Having read many of the threads on this topic, I see a regular pattern. Everyone seems to be focusing on new technologies to add to our current technologies. But innovation is not just about creating a new product to buy, it is also about improving the products we already have.
One thread lists energy efficient homes as a way to help reduce energy consumption. While this is a laudable goal, I think a better, more innovative technology would be a cheap, efficient way to dramatically improve the efficiencies of existing homes.
Another thread mentions building more public transportation. Public transit has proven to be inefficient in the American marketplace for many reasons, but the biggest is that Americans look on the car as an independent freedom. Only in areas where it truly is a hassle to maintain your own car, has the marketplace done well for public transit. Instead of building more public transit, why don't we concentrate on a method to make public transit an "independent freedom" that can still harness the efficiencies of moving a large number of people.
Finally, we come to the flying car. This is a dream that many people have harped on as an innovation. The truth of the matter is that, unless a significant amount of innovation is done in the simple management of traffic flows in general, flying cars will have to stick to the modern paradigm. That means that instead of being stuck in lanes of traffic on the ground, we would have people suspended above the ground, waiting for lanes of traffic to clear. While we would have many more lanes to work with in a 3d oriented environment, most people are not capable of visualizing their turn signals, much less making a 300 foot dive to get on the 1010103 express airway to Newark.
So in short, dreaming of the new product is wonderful and laudable, but let's not lose focus on the fact that innovation should also assist the existing, commonplace products we already have.
With regard to patents, perhaps a split rule should be considered. Assume for the moment that a corporate entity has more of a chance to diversify and recover costs, than an individual.
Consider then a split in the basics of patent law. In the new scenario, a patent can still be awarded to a corporation. However, that patent, since it was awarded to a corporation, can NEVER be renewed, and has a shorter inital term than a current patent.
A patent may also be awarded to an individual. The individual receives all the benefits of current patent law. However, if the patent is ever sold, or in any other way becomes the property of a corporation, the previously described corporation restriction comes into play, and is dated from the date of initial application.
If at any time the patent becomes "unpatented" through transfer to/from a corporate entity, all patent rights are forfeit, and the idea enters the public domain.
Now, how would a change like this affect the different software patents we all dislike with a passion? Would this do enough to push the ownership of ideas back into the hands of individuals, rather than the hands of multi-generational corporations?
The best way I have found is to wean myself away. The biggest problem I faced was habitual. To this day, I like to have a hot cup of something to drink in the mornings, and throughout the day.
The trick I found was to swap in a cup of hot tea to replace a regular cup of coffee, every now and again. Continue this until you feel your intake of caffeine is right. One cup of coffee, on average, has about 130 mg caffeine. The same amount of hot tea has about 40 mg caffeine. While you are trying hot tea, make sure to sample various different flavors of tea. Of the teas that are readily available in most American supermarkets, the brands made by Bigelow are very good samples.
My personal favorite, also very common in Europe, is Earl Grey. Lipton makes a fairly decent pre-packaged variety of this tea.
The adjective lazy means, according to Merriam-Webster Online: disinclined to activity or exertion
I suggest that any good technically competent person is lazy, and someone I'd rather hire. Put yourself in a supervisory role for a moment. Who would you rather hire:
1. the person who enjoys running from fire to fire and is demonstrably active at all times 2. The person who works diligently to prevent those fires from occurring in the first place.
The second person, disliking the "fireman" syndrome so common in support departments, would have to be defined as lazy in that he/she is disinclined to work putting out fires. One can argue that the time spent in preventing the fires in the first place disqualifies the person from being called lazy. It's a shame that upper management tends to look at hard numbers, and it is much more difficult to provide a number for prevented problems, than it is to provide a number for solved problems. Upper management sees that person A solved 30 problems, person B ( the lazy one ) solved 10 problems in the same time period. However, management often does not quantify the extra work person B did to prevent those 20 problems, they just give person A great praise, and quietly replace person B for "underperforming".
While you digress, you do suggest an interesting point. Every job description that I have seen lately is of the "you must have skill X" variety, and the HR people are sticking to that listing. No job listings and very few HR personnel are even looking for the ability to learn. I see this as a lack of companies willing to invest in training for their employees as well as a failing in HR.
I see very little in the way of willingness to train in modern companies. Personnel are expected to just have the knowledge. Very often, if an IT person admits to not knowing a topic, management is more likely to hire someone with a greater skill set (and by its nature invalidate the first job) than they are to build training time and money into the production schedule and costs to enhance the current employee. Perhaps I am dating myself here, but where did the loyalty to the employee go? The tech bubble bursting is not an excuse to treat a creative technical person like an automata that can be ordered on a menu, rather than a human being with the ability to learn, and adapt to new situations.
