What computers do you use? In 1983, I bought an Apple Lisa, Steve Jobs' first effort at a computer with a user friendly front end. It cost $10,000 and I've stayed loyal. I still own and publish MacUser, although it's getting too technical for me. I only buy a computer when it's two years old, after the glitches have been worked out. I'm probably the last living user of MacWrite Pro.
How has the growth of computers affected magazine publishing? When we started Oz, we used typewriters, but it was impossible to get typesetters to work for the underground press. Then IBM brought out the Selectric, a primitive computer that justified copy and printed it so we could paste the pages. The Selectric made alternative magazines and newspapers possible! When we computerised Personal Computer World in 1985/6, it changed magazine publishing forever. The art room - the heart of a publishing company, where designers and editors worked together in a creative, happy go lucky process - was fragmented into separate units, each working alone.
Is that when you started to lose enthusiasm for computers? Yes, I saw how destructive they could be. There are jobs, particularly database-oriented ones, for which computers are necessary, but for everyday office life, I question whether they have brought the productivity that their enormous cost, up to £10,000 per person, demands. Nor do I believe they will. Computers are wasteful of paper and time. Once, we'd get documents with a few errors. Now, people make hundreds of copies until each sheet is flawless and memos are duplicated endlessly. Managers get swamped with emails.
Are you a fan of the internet? Although we have many successful websites, I value the net primarily as a business tool. Maxim became a huge success in the US because we sold 600,000 subscriptions online, which cost us $2m instead of the $24m a junk mail campaign would have cost. We were the first company to insist that visitors to our website filled out a questionaire and the information we gathered was invaluable for us and advertisers.
Does IT affect your daily life? I detest gadgets, especially mobile phones, and prefer face-to-face meetings, faxes or talking on the phone.
Do you use IT for writing or performing your poetry? I use Google for research and a brilliant actor - Patrick Sont - devised an adaptation of PowerPoint that projects, with perfect timing, the words of my poems on to a screen for the audience to read as they are spoken. I also wrote a prayer for my MacIntosh that begins: Alert 01-01-01/ Praise the Creator/ The source of our data...
Favourite sites? www.felixdennis.com; the Monty Python of food sites and humour - www.wecktumfire.com; and because I can't stand clocks to be wrong - www.whattimeisit.com
· Felix Dennis will be the subject of a Southbank show: February 16 on ITV
