Comments on CommunityNetworking2008: Community Networking champion Steve Cisler passed ...

I am so sad. Steve was a lovely wise man. Since ...

2008-06-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

I am so sad. Steve was a lovely wise man. Since the mid-1990s I have met him at various ICT4D conferences, and through his blogging and email conversations I have kept learning from him. I'm involved in community computing in South Africa, and Steve was continually sending useful articles and links. His humanity and humour shone through all he did. I will miss him. The world is a better place for him being in it.

Peter (peter@cell-life.org.za)

Steve Cisler was such an inspiration, a remarkable...

2008-06-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

Steve Cisler was such an inspiration, a remarkable visionary with a huge heart, a soul who lived life to the fullest. I respected him very much professionally, and felt blessed to have him as a friend. He was so utterly committed and tireless in his efforts to ensure that this Internet medium would be accessible to all. His travels to me exemplified his life -- wonderfully *authentic*, experiencing all to the fullest, and always involving giving to others. He visited Cuba and met relatives of mine that I have not met, and with his presence completely transformed the image of an American... according to my mother's family, they talk about him still. The wonderful ripples he created all over this planet are out there, rippling still.

I am wishing you and your family peace, Steve. Thank you for everything.

Steve Cisler has been an inspiration for me for tw...

2008-06-03T00:07:00.000-07:00

Steve Cisler has been an inspiration for me for two decades and I will greatly miss him. His name always came up wherever someone needed advise on how to use economically efficient yet latest technological advances to solve community networking problems. He was a great resource for suggestions on how to apply technology to help remote and poor communities, especially those of indigenous peoples.

I was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Communication and Information Research at Stanford University for the 1993 calendar year looking at the application of low-cost and portable technology for the preserving native languages and cultures. Steve immediately arranged for me to have space in the new Apple office building at 1 Infinity Loop in Cupertino and to participate in his Apple Library of Tomorrow Project. This gave me access to resources at Apple that were of significant help in my projects. I also had a chance to visit Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and work with them in using Apple laptops to preserve their language and teach reading and writing in Zuni. As co-founder of the American Indian Library Association I learned much from Steve as we developed the organization.

Shortly after this, in 1994, I became the founding Dean of Instruction and first recruited academic for the new California State University Monterey Bay. Steve was a constant source of advice for me as we developed information resources and media for the new campus.

Again, in June 2001, while I was serving as the Community Technology Coordinator for the newly emerging National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian. we held a Community Technology Consultation in Minneapolis and Steve was a major participant. To quote the program write-up, he was “a community networking advocate, who had worked extensively with Central American indigenous communities.” His experience served us well in our discussions both at the workshop and later as we developed plans for the new museum on Capitol Mall in DC.

Steve was active to the end. Just last November he mentioned to me in an email something about Tech Awards week in San Jose which ended with a one-day conference on innovation. He noted there were interesting people there from Senegal, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.

The mixture of professional tributes and memorials...

2008-06-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

The mixture of professional tributes and memorials for Steve's personal attributes reflect just how unusual a person we have lost and want to remember and celebrate. I got to know Steve first from his work at Apple and at the Ties that Bind conferences -- for me and so many others, he was one of the main ties, bringing together community technology centers and community networking, spanning the full range of community media and technology, across the country and across the world.

In the fall of 2003 I had the opportunity to travel through Jordan with Steve, Richard Civille, Michael Gurstein, and Mona Affifi visiting community technology centers in an advisory capacity for the Ministry of Information. I've recently pulled out some of the photos from the trip with Steve and posted them at: http://public.fotki.com/petermiller/stevecislerinjordan/.

What the photos show, I'm sure you can see most vividly, is a man both knowledgeable and at ease, genuinely listening and interested in the views, sentiments, and experience of his colleagues and the full range of those involved with CTCs there -- end users, staff, administrators, experts, Ministry and other governmental officials influencing the course of community technology. Steve's quiet calmness, his collegiality, his genuine interest in others were among his more remarkable qualities.

Richard Civille has contributed some of his own photos of the trip with Steve that highlight that remarkable landscapes and a couple of Steve from Richard Lowenberg taken in Colorado Springs. I'll be pleased to post more or links to others that some of you may have. Professionally and personally, I feel blessed to have known Steve.

