Free idea....to a good home

They say that "an idea not acted upon is worthless." Well, what if someone else acts on it?

Ever had a great idea but lacked the resources...or motivation to act upon it? Well don't throw that great idea away...donate it! Authors Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff have written a book called "Why Not?" which among other things discusses "open source" ideas. They've put together a companion website which acts as marketplace for free ideas. As of today the catalog of donated ideas contains 249 categories and 2,089 ideas.

My own humble submission to the catalog can be found here, but I like the idea so much I've included the text here as well (it IS my blog :-) :

This is something 3M should team up with Dell or HP to produce (IMHO). An office computer printer that uses a "yellow sticky" notes as the page separator. The networked printers in most offices are usually set up to have a cover sheet that separates different user's print outs. The problem is that if there are several printed documents or a large document, you spend several minutes sifting through a pile looking for the separator. With this idea you could have a sticky note that separates different print outs off to the side. To get fancy, the printer could print "John Doe's print out" on the sticky note before placing it as a separator. It could go on to place the notes so that they were staggered between print outs, to let you read all the notes in a large pile at once. This would save people time, and a nice added bonus would be all the paper that is saved from all those full size cover sheets.
-mditson, Aug 23 2005

And to the person who left the comment asking "don't all good printers collate?" the answer is no, absolutely not-- you're just lucky in your office I'm afraid.

This brings up another point about good ideas and getting them into the hands of people who can use them. Why is it so hard to contact the right people at a company? Why doesn't 3M, Dell, or HP have a big old "suggestion box" button on their web sites? Too busy to listen? It's too bad. As a product marketer myself I would love direct, unprompted access to ideas from prospects in my target segment.

Weblogistan

From Wired Magazine’s Sidebar called “Jargon Watch”

“Weblogistan: n. The Iranian blogosphere, where activists go to vent anonymously in the face of Iran's oppressive regime. Weblogistan is now so vast that Persian is the fourth most widely used language on blogs.”

I love this! In the 1980s the Reagan administration fought the psychological war of ideas through the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. These institutions passed messages of hope and liberty to the trapped and the enslaved behind the Iron Curtain. When I say messages of “hope” and “liberty,” I mean it literally. The Voice of America would pipe recordings of Mass being held by Pope John II behind the borders of the U.S.S.R. where people had to worship secretly. News of the world unfiltered by “Pravda” provided Soviet citizens with alternative sources of information.

In his book on Reagan, Dinesh D’Souza calls out the importance of these messages to the people inside the U.S.S.R. “…several former dissidents told Reagan that when they heard he had called the Soviets an “evil empire,” it gave them home, and they said to each other that America finally had a leader who clearly understood the nature of communism.”

Clearly, the Internet is the new medium of choice for the message of freedom. Now instead of just broadcasting messages into an oppressed country, the message can come from within, from the people themselves. Can you imagine the type of courage it must take to post an anti-establishment blog message inside Iran? Check out the Cartside blog for a further write up of the Weblogistan phenomenon. “A young man who calls himself Hoder has started nothing short of a media revolution in Iran. In the 'islamic republic', which human rights reporters label the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East, a new form of publicity is budding. Here of all places.”

The significance of this type of communication can not be emphasized enough. How does the saying go, “the first rule after you conquer a new country – take over the airways.” Controlling information is a way of keeping people down, of keeping them under control. Well, that’s no longer possible, is it? The emergence of the Internet means oppressed people can communicate with the rest of the world still.

The United States should adopt a policy of doing everything it can to nurture Internet communications between people in oppressive regimes. In Iran, this may not even be necessary. The country already has over 100,000 blogs (see a directory of many English/Farsi blogs at http://blogsbyiranians.com/). It is possible that one day Axis of Evil countries such as Iran and North Korea will stumble and fall—eaten out from within by the free flow of messages of hope and liberty.

How many stamps to send to Tuva?

I once read a set of personality test questions on the Internet. One of the questions was, "if you could meet any three people in the world alive or dead, who would they be, and why?" (Or something like that). One of the people I chose was Richard Feynman.

Feynman was one of many young physicist that worked on the Manhattan project. Later in life he won the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics (no, I’m not exactly sure what that is-- something to do with quantum mechanics and particles taking every path at the same time rather than any of the infinite options). His 1959 lecture, "There's Plenty of room at the bottom," is also widely credited as the start of the science of nanotechnology. In addition, he was also the person who (among others I would guess) who figured out that the space shuttle Challenger exploded because of the faulty O-rings.

