Event_
Not for Profits and Innovation: The Community Memory Project and the Early Development of Social Media, 1973-1992
May 5, 2026 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
AEST
Rm 4150
,
Codrington Building (H69)
The University of Sydney
Codrington Building (H69)
The University of Sydney
Abstract
What role have non-profits played in the development of the digital economy? Not for profit organizations (NFPs) can be innovators in industries such as the delivery of social services for government. While historians of the rise of the computer industry focused on for profit enterprises that commercialized innovations in the digital economy, there are examples of NFPs that engaged in developing new technologies and platforms such as the Mozilla Foundation. For NFPs, a significant issue is where do they obtain capital for innovation, given that investors, like venture capitalists, do not obtain a financial return for their investment. This paper furthers the focus on NFPs and innovation by examining the Community Memory Project in Berkeley, located in the Bay Area of California, on the east side of San Francisco Bay opposite San Francisco. The Community Memory Project, a NFP, operated an early form of social media in Berkeley using publicly accessible terminals intermittently from 1973 until 1992. The Community Memory Project was strongly influenced by the Counterculture that arose from the US protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s, with the Bay Area of California being a focal point. The Counterculture challenged the corporate and government dominance of digital technology by advocating computer access for all. The Community Memory Project found it necessary on several occasions to reboot its technology given the rapid developments that were occurring with the development of the personal computer and networking.
About the speaker
Greg Patmore is an Emeritus Professor of Business and Labour History in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School. His books include Worker Voice: Employee Representation in the Workplace in Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US 1914-1939 (Liverpool University Press, 2016), A Global History of Co-operative Business (co-author, Routledge, 2018), The Innovative Consumer Cooperative: The Rise and the Fall of Berkeley (Routledge, 2020), History of Australian Co-operatives 1827- 2023 (co-author, Routledge, 2024). He has published in a wide range of journals including the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Business History, Information Systems Frontiers, Journal of Industrial Relations, Labour History and the University of New South Wales Law Journal. His current research interests include Economic Democracy and the Digital Economy 1973-2017 and Data Co-operatives (With Associate Professor Catherine Hardy, the University of Sydney and Professor Olivera Marjarnovic, Macquarie University). Greg is chair of the Business and Labour History Group and Co-operatives Research Group in the University of Sydney Business School and Secretary of the Association of Academic Historians in Business Schools.