I first interacted with Steve as a co-op student w...

2008-05-29T14:35:00.000-07:00

I first interacted with Steve as a co-op student working for the National Library of Canada in the late 1980s. I had been asked to contact a number of leading library tech folks and Steve went to the trouble of writing me back with a kind and detailed response to my questions. He also printed out the letter on the most beautiful paper, I felt like I had been the recipient of a major honour to receive such a reply. Years later, Steve was on a panel for the Ontario Library Association which I was coordinating and I reminded him of his willingness to help a student. He just laughed and it was obvious that helping people out was a natural reaction for him to any situation. I have always admired Steve's efforts to build communities through technology and was not at all surprised that he was a donor on the first day of the One Laptop Per Child "Give One Get One" program. Steve was a class act with a heart of gold, he will be greatly missed.

I knew Steve Cisler online only but considered him...

2008-05-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

I knew Steve Cisler online only but considered him a friend. I met him via BITNET e-mails in the late 1980s. He served as an inspiration and sounding board for me in my early internet efforts such as the campus Gopher at Morrisville State College. His digital presence will be with us for eternity.

I knew Steve while he was at the Apple Library, bu...

2008-05-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

I knew Steve while he was at the Apple Library, but lost touch with him when he moved on. I was very much impressed with him as someone who immediate "got" the implications of the Internet. For Apple Library he created the "Network Citizen Award" which I was thrilled to receive in 1992 for my work in launching the publication Current Cites, still going strong in our 18th year. Steve was a pioneer and a visionary, it's that simple and that complex.

Steve and I shared the podium at several library/o...

2008-05-26T13:02:00.000-07:00

Steve and I shared the podium at several library/online research conferences in the '80s and early '90s. He was the first person I heard preach the gospel of online community. Steve finally persuaded me to get off my butt and onto The WELL, at which point my life changed forever. I'm eternally grateful for that. Peaceful passage, Steve.

I am thinking os Steve this Saturday morning and r...

2008-05-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

I am thinking os Steve this Saturday morning and remembering our first meeting at the CTCNet gthering in Pittsburg in the early nineties. He was friendly in a feet on the ground way and smart and informed. some time later he came down to LA with Frank Odasz to participate with a visioning circle, a LAP, we were running at the BreakAway Institute in South Central Los Angeles. I still have the Tupperware container he brought with some home made hummas. Over the years I learned to count on Steve's clear and consice reviews of conferences and other activities that were on his wide ranging path. He connected me with Scott Robinsons excedllent work when I had been asked to put together a video for the Canadian Government advocating for the community technology efforts and possibilities in the hemisphere at the OAS summit. Steve was as authentic, caring and committed as anyone I have ever met. His legacy is in the circle of frinds who have posted on his passing, in all the good work that continues to be done, and in the underlying friendship and humanity that were his way. I am sorry I never met his family. I want you to know that I am one more person touched by Steve who will not forget him.

For all my relations,

Max Gail

This is so very sad. Steve was wonderful. He was e...

2008-05-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is so very sad. Steve was wonderful. He was everything that everyone here is saying, and then some. He was quiet yet intense. He knew where he lived, and he was a role model for so many of us. When I was living in Sonoma, he came up to our house once to vist and helped us harvest lavender and hang it to dry. He brought some homemade wine, and I remember how calming his effect on our house was, as we sat together talking about nothing in particular while we worked. I suppose he was the embodiment of the phrase one-of-a-kind. I feel very fortunate to have known him.

Steve was a mentor and coach to me at Apple. He s...

2008-05-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Steve was a mentor and coach to me at Apple. He shared his enthusiasm for the early web with this business guy from the education group. He was always out ahead and I have fond memories of a gentle, brilliant, and unassuming man.

I met Steve back in 1999 while working at Schools ...

2008-05-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

I met Steve back in 1999 while working at Schools Online. My coworker, Keith Yocam, introduced him to our organization.

His in depth knowledge about the possible use of technology in remote area was eye opening.

He has touched many lives, left a great legacy, and will be missed.

Parham
Redwood City, CA

I met Steve back in 1999 while working at Schools ...

2008-05-23T00:24:00.000-07:00

A new updated blog has been created at: http://c...