All of that is only half of why I chose him as one of the three I would like to meet. The other half was that he was just an extraordinarily interesting character. Feynman wrote several books about his adventures. Ever read about how a Nobel physist approaches meeting women? How about his experiments in sensory deprivation chambers? Better yet is his "hacker" past as a guy who made a hobby in the down time at Los Alamos cracking safes.

The U.S. Postal service has recently commissioned a new stamp of Feynman, and I just thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about him.

Exi-stencill-ism

Finally, all those frequent flier miles are paying off. In my house, unused FF miles go to free magazine subscriptions. I've been getting Esquire this way for a year or so, but the most recent issue has paid off in spades. An article, titled "I am Banksy," in the most recent issue details the author's search for what is now my new favorite artist, Robin Banksy. Apparently I am very late to the party, but who cares, this is good stuff.

His work has popped up in the form of graffiti all across London. Beyond the article, I've found two great places to view his stencils: His web site, here, and another site that actually shows many more pictures of his work around London, here (click on galleries on the right).

From my admittedly sub-half-day fandom state, I can tell you honestly in my now "expert" opinion that his work has a running subversive theme most often based on hope. Graffiti is a form of subversion in and of itself, but the actual content of his work seems to address authority and "state" rule in many ways. One picture is a of a large tank surrounded by soldiers looking very initiating with assault rifles and and all in black. What leaps out is that all of the soldiers have the yellow "have a nice day" smiley faces. Another cool one is on a brick wall facing a busy roadway. The picture is of two soldiers. One is down in a defensive stance, covering the other with his assault rifle while the second is shown bent over spray painting a large Peace symbol on the wall.

The pictures of hope are even more inspiring. They show worlds full of grey and sadness, but with subjects that have suddenly opened windows into different worlds of hope and possibility. According to the article, in July Banksy actually created nine pieces on the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall. One picture in the article shows a huge piece of the actual wall with a cracked and broken "hole" as if pushed through the wall. the actual fence looks like what it is, water-stained concrete, through the hole we see a boy at the beach with a bucket and shovel, framed by blue skies and puffy white clouds (similar but different than the one I've included above).

Past that, several of these works are just plain fun. My favorite shows a large UPC barcode symbol with bent "bars" in one section, and a leopard that has just "escaped" coming toward you.

Banksy has an interesting manifesto (read it here) on his site that captures the goal of his work much better than I have. It's the story of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, a British soldier who was one of the first to liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. It's haunting.

The Life Guard

“We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. And it’s been said if we lose that war and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours. History will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the founding fathers.”
-Ronald Reagan, Rendezvous with Destiny speech, 1964

Today I finished re-watching “In the Face of Evil- Reagan’s War in Word and Deed.” This documentary, based on the book Regan’s War, is a fantastic review of Ronald Reagan’s crusade against defeat Communism. The movie reviews the different forms evil took in the twentieth century, Bolshevisms, Fascism, Communism, Nazism, and collectively refers to this evil as the “beast.”

In each of its forms, the beast exploits the dark side of humankind to enlist followers to gain power. Once in power the beast removes the basic forms of freedom from those under its control, freedom of religion, a free press, the power to express ones self, as well as anything representing the individual. In turn the movie reviews how time and again free society hopes the “wolf will pass the door” and leave it alone. Again and again mankind tries to negotiate with and to appease the beast, while at the same time vilifying as “war mongers” anyone who stands up and calls the beast what it is, evil.

Ronald Reagan, along with Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher were the modern day crusaders against the beast represented by the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan called Soviet Communism what it was, an evil “insanity” that murdered over 100 million people over the course of its history, and enslaved millions more in its Gulags.

Today, both liberals and conservatives (okay mostly liberals) assume that Ronald Reagan was a typical conservative Republican. This couldn’t be farther than from the truth. As the movie points out, Reagan was the only “true outsider” elected to the Presidency in the twentieth century. He was a radical. Reagan rejected the Nixon/Kissinger policy of Détente that sought peaceful co-existence with the Soviets. Gerald Ford’s almost total denial of the dangers of Communism in Eastern Europe pushed Reagan to run against him, a sitting President, for the Republican nomination in 1976.

