Robert Jacobson

Robert Jacobson

Patagonia, Arizona, United States
3K followers 500+ connections

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    Non-profit Consulting, Management Consulting, Content Strategy, Copywriting, Network Support, Industrial Design, Change Management, Cybersecurity, Marketing Strategy, and Political Consulting

About

I'm Co-Founder & CEO, Principal Consultant & Strategist, with Atelier Tomorrow Inc., an…

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Activity

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Experience

  • Atelier Tomorrow Inc. Graphic

    Atelier Tomorrow Inc.

    Patagonia, Arizona, United States

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    Various Locations, US West Coast

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    United States

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    Malmö, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark; SF Bay Area, California

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    Vedbæk, Denmark

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    Malmö, Sweden

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    Malmö, Sweden

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    Global virtual team, exhibition for Copenhagen Climate Conference

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    Santa Monica and SF Bay, CA

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    SF Bay Area HQ

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    San Mateo, CA

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    Menlo Park, CA

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    Palo Alto, CA

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    Menlo Park, CA

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    Seattle, WA

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    Seattle, WA

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    Sacramento, CA

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    Denmark and SF Bay Area

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    El Segundo, California, United States

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    Irvine, California

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    Los Angeles, California

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    Los Angeles, CA, and Irvine, CA

Education

  • UCLA Graphic

    UCLA

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    Activities and Societies: With local colleagues, I studied cellular telephony's use among Arctic communities that fostered a transborder, "Northern" regional identity heretofore impossible relying on "vertical" north-south national telephone systems. Participating institutions: Roskilde Universitetscenter (Denmark), Umeå Universitetet (Sweden), Tromsø Universitet (Norway), and Tampere University (Finland), with support from The Fulbright Foundation, the Nordic Development Bank, & Erikson AB.

    Concurrently, I supervised an investigative study by students at Roskilde University Center into telecom procurement by the Danish Post & Telegraph. Their report, "What Is It? What's It For? And For Whom?" was critical of the DP&T's unwitting purchase of obsolete teletext technology from Siemens AG. The students' report -- the first of its type in Denmark -- resulted in cancellation of the Siemens purchase, the purchase of state-of-the-art technology from Sweden's Erikson AB, and fundamental…

    Concurrently, I supervised an investigative study by students at Roskilde University Center into telecom procurement by the Danish Post & Telegraph. Their report, "What Is It? What's It For? And For Whom?" was critical of the DP&T's unwitting purchase of obsolete teletext technology from Siemens AG. The students' report -- the first of its type in Denmark -- resulted in cancellation of the Siemens purchase, the purchase of state-of-the-art technology from Sweden's Erikson AB, and fundamental restructuring of the DP&T.

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    Advisor: Professor John Friedmann, Ph.D. Dissertation: "An 'Open' Approach to Information Policymaking," published by Ablex, 1989.

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    Advisor: Professor John McCarthy, MFA. Thesis Topic: "Municipal Control of Cable Communications," published by Praeger, 1977. First UCLA Dept. of Theater Arts degree in "Video."

  • Activities and Societies: Fulbright Scholar, Scandinavia, "Transborder Telecom Networks & Emergent Transnational Politics"

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    Activities and Societies: Tau Epsilon Phi, Water Polo

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    Activities and Societies: California Legislature's first Telecom & Technology Policy Consultant. Earned my living as an advertising creative director, winning awards and working to assist progressive political, cultural, and social causes. Proposed and edited first Los Angeles Cable Plan. Diploma in hand, I went off as a Fulbright Scholar to study personal technology's effect on social movements and related government policies in Scandinavia. Set up my urban-development consultancy, Atelier Tomorrow AB in Malmö, Sweden.

  • Visiting Professor & 1st Entrepreneur in Residence

  • Activities and Societies: Fulbright Scholar, Scandinavia

  • Activities and Societies: Swim Team (three-time Letterman), Manhattan Beach Bodysurfing Assn., Student Court Judge

    A great learning environment on the beach.

