.
Early life
Diebold was born in Weehawken, New Jersey.[1] He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1949 and Harvard Business School in 1951. On November 22, 1951 he married Doris Hackett, and they had a daughter Joan.
He published his first of twelve books, Automation, in 1952, which was based on a report he did while he was a student at the Harvard Business School. In it, he presented his vision of the use of programmable electronic systems for business.
Most people trace the use of the word "automation" to 1947, when Del Harder, vice president of production at Ford Motor Company, applied the concept to machine processes in automobile manufacture. The term came into broader use in Diebold's book, which used it in reference to information as well as machine processing.
Business career
He started a consulting company in the bedroom of his house in New Jersey, John Diebold & Associates, which through acquisitions morphed into The Diebold Group, an international organization.
He was fired from several jobs for refusing to "give up on his obsession with computer and automation"[2]. Considered ahead of his time, many of his ideas were widely implemented. In 1968, for instance, he championed automated teller machines (ATMs). That same year, he established an operating foundation, The Diebold Institute for Public Policy Studies. Among its works was a case report on the impact of Silicon Alley on the New York economy. He died in Bedford Hills, New York, of esophageal cancer, aged 79.
Books
- Automation: The advent of the Automatic Factory, Van Nostrand, 1952 [3]
- Beyond Automation: Managerial Problems of an Exploding Technology, McGraw, 1964
- Man and the Computer: Technology as an Agent of Social Change, Praeger,1969
- Business Decisions and Technological Change, Praeger, 1970
- Making the future work: Unleashing our powers of innovation for the decades ahead, Simon and Schuster, 1984 [4]
- Managing Information: The Challenge and the Opportunity, Amacom Books, 1985, [5]
- Transportation Infostructures: The Development of Intelligent Transportation Systems. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995, ISBN: 0275951561,[6]
Additionally he edited the book, World of the Computer, for Random House in 1973
References
- ^ Bayot, Jennifer. "John Diebold, 79, a Visionary of the Computer Age, Dies", The New York Times, December 27, 2005. Accessed April 16, 2008.
- ^ Automation pioneer John Diebold dies at 79, Dec. 12, 2005.
- ^ nunya, "John Diebold", December 27, 2005, Accessed September 10, 2010.
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Making-future-work-Unleashing-innovation/dp/0671456571/
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Information-Opportunity-John-Diebold/dp/0814457932
- ^ [1]/
External links
- Bayot, Jennifer (December 27, 2005). "John Diebold, 79, a Visionary of the Computer Age, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved May 6, 2010.
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