A tribute to automation pioneer John Diebold ("NOT related to Diebold-Nixdor' ATM) including a rare talk given in 1957 when he was 31 years old. John Diebold was a pioneer and visionary in business and computer automation. He wrote "Automation: The Advent of the Automatic Factory," in 1952, when he was only 26 years old.
In 1954, he founded John Diebold & Associates which became the “Diebold Group,” international management consultants. "Diebold Group" provided consulting to many the largest business, financial and technology companies during the 1950’s, 1960’s and beyond.
His books and lectures helped define and popularize the word “AUTOMATION.”
Provided for educational use and commentary only by the Computer History Archives Project (CHAP), an independent research activity dedicated to preservation of vintage computing technology. Run time: 5 mins
Resources for More Information:
See also a very informative video talk by Professor Jeffrey Yost entitled: “Discovering Diebold: IT Consulting and the Organizational Adoption of Computers;” with numerous slides covering John Diebold and much of his influence on early automation consulting.
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{Prof. Yost is also the author of “Making IT Work: A History of the Computer Services Industry,” (MIT Press, 2017) (Diebold is profiled in chapter 1; the book overall is a fascinating and well documented look at the evolution of the computer services industry}
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Diebold: Biography
John Diebold;: Breaking the confines of the possible (The Future makers), Wilber Cross, J.H. Heineman publishers,1965
Archival Resources:
Corporate records for the “Diebold Group” covering client reports from 1954 to 1990, can be found through the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota.
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Harvard University Archives (via HOLLIS information system) provides various historical documents on John Diebold.
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Swarthmore College Library, Pennsylvania, maintains considerable information on many of Diebold’s articles, books and personal writings.
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Al Kossow’s www.bitsavers.org
This large Archive has numerous documents related to Diebold publications, including:
ADP Equipment Reports: by John Diebold & Associates; Cudahy Publishing, 1957; 892 pages, Illustrated
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Special Thanks to:
“Reel Transfers” - Film to Digital conversions. Reel Transfers provides professional media conversion services including many different formats (video, film, audio, photo, DVD/CD duplication, video editing, graphics and more.
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Books by John Diebold:
Automation: The Advent of the Automatic Factory (1952)
Beyond Automation: Managerial Problems of an Exploding Technology (1964)
The Social Impact of Cybernetics (1966)
Man and the Computer: Technology as An Agent of Social Change (1969)
Business Decisions and Technological Change (1970)
The Role of Business in Society (1982)
Making the Future Work (1984)
Business in the Age of Information (1985)
Managing Information: The Challenge and the Opportunity (1985)
The Innovators: The Discoveries, Inventions, and Breakthroughs (1990)
Transportation Infostructures: The Development of Intelligent Transportation Systems, (1995)
Information Technology in the 21st Century (1998)
Maintaining Profitability in An Increasingly Complex Environment (1998)
Articles:
“Experience, 1959, in Automatic Data Processing – A Review,”
By John Diebold, President of Diebold Associates, published in Computers and Automation, July 1960, page 10
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