Once in the White House, Reagan unleashed an all out war with the soul aim of destroying the Soviet Union. The documentary reviews the economic, political, and psychological attacks the U.S. launched against the Soviet Union (and the U.S.S.R’s fight back). Along with a close band of fellow crusaders, Bill Casey, Casper Weinberger, Ed Meese, Jean Kirkpatrick, and others, Regan’s agenda took root around the world in myriad forms.

This movie should be required viewing for every school child in America, both as an example of true courage in the face of evil, and as a warning against the beast. To my liberal friends who (hilariously) insist the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, watch this movie. To those who snicker at Reagan’s vision of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), watch this movie and understand how critical that one program was, and why we may all be alive today because of "Star Wars."

Ronald Reagan, with the help of many others saved the world from a heinous form of the beast that murdered millions upon millions of human beings. I find it amazing that we can so clearly trace so much good and so many saved lives to the actions and faith of a single, great man.
Alas, the movie ends with images of September 11th, and points out that the beast lives on, just in a different form today. The beast reemerges in the guise of Radical Fundamentalism. Funny how even today they call those that call the beast what it is, “warmongers,” “Neo-cons,” “paranoids.” Someone (W?) must call it what it is, and never let up. Never surrender.

“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid”
– Ronald Reagan 1981

Whither Russia?

There's an interesting and at the same time terrifying op-ed in the WSJ today by Garry Kasparov (yes, that Garry Kasparov). Mr. Kasparov has contributed to the WSJ a number of times about the state of post-communist Russia.

I'm as guilty as most Americans in forgetting about Russia now that the cold war is over. Mr. Kasparov's editorials give me pause and make me wonder if we're all in the midst of a colossal international blunder. Whether you subscribe to Margaret Thatcher's view that "Ronald Reagan won the cold war without firing a shot," (okay, guilty :-), or the view some of my liberal minded friends take that the U.S.S.R simply collapsed under its own weight (yeah right), no one can deny that the cold war was an undertaking that pulled in the entire world. Ronald Reagan dismissed Detente and pushed through his vision that communism could be beaten. He won us the war, but have we now failed him by not properly nurturing and protecting the "win?"

The United States and the world failed to learn its lesson after World War I and punished Germany by extracting reparations from that country-- virtually tee-ing up the rise of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler. The U.S. learned from that, and in the aftermath of the second World War constructed the Marshall Plan to prevent a repeat of the Nazis. That was largely a success. Germany, as well as Japan went on to become two of the most productive economies in the world.

However, because the cold war wasn't a "hot" war with a defined front line (admittedly unfairly discounting the pain and anguish of Afghanistan, El Salvador, etc.) I think most Americans tend to think the job is over. Certainly we've put billions of dollars into Russia in the form of aid since the break up of the U.S.S.R., but did we drop the ball along the way? It's not as straight forward as imposing our form of democracy on that country (now countries) , but did we pass up a chance to give them a the full "bear hug" of capitalism and democracy (pun intended ;-).

Mr. Kasparov's warning should be heeded by the U.S. immediately. One of the pillars of democracy, the rule of law, is almost non-existent in Russia. According to Mr. Kasparov, " the Russian court system currently boasts a conviction rate of over 99%." That can't be right.

Certainly September 11th has shifted the U.S. and the world's focus to radical fundamentalism. This is a real and present danger and needs to be confronted. At the same time, as the world's lone super power, the U.S. has a responsibility to engage Russia as a topic that is "very important, not yet urgent" before it becomes that way. As Mr. Kasparov points out, " The consequences of this transformation may only seem relevant to Russians today, but a Russia with a disintegrating economy and no respect for the rule of law will soon make our problems yours. "

Relentless

I watched Walter Payton, Beyond the Glory the other night and it’s a good thing that I was the only one home, because I balled my eyes out.

Walter Payton was my first sports hero. It was 1985, I lived in Northern Virginia, I was just getting into sports, and my friends, two brothers, Mark and Scott, used to live in Chicago. It happened to be the year that the Bears stomped everyone. The year of Refrigerator Perry. Jim McMahon. Mike Singletary. Willie Gault. Richard Dent. But the heart and soul of the Chicago Bears that year, and many before that, was Walter Payton.

The Beyond the Glory was a retrospective. It moved you to see just how many people absolutely loved this man. This guy from Mississippi who just showed up, and played SO hard. Someone in the show described him as “relentless,” and that is what stuck with me. He fought and he fought and he fought and just would not stop. Who wouldn’t love this man on his team? Who wouldn’t be inspired.

