By Ben Rand, Global Communications manager for Xerox
Chester Carlson’s vision continues to influence the Xerox of today, as we help our clients and partners redefine how work gets done.
Earlier this week in London, to an audience of executives and thought leaders gathered to discuss business transformation, Xerox chairman and CEO Ursula M. Burns made the connection clear.
Chester’s breakthrough helped transform a critical business process – information sharing – “to meet the demands of the 20th century,” she said.
And today, Ursula observed:
“Businesses and governments face a growing range of operational processes begging for reinvention. And sometimes, they are looking to partners to operate these processes on their behalf. That same mission, to apply technology and innovation to solve the information jams between people, is now being applied to address traffic jams, congested call centers and complicated government benefit programs.
“At Xerox, we combine our expertise in very specific work-domains – like information and data, customer care and human resources, to name a few – and marry it with our innovative history in computing, imaging, process engineering and human-centric design.”
Chester saw things differently. He did not draw conclusions of the whole based upon a single part. This characteristic served him well during the years following the successful experiment that produced the world’s first xerographic copy on October 22, 1938.
“… great rewards come to those who see needs that have not been clearly identified by others, and who have the innovating capacity to devise products and services which fill these needs.” – Joe Wilson, former CEO of Xerox, reflecting on Chester Carlson’s contributions.
Just like Chester did, Xerox today is designing solutions that address large-scale real-world problems, and making lives better – one copy, one train ticket, one mortgage or one health care premium at a time.
Happy birthday, Chet. From me and about 140,000 of your closest friends at Xerox.
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Chester Carlson continues to be an inspiration to many of us modern day Engineers and Inventors.
Regards,
Dennis A. Morfis
Thank you, Dennis. There is much about Chester Carlson to inspire each of us. For me, in addition for my gainful employment with the great company that benefited from Chet’s wonderful mind, I am particularly inspired by his compassion for humanity.
Raised in poverty, Chester’s invention eventually earned him millions of dollars. It didn’t change him one bit. He lived his life modestly to the very end, and he gave away much of his fortune to various and good causes. His stated desire was to die a poor man, and he nearly succeeded in that ambition.
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He has my undying admiration.
Greg
His birthday would make a great google doodle next year!
Craig – brilliant idea, I love the Google Doodles and they get so much visibility. What a great way to say Happy Birthday to Chet. We will look into that.
Is there someone who has this video? It seems that CBS has deleted it from YouTube and from their timelines, I would love to be able to show it to friends and family.
I found this video on WWW. archives , had to piece it together, audio was horrible, had to replace it too, but it came together and is on Youtube at;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IY6yc6cTgo
Thanks Mr. Carlson for giving our world an invention that changed it.