Xerox Parc

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Fri Nov 8 03:14:00 2002

>Except that in today's environment, the suits and bean counters either
>don't provide a place for the group of brilliant scientists to assemble
>or they constrain the work to only those projects that have a high
>ROI. Imagine an environment where you can't get the money to deploy
>an experimental system until you can demonstrate that it will pay
>for itself in less than 3 years. Of course, you have to take into
>account the goobers who cut all of your revenue estimates in half.

The beauty of the current system is that the really creative people
are totally POed by this treatment and tend to work on the "great
idea" on the side. How great of a creative genius can you be if you
can't sneak your stuff into the "real work"?

OTOH I can understand the investor standpoint, in a start up you have
a window to market, and "doing science" is a death sentence.

Also I am not convinced creativity is a one person thing, ie me and
my great idea, as opposed to what happens when me and my great idea
get hit with budget cut and time table, then the tech trips and drops
the prototype which does something curious when reassembled.
Received on Fri Nov 08 2002 - 03:14:00 GMT