30 years – an exciting and rewarding journey
07 September 2010
It's September '80 and Peter Gebbler is at the printer, making a few last minute changes on the hot-metal printing press. The first issue of EPD is getting ready to roll.
Peter Gebbler was the first Editor of EPD 30 years ago and the changes since then in society, technology, communications and all the rest, have been enormous. Our 30th anniversary issue will be hitting desks soon with a host of features looking at these changes. It has been great fun putting it together and hopefully all of our readers will get equal enjoyment out of reading it.
The September anniversary does, of course, coincide with our big event of the year, the e-Legacy awards, which takes place tomorrow (Thursday 9th) in London. No doubt there will be balloons and banners to pronounce our advanced age, but I will also pay reference to the significance of both events in my introduction.
Thirty years of electronics has changed society and this change has not always been for the better – the modern PC is a truly wonderful thing (especially from a perspective taken 30 years ago) but is its attraction to (my!) children a healthy thing? I don’t always think so, but then that may be a 30-year old perspective!
What is undeniable is that most of the changes have improved the way we run our lives, certainly the efficiency with which we do so. But some inventions and corporate actions are more positive than others – we can see the positive effects they have on education, the environment, health and society in general. And these are the projects that show our industry in their best light. They are the ones that the e-Legacy awards was set up to recognise.
Personally, the journey from EPD’s early days to present has been a fascinating one in every respect – the technology we write about, the way we communicate, even down to the way magazines are put together. I remember in the mid-80s our OCR machine, linked to our very basic word-processors were the envy of the publishing industry. Even then the articles were printed out and set in hot metal at the printers!
So much has changed, but I am delighted that we can present the e-Legacy awards as recognition of the most positive aspects of that change.
As for the winners? That remains a closely guarded secret until tomorrow, but I will reveal all in this column next week!
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