Denny Brown's Bio
My entire professional career has focused on understanding cutting-edge software technologies and explaining them to others. As a graduate student in Computer Science at Stanford, I had the privilege of working with pioneers of Computer Science such as Don Knuth, Bob Floyd, and Ed Feigenbaum. I chose to specialize in artificial intelligence before it was cool. But my real focus was teaching others, trying to make it easier for the next person to understand what the luminaries were creating. That focus led to a position as the Associate Chairman of Stanford’s Computer Science Department. While the senior faculty were inventing the field, I managed the undergraduate and graduate teaching programs.
I left Stanford to join Teknowledge Inc. as one of its first employees. My first role at Teknowledge was to manage the education and training function. Our mission was to teach the technologies, tools, and methodologies for creating commercial expert systems. As the field and the company matured, I transitioned into managing professional services. Our professional services group led technology transfer efforts that enabled companies like General Motors and Procter & Gamble to deploy commercially successful expert system applications.
Coherent Thought Inc. was my next adventure. This venture-funded startup developed second-generation expert system tools, but like so many AI startups of that era, it failed because of inadequate financing.
That failure led directly to the creation of Expert Support Inc. in 1990. We saw how many companies that produced complex software underestimated the difficulties associated with enabling profitable commercial use by their customers, so our initial vision was to provide services to companies commercializing advanced software technologies.
Over our three decades, we narrowed the company’s focus from general technology transfer to technical communication excellence. We see effective technical communication as a necessary ingredient in the success of any advanced technology. We strive to help our customers communicate their vision and the technical details that support that vision. Although technical communication excellence is only one factor that drives the success of a technology, we believe it is a cornerstone.