Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1924421.1924432
historical Reflections
Building castles
in the Air
In ThE EARLY months of 1956, an intriguing series of adver- tisements appeared in the New York Times, the Los Ange- les Times, and Scientific American. Although the ads had been placed
by the IBM Corporation, they were not
selling any IBM products or services;
rather, they were soliciting assistance
from the public. Recent advances in
electronic computing had created an
unprecedented demand for computer
programmers, the advertising copy
declared, and in bold letters inquired
of its readers, “Are you the man to
command the electronic giants?” Because computer programming was a
“new and dynamic” field, the advertisement argued, “there are no rigid
qualifications.” Those individuals
who enjoyed chess, music, or mathematics might consider themselves
particularly suitable candidates, but
the only real requirements were that
you had an “orderly mind” and a “
lively imagination.”
5
These 1956 advertisements were
not, of course, the first appeal for com-
puter programmer talent launched
by the IBM Corporation, or for that
matter, by a whole host of computer
manufacturers and users. Already by
the late 1950s the growing demand for
computer programmers was emerging
as critical problem for the industry.
But what makes this particular recruit-
ment campaign significant was its em-
phasis on creativity and imagination.
In fact, the ads were so intriguing as
to attract the attention of the writers
of the “Talk of the Town” column in
the New Yorker magazine. Struck by
the seeming incongruity between the
appeal to both musicians and math-
ematicians, the “Talk of the Towners”
themselves “made bold to apply” to the
IBM manager in charge of programmer
recruitment. “Not that we wanted a
programming job, we told him; we just
wondered if anyone else did.”
3
hIstorIcal docuMent courtesy oF IbM
iBm computer programmer recruitment advertisement circa 1956.