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    National Merit Finalist | Varsity Swim Team (City League Medalist)

  • Activities and Societies: Water Polo, Political Organizing, Media-New Video Movement (LA Public Access Project)

  • Activities and Societies: Manhattan Beach Bodysurfing Assn, L.A. Public Access (Cable TV) Project, Democratic Party Activist, TEØ Fraternity,

    Other stuff:
    • Fulbright Scholar (Scandinavia): "Regional Integration via Technology"
    • Visiting Professor of New Media & First Entrepreneur in Residence, Malmö University • • Co-Founder, Human Interface Tech Lab, Washington Technology Center, Seattle
    • Guest Speaker, Royal Society, London
    • Original & Longtime Member, The WELL
    • Intl. Assn. for Mass Communications. Research (author of three books in the field)
    • Founding Board Member, SVASE, Silicon Valley Association of…

    Other stuff:
    • Fulbright Scholar (Scandinavia): "Regional Integration via Technology"
    • Visiting Professor of New Media & First Entrepreneur in Residence, Malmö University • • Co-Founder, Human Interface Tech Lab, Washington Technology Center, Seattle
    • Guest Speaker, Royal Society, London
    • Original & Longtime Member, The WELL
    • Intl. Assn. for Mass Communications. Research (author of three books in the field)
    • Founding Board Member, SVASE, Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs
    • First Principal Policy Consultant for Technology and Telecommunications, California Legislature, Utilities and the Commerce Committee & Author & Manager to Enactment of the Moore Universal Telecommunications Policy Act, the model for universal-service laws in all 50 states and today's governing 1996 Telecom Regulation Reform Act, now the law of the land.

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    Activities and Societies: Tau Epsilon Phi

    Comparative International Communications Management (First class attending Annenberg).

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    Activities and Societies: L.A. Advertising Club, Tau Epsilon Phi

  • Activities and Societies: Tau Epsilon Phi, L.A. Advertising Club,

  • Activities and Societies: UCLA Water Polo, TEP Fraternity, L. A. Public Access (Cable TV) Project, Manhattan Beach Bodysurfing Association

Volunteer Experience

  • City of Los Angeles Graphic

    Organizer and Member, Los Angeles City Cable Communications Commission

    City of Los Angeles

    - 1 year

    One of three appointed commissioners who authored L.A.'s first plan for cable development, advocating municipal ownership and citizen involvement and engagement.

  • Volunteer & Co-Manager, L.A. Public Access Project

    L.A. Public Access Project

    - 2 years

    Arts and Culture

    One of the first and most active "new media" organizations in Southern California.

  • San Mateo County Transit District Graphic

    Citizens Advisory Board

    San Mateo County Transit District

    - 2 years

    Reviewed County policy regarding expansion of CalTrain and service to the coast.

Publications

  • Pima County Connectivity Study Report

    Atelier Tomorrow Inc.

    A study of connectivity in Pima County, Arizona, as a prelude to three concurrent projects in the region: (1) Civic Innovation Lab, (2) Smart Citizens Pima, and (3) an "Emotive Technologies" Regional Innovation Platform.

  • The Import of “Open” in the Civil & Civic Spheres - An Open-Ended Question

    Medium, for Malmö University MEDEA Collection, "The Politics, Practices and Poetics of Openness"

    A discussion of the Smart Citizens thesis, that citizen engagement at the level of co-governance is the best guarantee of urban and regional sustainability, resilience, and opportunities seized and exploited. The openness required may threaten existing communicative status quos, but the collective outcomes across the board will be better than what they would be without openness in a Smart Citizens context.

    See publication

  • Tools for Innovation: A Chapbook

    GEMBA Innovation A/S, Denmark

    A primer for participants in the longitudinal Danish DESINOVA research project that critically investigated how inhouse innovators and designers can best work together to serve companies and agencies of many sizes and compensations. Answer: with structure and guidance provided by their clients.

    See publication

  • "Total Experience" Blog

    Corante Inc.