I had a book on tape that I got a year or two after that. It was Walter Payton on being successful in life. It was a series of thoughts and interviews, and I ate it all up. What a total inspiration this man was. What a horrible loss at such a young age. It’s been a few years since he passed on, but any time there’s ever a mention or a highlight reel on TV, stop and watch Walter Payton run.

The Columbine Drill

Very matter-of-factly my seventh grader informed me that her school was going to have a “lock down” drill this week. “What’s a lock down drill,” I asked. I always thought “lock down” was what they talked about during a riot in a prison movie. Well, it turns out that it is pretty much the same thing here. “It’s where we practice what to do if something really really bad was happening in the school.”

Welcome to 2005. Kids practice “lock down” techniques in the case of a crazy person (student or otherwise) should enter the school with guns a blazing. As a parent, this is totally petrifying to even ponder. School is out of your grasp and out of your protection. On the one hand you’re thankful they’re prepared (sort of), on the other you damn the fact that they need to be.

I suppose this is the 2005 equivalent of “the Russian’s are coming” bomb drills you see in 1950’s education films. Those must have been an ever present scare in some minds as well. In the late 1970’s in Michigan, all of our drills were for tornados. The only thing you needed to remember in a tornado drill, save keeping your head between your knees and a textbook over your head was to…open the window. You see a tornado could cause a sudden change in air pressure outside, and if the window were not open could cause the large plate glass windows to shatter all over the place. At least at Winans’ Elementary.

Angry Columbine kids seem so much more real, more regular, and more dangerous than those nuclear bomb films.

Celebrate Record Profits!

"And there's always a place for the angry young man,
With his fist in the air and his head in the sand.
And he's never been able to learn from mistakes,
So he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
But his honor is pure and his courage as well,
And he's fair and he's true and he's boring as hell!!!!!!!!"
-Billy Joel

For the love of GOD! Can we please get some sense in our politicians and news media in this country! Is it possible that so many people were asleep in class when they taught the basic premise of the “American Way?” Folks the "profit motive" *IS* the American Way! It is profits that protect the United States of America! It is profits that enable us to do all of the good around the world that we do. As former GE CEO Jack Welch says, “Industry is the engine of Democracy!”

Exxon Mobile recently announce it’s largest single quarter profit in history, $9.9 Billion dollars. Talk is rampant in the media and in congress (both sides of the aisle – unbelievable!) that these profits are some sort of an outrage. Proposals for special taxes on these profits are running amuck. Lunacy! Does America not understand that profits pay for all new growth in this country?

Our country has myriad ways to raise money, but the primary two ways are both based on profits. The first way is to tax company profits or to tax individual’s income (i.e. personal profit ) or capital gains (i.e. profit) on realized appreciated value on property (never mind that that gets taxed twice). The second way our country raises funds to run itself is to borrow money based on its ability to pay the borrowed funds back (which it can do by taxing…profits).

This issue is a feeding frenzy of politicization in both the media and in congress. These are the same people with bees in their bonnets over America’s dependence on foreign oil. The same people that cried foul when hurricane Katrina wiped out much of the South’s oil drilling and distribution facilities. The same people who are against oil companies building new refineries in the U.S. (which incidentally could only be paid for with profits or borrowing backed up by earnings (profits))!

As an aside, ExxonMobile is a public company. Anyoney can purchase ExxonMobile stock and share in the same profits as the company does. In fact, anyone with a 401k or pension plan likely has some amount of money in large cap equity funds which because of Exxon's size almost inevitibly own stock in the company, and profit from the company's profits!

I worry that Joe Sixpack hears “10 billion dollars” and doesn’t place this number in perspective. This is such an astronomical sounding number that I worry most people say, “yeah, stick it to the man, tax his ass!” Typically when I get worked up about something like this I take a deep breath and say to myself, “trust the people.” They get it right in the end, but the “Angry Young Man” in me wants to rail against this insanity!

Hewlett Packard was famous for a new way of treating its employees. Values that placed respect on the individual and valued innovation and treating people right. For decades the “HP Way” as it came to be called has been heralded as the right way to treat employees, the right way to treat humans. An interesting and vital tenant of the HP Way that David Packard pointed out on more than one occasion made all the other good stuff possible, “run profitably.”

Who is Lying about Iraq?

