Years ago, while employed at the Shorey Bookstore, I would often stumble across various obscure items of keen historical interest. Picking and sorting through seemingly endless stacks of precariously piled boxes, there among a vast repository of paper ephemera, on one occasion I unwrapped a well preserved bundle of vintage periodicals, enigmatically titled just “THINK”
As originally coined by Thomas J. Watson, the motto “THINK” began use in 1911, during his tenure as manager of the National Cash Register Company. Then later in 1914, he brought this same motto with him to the Computing Tabulating Recording Company, and under Watson’s guidance, their industrial capabilities were greatly expanded. Finally, in 1924, the company appropriately renamed itself International Business Machines, known iconically today as simply IBM. Coincidentally, the International Time Recording Company was publishing a limited, in-house magazine named ‘Time’ for their employees and customers. Thus when IBM acquired this periodical in 1935, Watson promptly rebranded the magazine under the new title ‘THINK” It is not too hard to imagine how purely out of tradition IBM continues to use this century old trademark, including the naming of their laptop line of computers ‘ThinkPads’
So along comes the inscrutable Steve Jobs and Apple Inc, who devise their own way to completely upend this traditional corporate slogan. Openly perceived as a direct affront to IBM’s classic THINK campaign, the gauntlet was thrown down with a sensational 1984 Super Bowl ad, produced in true Orwellian style! Yet is wasn’t until 1997 that the true “Think Different” campaign begin in earnest, with a series of ads on television and in print, including ingenious promos for various other Apple merchandise. (Fun Personal Fact: I’ve never once owned an Apple, or Macintosh product!)
So then as for myself, Alt-Think will simply reflect my innate curiosity, a desire to investigate paths of knowledge less traveled, to peer fearlessly into dark mental alleyways most reasonable folks wisely avoid. Pulling at the tattered fringes of conventional reasoning, to potentially conjure up new and different ways of thinking… only then do possibly good ideas become truly interesting!
