Hacking

The word ‘hacking’ these days often has a negative connotation – used to describe individuals who are trying to break into computer systems with evil intent.

But it wasn't always that way. In fact, the original hackers were quite different. They were engineering students at MIT who got their hands on one of the first minicomputers.

They were all members of a model railroad club where they would spend hours hacking new solutions for the systems that controlled the railroad. They took that same approach when exploring the potential of this new computer.

Their experience of hacking was antithetical to traditional programming which was based on careful planning and development, following the core industrial practices of Taylorism.

Instead, it was a process of creative discovery that involved rapid trial and error experiments with Moments of Surprise.

This process of trial and error allowed them to quickly develop solutions through a fast iteration of Learning Cycles.