There is a must read article in yesterday's Opinion Journal by Norman Podhoretz entitled, "Who is Lying About Iraq." Totally debunks the democrats claim that they were somehow "hoodwinked" into voting to give "W" the power to remove Sadaam Hussein. Also illustrates the lunacy of the whole Joe Wilson charade.

"He's Halfway There," according to Steve Forbes

So I've been anxiously waiting for the Steve Forbes "Fact and Comment," where he gives us his take on Ben Bernanke. Mr. Forbes, Editor-In-Chief of Forbes Magazine (best Magazine ever), provides a symposium on pragmatic economics in his Nov. 28th column. Given my "gut" feeling that Ben Bernanke's predisposition to inflation targets, I have been looking forward to Mr. Forbes take.

According to Mr. Forbes, Bernanke is at least progress, but not all the way there:

"He (Bernanke) has advocated adopting formal infaltion targets. This is progress-of a sort. The problem, of course, in targeting inflation is in deciding whitch indexes and market indicators (such as inflation-adjusted Treasury bods) to use. Indexes tell us what happened in the past. Monetary errors don't show up in indexes for at least a year. think of the proverbial tanker and how long it takes for the vessel to change direction after the captain has made the decision to do so."

Mr. Forbes points to the commodity markets - specifically gold - to give a real time indication of whether a set monetary policy is correct. The rest of the column on Bernanke is a great read.

The Elegant Universe

I just finished Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe – Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory.” This is a great read for a “non-scientist.” The book is the right mix of basics on Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and String Theory, plus a good dose of information that requires stretching your comprehension skills. I don’t pretend to understand most of it to the point that I could re-explain it to someone else, but Mr. Greene’s descriptions do pull you in and give you some insight into the type of work top physicists and mathematicians are involved with.

The primary subject of the book is Superstring theory and it’s potential for finally uniting the theories both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into a Unified Theory.

“According to sting theory, the elementary ingredients of the universe are not point particles. Rather, they are tiny, one-dimensional filaments somewhat like infinitely thing rubber bands, vibrating to and fro.”

One of the most challenging aspects of the book (and in String Theory in general) is the need to think in more than the four dimensions we are so familiar with (length, width, height, and time). Different versions of string theory actually propose that our universe is made up of ten and eleven dimensions. Many of the diagrams in this book are particularly useful in helping your mind “stretch” to imagine what this might be like. In addition, I found many of the descriptions and diagrams in the book explaining “just” relativity and quantum mechanics to be better than those found in some other popular physics books I’ve read. I found the picture showing how the sun “warps” the fabric of space time through gravity was particularly useful.

Go "W!"

Finally! President Bush has come out swinging in defense of the bold path he has set us on in the Middle East. He has presented a strong argument explaining why reshaping the Middle East is critical to both the U.S. and all humanity. He points out that the terrorists see Iraq for what it is,

“…Zawahiri writes that al Qaeda views Iraq as, quote, "the place of the greatest battle." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists.”

Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and the President’s message is that the United States needs to show resolve and finish the job. I am reminded of a Ronald Reagan radio commentary (p. 58) discussing red China’s view of the United States in the late 1970’s. First he quotes their Foreign Minister:

“Go read American history, we have not seen such an instance in which the U.S. has had such resolve and courage to sacrifice for others. That is why we dare to conclude that the U.S. is a paper tiger.”
-Former China Foreign Minister Huang Hua, delivered in secret July 30 1977

And then comments himself:

“Now that isn’t the picture we have of ourselves and history (overall) does not support Huangs, image of us. But we should note the examples from recent history he used to support his view; the firing of McArthur in Korea because he wanted to win the war and our failure to be decisive in Vietnam… There is great danger to us in this false image making. It is more often than not the road to war.”
-Ronald Reagan, “China.” From his syndicated radio show April 3, 1978

Is there any doubt that the message being sent by today’s Democratic party and the antiwar left is that the U.S. lacks resolve? What message do they want to present to the world in their attempt to rewrite their post Sept. 11th views? The point has not been lost on Al Qaeda as the President notes from a letter from Zawahiri, “he points to the Vietnam War as a model for al Qaeda. This is what he said. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents is noteworthy."

The President is absolutely right to call out these critics on their hypocrisy on the decision to invade Iraq. He notes that over 100 Democrats in the House and Senate voted to give him the power to go to war based on the same intelligence the administration had. Dissent is fine and healthy, but especially in the total vacuum from the left on alternatives to the current course, Democrats need to seriously consider what message they are sending to the outside world with their revisionist version of the decision to go to war.