2008-05-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

A new updated blog has been created at: http://communitynetworking2008.wordpress.com

Please log onto that site to post new 'comments'.

Richard Lowenberg

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2008-05-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

Test Posting.
Testing please delete this post.

I met Steve about 10 years ago, in one of the pion...

2008-05-17T09:08:00.000-07:00

I met Steve about 10 years ago, in one of the pioneering conferences about Rural Telecommunications organized by the NTCA in Washington DC. From the beginning, Steve showed interest in a project of telecentres we were conducting at that time in the Ecuadorian Amazonia, and he provided very useful insights and information.

From then, we met again few times both online and in person in other spaces and he always was ready to share his experience and information.

He indeed contributed and inspired in many ways to many people.

Roberto Roggiero
Quito, Ecuador.

Steve was one of the kindest and most interesting ...

2008-05-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

Steve was one of the kindest and most interesting people I've known. We first met in the early 90s doing some community networking and I was fascinated by his librarian - almost anthropological - approach to understanding the world.

There was nothing like traveling with him. Rank or station meant nothing and his fierce dedication to those without means was an inspiration to me.

He convinced me that I should tithe time to causes and people I believed in. I have been doing this for years and it is the greatest gift he gave me.

I was his backoffice partner in the unconnected project http://tingilinde.typepad.com/unconnected/ . He was traveling and observing the unconnected and, to better understand things, kept himself from the Internet. Every few weeks I would get a memory card with his notes and images for posting on the blog. I have arranged that the blog will continue indefinitely.

I feel cheated - we should all feel cheated. Far too young.

steve's quiet voice was filled with wisdom. he alw...

2008-05-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

steve's quiet voice was filled with wisdom. he always thought before speaking. i would lean over to hear him speak because i knew what he was saying was informed by a connection to eternal truths.

Steve inevitably mailed me when there was some kin...

2008-05-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Steve inevitably mailed me when there was some kind of decision, however fleeting to be made. He always went for the human as in mensch solution, default being dialogue. I will miss him. Wherever he is now, he will make it a better place.

Cislerian ThemesBy Frank OdaszI’d like to share so...

2008-05-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

Cislerian Themes
By Frank Odasz
I’d like to share some thoughts on the impact Steve Cisler has made on my life, as a contribution to a book project collecting similar thoughts from others. I’d also like to note we fully expect him to be around for a good long time, yet. But, it is always nice to be appreciated.
Steve is a librarian by nature, naturally curious and eager to learn. I remember once we were talking on the phone and didn’t know he was googling on the topic we were discussing. He began pulling relevant factoids out of thin air. I’d never experienced such a thing in the middle of a conversation. It really changed my idea of how to use an Internet connected computer for instant inquiry-based knowledge access. I visited Steve in his office at Apple computer when he was head of the Apple Library of Tomorrow Program. He granted a macintosh to the Big Sky Telegraph project in its final years.
Many will remember the Ties that Bind community networking conferences that Apple and the Morino Institute hosted in San Jose and Taos, NM. I remember his international travels to Indigenous ICT conferences and exotic ports. He was always open to new ideas and cultures. His trek to Machu Piccu in Peru, his bicycling in Malaysia, his jaunt to Guatemala, Ecuador, on and on.
Steve has always been kind and patient, always eager to help others as a master Cybrarian – to find whatever they needed.
Since the mid-eighties, the BBS and pre-Internet years, we’ve kept in touch sharing ideas, projects, and visions for the future. Steve and his wife, Nancy have visited Montana a number of times, we’ve gone camping, kyacking, mountain biking and enjoy a few BBQ’s. Steve has toted an inflatable kyack to a number of exotic places, and loves to hike and travel to new places. He used to make his own wine, and enjoys growing cherries.
May 16, 2008, I just received news Steve passed on yesterday. I guess my thoughts turn toward Nancy and their two boys. Steve had a great capacity for friendship and his openness won him a huge number of friends and admirers from all over the world. Reflecting back on the community networking movement that he contributed so much to, I’m feeling we have too few people with Steve’s vision for leveraging the good in all of us. His eclectic interests as a master librarian make me think of what many of us would leave on the shelf as opportunities to learn and share in life, Steve would be the one to take the book down and open it. A couple days before his untimely passing we talked for an hour, it was one of those rambling conversations where neither of us were in a hurry, and we talked of little things, and big things, and how funny it is how much of a rush most of us are in, most of the time, and what of it all really matters. The week before his boys were visiting and they sat together in the yard and talked about important things on the off chance they might miss the opportunity.
Last summer, Steve and Nancy visited, and Steve and I went kyacking on the Beaverhead river. Upon launching his boat in the swift current, he rolled into the water, very near the shore in only a few feet of water. As I grabbed for him and his boat the rocky river bottom prevented both of us from getting a foothold so we could stand up. So there we were hanging on to each other and the boat, grateful no one was watching us as we laughed and floundered. Dripping wet we both successfully launched our kayaks and continued down that river of life enjoying every moment.
I briefly googled "Steve Cisler" and found 11,500 articles. I then clicked google's images tab and found a page of images of Steve, though the remaining images were not of him. Clicking the google “more” and then books, tab I found 138 books, and the blogs tab, 157 blogs….and it was from Steve I learned to appreciate how to find stuff like this. Lots of great writing….

