Steve Cisler
In Memoriam
By Eduardo Villanueva, Associate editor, Journal of Community Informatics
"Steve Cisler has just left us after a battle with cancer. Well-known amongst community informatics practitioners, researchers and activists, Steve was a committed member of a large community of practice that emerged in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s, concerned with the usage and appropriation of the Internet and related technologies and media, for social and community purposes. From his position at Apple first, and then as a writer, speaker and consultant, he allowed many to coalesce into a greater conversation, about how to get the best out of the new information environment coming from the Internet. From conferences to one-on-ones, from articles to blog postings, Steve was a quiet activist, always bringing the newest trends with a hint of skepticism, a dash of common sense, and loads of good willingness to share even more.
I first met Steve in Havana, of all places. It was the IFLA conference of 1994, and the subject of his talk was a presentation of a variety of initiatives by communities to use that quite newfangled thing, the Internet, for presenting themselves to the world and exchanging ideas and projects. I came to see Apple products, and left wanting more from this tall, apparently distant American that knew so much and shared even more.
I started tracking down his work back home, and discovered that besides the technologically-minded librarian, Steve was "in-the-know" about many different aspects of the Internet's development, working with IFLA indeed, but also with the people and groups that ran the Internet back in his native Silicon Valley, and with a wide range of activists and concerned professionals. In a way, he embodied that old Internet—open, willing to share, full of riches and surprises, with its quirks and curiosities. I remember a discussion about peppers, and some very astute observations about Cuba from his trip report, that I expected technical and professional but enjoying because of his personal, human nature. His numerous friends were a who's-who of that time's Internet, and his seminal contributions allowed libraries and librarians to become part of that early conversation.
During the following years, in conferences, e-mail exchanges and readings, I came to meet him again, to collaborate with him in some projects, even to invite him to my country. I discovered that Steve was not just a wonderful professional, but also, foremost, a nice, warm, wonderful human being, a loving husband and father, with a wonderful track record of travelling, of seeing the world with intelligent, penetrating eyes. Never going native, Steve tried to blend into the countries he visited: he was never a tourist, but rather a traveller. Through seventy countries, he was a testimony of how visiting other lands enhanced your own world view, and through his constant willingness to share, how he enriched other people's lives. I enjoyed a lot his international travel chronicles, including his last, about Armenia.
He was a generous professional, sharing with old friends and new colleagues with the same intensity. A great speaker, he engaged his audience with subtle humour and a keen balance of data and ideas. Freed from a permanent position after he had to leave Apple in 1997, the variety of commitments and projects he engaged in was impressive.
Certainly, his most unusual project was his decision to go offline. In 2003, he shutdown his long and fruitful online life, bought a van and started to travel around the USA. He met people like him, without Internet access, and saw why and how their lives weren't any worse, or any better, without the benefits of our connected age. He enjoyed his ramblings; his newsletter, sent by "snail-mail", was cherished by those of us that got it. The pleasure of the letter exchange, that old tradition of the western world, relived for a while. Probably the last letter I'll ever post in the mail was addressed to him during those days.
It was during those exchanges that I learnt more about him. I did know that he was a wine maker, and had had the chance to enjoy his wonderful self-produced cellar. I was also aware of his time as member of the Peace Corps in Togo, and his later tour of duty in the Coast Guard. What I didn't know was that he was a keen farmer, first growing great fruit and produce in his backyard, and afterwards in a small plot in a community farm in San José, his hometown. I didn't know he loved to cook, especially to make bread.
He loved the outdoors. He kayaked, cycled and hiked as long as his body allowed him to. Kayaking, which he took up in his fifties, was a passion he liked to share. He was a man of the land, so to speak, and material comforts weren't his priority: he enjoyed living simply and doing things with his hands, something that to a foreigner like me, that has never lived in the USA but had a lot of preconceptions, never ceased to amaze.
He was a loving husband and father, and a most proud grandfather. Our love goes to Nancy, to his sons and daughters-in-law, and to his two lovely granddaughters.
We met last time in February. I was aware of his illness, but he was living his life as usual and no words were exchanged on the subject, as he had asked of a number of us back in May of 2007. We just talked, about all and nothing, and cherished our time together, with our families by our side, walking down the Santa Cruz boardwalk, shopping at Fry's, sharing the wine he so skillfully corked for so many years. We laughed together almost to the floor watching an old Simpsons episode, another taste we shared. We had a splendid time.
I shall miss his intelligence, his wit, his catholic tastes in popular and "proper" culture, his wide ranging knowledge of trends, people and gadgets, his curiosity. But most of all his kindness, his quiet warmth, his friendship. As we all will.
And I shall remember him constantly, and shall never forget that to touch so many lives, professionally and personally, and to be remember fondly by so many, is a sign of a life well lived." (http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/489/388)
More Information
Another in memoriam at http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0805/msg00033.html