Markets want stability...and predictability

Ben Bernanke, President Bush's nominee to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, is an outspoken proponent for "inflation targeting (subscription required)." I'm no interest rate or monetary policy expert, but the basic tenants of the concept resonate with me.

Inflation targeting is essentially the concept that the Fed would publicly announce a monetary policy that targets a specific rate for inflation growth (most talked about is somewhere between 1 and 2%) or at least a range that they want it to fall in to. For the past eighteen years, under Alan Greenspan, the Fed has successfully fought inflation through the use of calculated rate increases and decreases, but has done so behind closed doors. "Fed watching," the process of guessing "what they'll do next" has become nothing less than a sport.

As mentioned in the article, the need for predictability has been known for a long time. "Economists came to realize in the 1970s that to contain inflation in the present, they needed to control the expectations of individuals and businesses about where inflation was going in the future."

The reason Inflation targeting is gaining so many proponents is that it provides much more predictability. Financial markets, while moved by hard numbers over the long term, are moved in the short-term with a heavy dose of psychology (Ben Graham's proverbial "Mr. Market"). Is it healthy for the market to change what it does in anticipation of a Fed move, and then immediately correct after new policy has been announced?

Markets crave stability. This is why in equity markets companies smooth their results by managing their earnings. Everyone knows that during the boom Cisco Systems was brining in cash hand over fist each quarter, but strangely, quarter after quarter their results would come in exactly .01 over the analyst expectations. Everyone is aware this earnings management is going on and no one cares because they know actual results are even better. It's seen as good financial management to chalk up nice predictable numbers like that.

This kind of predictability is why an inflation targeting Fed policy sits well with me. Steve Forbes has been arguing for years in his column Fact and Comment that the U.S. economy would be better served by tying monetary policy to a predictable underlying metric (in his argument, the price of Gold). While Mr. Greenspan has in many respects provided the stability the market needed by being himself, what the U.S. (and the world) needs going forward is a policy that provides the predictability and stability the market needs no matter who sits in that seat.

(Disclaimer: I've left out a discussion of the flexibility in time of crisis that the Fed would "give up" by following an inflation targeting policy. It is a valid issue/point of view. There's a good discussion of that in the article I've linked to in the WSJ at the top of this post.)

Peter Druker RIP

WSJ News flash - Peter Druker, 95 dies Full Story.

A loss, but what a fantastic contribution to the world.

Darth Venter – Competition focuses innovation

Out with friends last night I had a conversation with a friend of a friend that struck me as interesting in regard to the concept of competition in science and technology. This guy works on a genetics research project that is run by Harvard and MIT. Of course, I read just enough popular science books and articles to be dangerous, so I immediately asked him about Craig Venter. His reply was a bark of laughter and an acknowledgement, “yes, we call him Darth Venter!”

If you don’t know who J. Craig Venter is, he is one of the people who is at the forefront of mapping the Human Genome using “shotgun sequencing technology (on the right in the picture). His Wikipedia entry mentions that he became “infamous for running a Human genome Project for its own commercial purposes,” (GASP!) From various articles you read about him he sounds like a brilliant, egotistical, and incredibly arrogant person. That’s how he’s described, but bull-headedness is a prerequisite for innovation. In my mind he sounds like an incredibly interesting person.

So I thought it was funny to find out that his competition calls him “Darth,” and it occurred to me how incredibly healthy that is. At the same time he gave him all the attributes of Lord Vader, he also acknowledged that Venter has moved the entire industry forward. Competition is what drives many a new discovery. I just finish reading “The Double Helix” in which James Watson describes the competition to discover and fully explain DNA (incidentally, it’s also credited as one of the first real written works of “popular science”). The book is the description of the multiple teams who are all working on the project in competition (and “co-opetition”), and all of the science department and grant politics that go into controlling who can work on what.

Rich Karlgaard, the Publisher of Forbes (greatest magazine ever) also had a great column last week called, “Why We Need Goofy Contests.” From railroads to rocketry, many advances have come from crazy competitions. Karlgaard points to the success of Burt Rutan and the X-prize, and asks why NASA doesn’t raise it’s paltry $20 million in annual prize/reward money to something more like $2 Billion. It’s a great question. Competition clearly pushes innovation, and what are “token” or “paltry” sums to our government (and arguably wasted they way it’s spent today) could prove to be tremendous motivators for the scientists and engineers of tomorrow.