And I'm sure this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I too met Steve in the Early 90s and kept in touch...

2008-05-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

I too met Steve in the Early 90s and kept in touch with his rich adventures across the past two decades. I wrote a bit here and hope that folks will find that a helpful way to get to know Steve a bit.

I am saddened that one of the most decent human be...

2008-05-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

I am saddened that one of the most decent human beings I have ever known is no longer with us. For almost a decade I had the privilege of working with this pioneer of peoples computing in his various capacities. Although I often had some outlandish and provocative ideas and proposals, Steve always took the time to help me explore many and support some.

Steve was a unique intellectual populist. I believe his driving force was to put the power of computing resources, and the ability to communicate with same, into the hands of all who could benefit. I first met him with ALUG. That marvelous group, inspired by Monica Ertel and supported by Apple spent a decade exploring and supporting a myriad of individuals who believed computing was more than the boxes, more than the established framework of profit oriented services, and limited only by our combined imaginations..

I had the privilege of sharing my roof with him when he came to evaluate an ALOT grant in the early 90’s. He joined me on a trip to deliver a plaque honoring a library trustee who had spent fifty years promoting cooperative rural library service in our Appalachian corner of Ohio. On the drive home I mentioned the respect I had for the trustee and her perseverance she had in improving the welfare of her neighbors by collaborating with others. “Isn’t that what we are about?”

As my life changed direction and I left library land we somehow lost touch. That does not tarnish the respect and admiration I will always have for this trailblazer. My condolences to his loved ones, my regards to all who remember him fondly.

Steve was my mentor/buddy when I started at Apple ...

2008-05-17T03:40:00.000-07:00

Steve was my mentor/buddy when I started at Apple almost 20 years ago, and he was the perfect guy for the job of helping a junior know-nothing like me get an understanding of how to work in that special environment at Apple and, later on, how to make connections with and contribute to the larger community of librarians and others similarly disposed to trying to make the information world a better place for everyone. I've always appreciated how Steve's counsel helped me and how his work helped so many.

I counted Steve Cisler as a friend and mentor. He...

2008-05-16T23:27:00.000-07:00

I counted Steve Cisler as a friend and mentor. He did the first due diligence on the Jhai PC 1.0 and he introduced me to many people. He also was always a good sounding board on almost any issue. He also knew Laos. I am in Vietnam now setting up a relationship for the JhaiPC2.0 in a telemedicine implementation. Steve would have loved this one. Steve was a champion for us and always very kind. I'll miss him.

Lee Thorn
chair, Jhai Foundation

I've been thinking about Steve a lot, as we all ha...

2008-05-16T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about Steve a lot, as we all have been. He was a public librarian in Suisun, CA, when I first encountered him on the WELL in 1985. It sounds like maybe a small thing, but for me, a big thing: he helped me see how to think critically about my enthusiasm for online sociality. We had memorable adventures in the early days of the WELL, at Apple, with the community networking enthusiasts, at Burning Man, with Mario Morino, walking and talking on Mt. Tam. He introduced me to my partner when I started an ill-fated dotcom. When I conjure him in my mind's eye, Steve is always smiling. He meant -- and means -- a lot to me.