I had been racking my brain to come up with an appropriate logo for the HPL for some time with Guru Dave Hanshaw (Aka Manny Klempetti) graphic designer, filmmaker, and fine artist extraordinare who has been helping with a number of the Lab's iniatives. Dave and I had kicked around a number of concepts all of which failed to capture the essence of what the Lab is all about. Then, about a week before I had to leave Austin for the holidays we had Loyd Blankenship out to the Lab.

Loyd is good friends with several of the Lab's Gurus who thought that he might be able to help with the programming of the Productivity Engine, the HPL's web-based tool for calculating the true value of individual and organizational time. Loyd was good enough to provide advice and guidance on this on-going project which was much appreciated, but his real contribution of the evening was providing the needed inspiration for the HPL logo.

While I had met and hung out with Loyd years before in Austin and knew he was an author and one one of the most famous hackers in the world, what I didn't realize until we started kicking around life over a couple of cold Saint Arnolds was that he is also an accomplished woodworker with his own full scale workshop. As we were taking a look at some of his works on his website, he showed the assembled group a magnificent replica of the portable desk that Thomas Jefferson penned The Declaration of Independence as a delgate to Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776.

While I was familiar with Jefferson's "laptop" I had always been more intrigued by his revolving bookstand. Maybe it has been the time that I have spent on trading floors understanding the importance of being able to quickly access a particular piece of information or my own love of working with a dozen windows open on my PC at any one time. Whatever the reason, the fact that Jefferson utilized the 18th century equivalent of a multiple monitor array seemed to capture the essence of the Lab's focus of utilizing technology to improve personal and organizational productivity.

In the collection of instruments that Jefferson carried daily for observing, measuring, and recording the world around him was the 18th century equivalent of the Palm Pilot. A small notebook made of ivory sheets that he could keep in his pocket at all times where he could take, modify, and erase notes in pencil.

In his study he also had a Polygraph or copying machine that made a replica of his correspondence as he wrote. It was the personal xerox machine of his day.

Can there be any doubt that Jefferson if he were alive today (and not spinning in his grave so rapidly as to be burrowing a hole to the center of the earth) would be sporting a Treo 650, tablet PC, and multi-function machine as well as being connected to his good friend John Adams via telepresence?