Stewart Brand is a man of many hats. Most famous in many circles as a futurist, he has worked with multinational corporations such as AT&T and Xerox to develop models of the way the world might develop. A pioneer of Internet technology, Brand was the author of an influential 1988 book called The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT. Before that, he was the founder of a countercultural bible called the Whole Earth Catalog. Earlier still, Brand was a card-carrying member of Ken Kesey&s Merry Pranksters, much celebrated in Tom Wolfe&s journalistic masterpiece, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He is also author of an architectural book called How Buildings Learn, pioneer of a magazine called Coevolution Quarterly, and Webmaster of an influential chat room called The Well.