    Introduced in 2000, Total Experience was the first and most influential experience-design blog during its eight-year run.

    Other authors
    See publication

  • Information Design: An Anthology

    MIT Press

    An anthology of points of view regarding the emerging practice of information design and issues ranging from the politics of information to skills required to future trends in the field.

    Conceived and edited by Robert Jacobson. Foreword by Richard Saul Wurman. Contributors include Elizabeth Andersen, Judy Anderson, Simon Birrell, Mike Cooley, Brenda Dervin, Jim Gasperini, Yvonne M. Hansen, Steve Holtzman, Robert E. Horn, Robert Jacobson, John Krygier, Sheryl Macy, Romedi Passini, Jef…

    An anthology of points of view regarding the emerging practice of information design and issues ranging from the politics of information to skills required to future trends in the field.

    Conceived and edited by Robert Jacobson. Foreword by Richard Saul Wurman. Contributors include Elizabeth Andersen, Judy Anderson, Simon Birrell, Mike Cooley, Brenda Dervin, Jim Gasperini, Yvonne M. Hansen, Steve Holtzman, Robert E. Horn, Robert Jacobson, John Krygier, Sheryl Macy, Romedi Passini, Jef Raskin, Chandler Screven, Nathan Shedroff, Hal Thwaites, and Roger Whitehouse.

    See publication

  • "Looking Back from the Virtual Future"

    Computer Graphics World

    "Looking Back from the Virtual Future" (with R. Jacobson): Computer Graphics World, Vol 17, # 5, May, 1994

    Other authors
    See publication

  • An "Open" Approach to Information Policymaking

    Ablex

    Following on TELECOM 2000, the pioneering work of I.A. "Tony" Newstead for the Australian Telecommunications Commission (1980), this book describes and critiques "open" policymaking for telecom and information policy, a method adopted by a California Legislature policy team in the mid-1980s. The resulting and uniquely successful Moore Universal Telephone Service Act (UTSA) has kept all Californians online and connected for over 35 years despite enormous, continuing turbulence in the services…

    Following on TELECOM 2000, the pioneering work of I.A. "Tony" Newstead for the Australian Telecommunications Commission (1980), this book describes and critiques "open" policymaking for telecom and information policy, a method adopted by a California Legislature policy team in the mid-1980s. The resulting and uniquely successful Moore Universal Telephone Service Act (UTSA) has kept all Californians online and connected for over 35 years despite enormous, continuing turbulence in the services market. The only law of its type in the USA, the UTSA provides balanced rates and subsidies for telephone, cellphone, and now Internet usage. This book was my doctoral thesis.

    See publication

  • Municipal Control of Cable Communications

    Praeger

    An argument for public ownership of cable communications systems as the most efficient and economical path to ubiquitous, high-quality broadband and media communications in America. Examines existing publicly owned systems and why they have excelled. This book was my master's thesis, written while I was a member of the first Los Angeles City Cable Commission, appointed by the City Council (which I had lobbied for the Commission's creation).

    See publication

Honors & Awards

  • Invited Lecturer, "Virtual Worlds and the Design of Human Experience"

    The Royal Society (London) & Trinity College (Dublin)

    I spoke on the concept of virtuality and how it unifies human and artificially induced experience. Both lectures were exceptionally well attended and the Q&A's without equal in my experience.

  • Fulbright Scholar

    Fulbright Foundation

    (See above)

Languages

  • English

    Full professional proficiency

  • Swedish

    Limited working proficiency

Organizations

  • Design Research Society (UK)

    Member

    - Present

    A premier research organization headquartered in the UK dealing with design as an inclusive practice.

  • Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD)

    Member

    - Present

    A cutting-edge organization for professionals dealing with public informational design and in my case, the technologies and practices of experiential design.

  • Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

    Charter Member

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    CPSR as a global organization promoted the responsible use of computer technology. Founded in 1981, CPSR educated policymakers and the public on a wide range of issues.

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