Are You A Pioneer?

My alma mater, Dartmouth College, just celebrated the 50th anniversary of John Kemeny's BASIC computer language. I was lucky enough to have Prof Kemeny my freshman year right before he retired. He was a pioneer in computing and computer time-sharing. For example, when he assigned homework, he would tell us where the hangups would be BEFORE we even started!

Shortly after, Apple made Dartmouth a beta site for the first Macintosh, and as students we used Macs before most had personal computers. I have an original Mac 128K that still works! That's when I fell for WYSIWYG and the visual desktop - the interface that enthralled Steve Jobs at Xerox PARC became the foundation for how we interact with technology today.

That was a formative experience for me that most definitely shaped my view of how visuals transform interactions. And perhaps that’s when the BuzzBack seed was planted deep in my brain somewhere.  Today, the welcoming, engaging visual interface is part and parcel to our online research applications - desktop, mobile, and more to come.

Being a pioneer isn’t easy.  Like other companies evolving long-held traditions, we had our share of critics or those that didn’t understand what we were trying to achieve.  But as pioneers, we stay true to our vision and keep cutting the trail toward our goal. We look to continuously push the envelope with applications that incorporate visual technology. In 2005, that started with our award-winning eCollage, and today we are rolling out new mobile tools for tablets, ipads, and more (watch this space for news soon).  In the meantime, here’s a look at how eCollage helps consumers express with visuals what may be hard to verbalize with words. It’s our own version of “Pin-ing” – but with specific market research purpose.