Just look at the Pentagon sponsored Robot Races in the desert, and the absolute drive and energy it has focused on the robotics industry. Congress has mandated that one third of all military ground vehicles be “unmanned” by the year 2015. One option would be for DARPA to contract a single defense contractor to build robotic vehicles (through a competitive RFP of course). But how much faster will they get there, and how much better will the final solution be because many teams scrapped through a contest that emulates the real-world problem? Faster, better, cheaper. Foster Competition, and you’ll foster innovation.

What did you expect France?

Supposedly the riots in France are beginning to "wind down." As they do, many people are starting to ask what started all this? Why are all these Arab Muslims so angry? It seems pretty clear to me that France has some of the same discrimination problems the United States had years ago (and probably still has in places).

Specifically, I'm reminded of an AP article I saved from Dec. 17, 2003. "Chirac to Seek Law Banning Head Scarves." I saved this article because at the time I remember being absolutely appalled. This was just two years after Sept.11th, 2001, but at the same time I could never imagine banning a certain form of religious dress in the U.S.A. It would be like making Hasidic Jews take off those hats!

In the article Chirac went on to say, "Secularism is one of the great successes of the Republic...It is a crucial element of social peace and national cohesion. We cannot let it weaken." This seems tremendously sad to me. I don't consider myself religious, but I do have faith. Totalitarian states based on a theocracy are one horrible extreme, but a total secular state seems to be the other.

"What chu talkin’ bout Willis?"

I’m a technology guy. That is, I’m not an engineer, but I truly believe in the promise of technology, and that it will continue to make the world better for millions of people. So Malaria vaccines aside, every so often I think of something that makes me think “hmmm, will we give up all of our privacy and freedom if such and such happens?”

Here’s an example. Starting today, 2005, for the rest of your life, you better watch out what you say near any type of recording device! That is, don’t ever say anything out loud that you don’t mind having anyone hear. This will apply whether you’re planning to run for office in twenty-five years or if you just want to talk about your boss behind his back. Don’t ever call into a radio show anonymously and make an off color remark, because there will be no such thing as anonymous.

And the reason for the peril described above? The answer, of course, is Google. Maybe not Google specifically, but the future combination of different technologies will “out” us all on our perceived privacies. It goes like this. One form of biometric, a voice print, plus digitally recorded and stored audio, plus search algorithms equals the ultimate audio look up tool.

That means you could have every intention of leading a quiet life, not bothering anyone, and one day get pushed into the public eye --- say you win the lottery. The next day, you’re a news story, and all anyone needs to do is type in your name, select audio (or video for that matter) and click search. Everything you ever said near any type of a recorder pops up, including the time you promised that if you ever won the lottery you promised to give it all $340 million away to save endangered snail darter.

Be careful what you say.

Dell's lost Mojo

I despise short-term thinking. I certainly can't say that I have never been guilty of it (who hasn't) but it doesn't stop me from calling it out in others....

An article appeared in Barron's this week entitled " Time to Admit It: Dell's Lost Its Mojo." (Sub required). A basic premise of the article is that Dell still rules the roost in U.S. PC sales, but that the Dell sell-direct model is not translating in overseas markets. "In the hottest markets, China and India, buyers prefer to play with a machine before buying. "

Well this seems perfectly logical. Haven't been to India; have not spent a lot of time in Beijing (zero), but I get the strong feeling that the PC market in these countries is very nascent. Furthermore, the article continues, ""The PC business is no longer a growth market, for Dell or for anyone else, and it never again will be," says John Enck of the Gartner Group. "There is no conceivable way that Dell can significantly outgrow the market as a whole "

This seems stunningly dumb to me. Sure, the PC business is not a growth market today. At the same time, can we all agree that the PC is a pretty neat invention? Can we all agree that the "sleeping Tigers" of Asia have huge pent-up market demand for PCs? Okay, so they're still in the tire-kicking stage of the PC market in China and feel the need to "get their hands on" the machines ahead of time. Once the masses understand the value of PCs, is there any reason to believe that Direct from Dell can't work there as well? What's more, could other PC companys like HP and Lenovo be so crazy as to be building reseller channels for PCs in these countries?

Doesn't make Dell a "buy" today, but also doesn't mean the PC market will "never again" be a growth market.

First Blood

Good Morning - nothing much to say at the moment, at least...not until I figure out how this tool works. Not exactly "first blood" I know, but we'll see what happens.