Michael Hewitt-Gleeson



Michael Hewitt-Gleeson (born Melbourne 1947) is the co-founder with Edward de Bono and principal of the School of Thinking (SOT) that was initially based in New York for 14 years (1974-1989).

Hewitt-Gleeson is an authority on lateral thinking, author of Software For Your Brain, and inventor of cognetics. In 1984-85, Hewitt-Gleeson brought cognetics to TV with his design of Viewer-driven Television (VTV). VTV used an interactive television format where the programming was driven in real time by the viewers, not by the station; it was aired on public-access channels in New York City.

Academic and professional background
Hewitt-Gleeson holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science, International College, Los Angeles (1980). In 1980, Cambridge Professor Edward de Bono was Hewitt-Gleeson's tutor for the world's first PhD in Lateral Thinking in which Hewitt-Gleeson proposed the Theory of Newsell.

Hewitt-Gleeson's other professional appointments include:
 * President, Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT), New York (1983)
 * Managing Director, Edward de Bono & Associates Inc, New York (1977)
 * Co-founder with Edward de Bono, School of Thinking, New York (1979)
 * Principal, School of Thinking, Melbourne (1988).

Hewitt-Gleeson has been an international consultant on strategy to international organizations and corporations from the United Nations, and the White House to IBM, Fujitsu, BMW, and Jack Welch of General Electric. He has lectured widely in more than 15 nations in the world, including Canada, China, France, Israel, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, apart from the United States, and Australia.

His works has been featured in Forbes, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Personal Success (cover story May '91), Readers Digest (April 1983, cover story, worldwide editions), and Wall Street Journal, amongst several others, and also in numerous radio and television programs worldwide.

Legal disputes
In New York in 1985, due to a dispute over publishing rights and attributions, Hewitt-Gleeson closed down the School of Thinking, which he started with de Bono. In 1988, Hewitt-Gleeson re-started the School of Thinking in Melbourne. According to legal findings, the school was closed because Edward de Bono, who was principal shareholder of the School of Thinking, had offered conflicting publishing rights both to the School of Thinking and to Pergamon Press.

There was also a dispute over ownership of course materials such as the School of Thinking's Six Thinking Caps.

Dr Edward de Bono and Dr Michael Hewitt-Gleeson co-authored an early version of the PMI lesson in the Learn-To-Think Coursebook and Instructors Manual (1982 Capra New). This book became the subject of a cover story on all international editions of the Readers Digest in April 1983. In September 1983, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, Eric Bienstock and Edward de Bono were brainstorming ways to exploit the publicity from the story. They developed the idea of 'coloured thinking caps' taken from the icon in the magazine. The book Six Thinking Hats was subsequently published in 1985.