HR is also massively devoid of technically competent persons to screen for applicants. I suspect this is because the technically trained mind tends not to enter the HR field. As such, we get this nasty list of requirements that no one on earth could possibly satisfy, and which are also not really needed for a job. While a particular project may have been written in python, there is no reason to reject the applicant with 10 years of perl experience, who could very easily be cross-trained.
What can we, as technically competent minds, do to change these two things?
Want to know another nasty little irony? My contracted employer runs a fairly popular accounting package, once owned by a company called Great Plains. It runs on SQL Server 2000. We were explicitly told by tech support not to patch the SQL server-side components with SP2, because it would break the app. They have still to release the update that would work with the SP.
The funny, ironic bit about this is that Great Plains was bought by Microsoft a little while back....
Needless to say, when we were told not to patch the software, we wrapped it up in a cocoon and stuffed it into a dark pit.
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One thread lists energy efficient homes as a way to help reduce energy consumption. While this is a laudable goal, I think a better, more innovative technology would be a cheap, efficient way to dramatically improve the efficiencies of existing homes.
Another thread mentions building more public transportation. Public transit has proven to be inefficient in the American marketplace for many reasons, but the biggest is that Americans look on the car as an independent freedom. Only in areas where it truly is a hassle to maintain your own car, has the marketplace done well for public transit. Instead of building more public transit, why don't we concentrate on a method to make public transit an "independent freedom" that can still harness the efficiencies of moving a large number of people.
Finally, we come to the flying car. This is a dream that many people have harped on as an innovation. The truth of the matter is that, unless a significant amount of innovation is done in the simple management of traffic flows in general, flying cars will have to stick to the modern paradigm. That means that instead of being stuck in lanes of traffic on the ground, we would have people suspended above the ground, waiting for lanes of traffic to clear. While we would have many more lanes to work with in a 3d oriented environment, most people are not capable of visualizing their turn signals, much less making a 300 foot dive to get on the 1010103 express airway to Newark.
So in short, dreaming of the new product is wonderful and laudable, but let's not lose focus on the fact that innovation should also assist the existing, commonplace products we already have.
With regard to patents, perhaps a split rule should be considered. Assume for the moment that a corporate entity has more of a chance to diversify and recover costs, than an individual.
Consider then a split in the basics of patent law. In the new scenario, a patent can still be awarded to a corporation. However, that patent, since it was awarded to a corporation, can NEVER be renewed, and has a shorter inital term than a current patent.
A patent may also be awarded to an individual. The individual receives all the benefits of current patent law. However, if the patent is ever sold, or in any other way becomes the property of a corporation, the previously described corporation restriction comes into play, and is dated from the date of initial application.
If at any time the patent becomes "unpatented" through transfer to/from a corporate entity, all patent rights are forfeit, and the idea enters the public domain.
Now, how would a change like this affect the different software patents we all dislike with a passion? Would this do enough to push the ownership of ideas back into the hands of individuals, rather than the hands of multi-generational corporations?
The trick I found was to swap in a cup of hot tea to replace a regular cup of coffee, every now and again. Continue this until you feel your intake of caffeine is right. One cup of coffee, on average, has about 130 mg caffeine. The same amount of hot tea has about 40 mg caffeine. While you are trying hot tea, make sure to sample various different flavors of tea. Of the teas that are readily available in most American supermarkets, the brands made by Bigelow are very good samples.
My personal favorite, also very common in Europe, is Earl Grey. Lipton makes a fairly decent pre-packaged variety of this tea.
I suggest that any good technically competent person is lazy, and someone I'd rather hire. Put yourself in a supervisory role for a moment. Who would you rather hire:
The second person, disliking the "fireman" syndrome so common in support departments, would have to be defined as lazy in that he/she is disinclined to work putting out fires. One can argue that the time spent in preventing the fires in the first place disqualifies the person from being called lazy. It's a shame that upper management tends to look at hard numbers, and it is much more difficult to provide a number for prevented problems, than it is to provide a number for solved problems. Upper management sees that person A solved 30 problems, person B ( the lazy one ) solved 10 problems in the same time period. However, management often does not quantify the extra work person B did to prevent those 20 problems, they just give person A great praise, and quietly replace person B for "underperforming".
Suffice it to say, I'd rather hire the lazy ones.
While you digress, you do suggest an interesting point. Every job description that I have seen lately is of the "you must have skill X" variety, and the HR people are sticking to that listing. No job listings and very few HR personnel are even looking for the ability to learn. I see this as a lack of companies willing to invest in training for their employees as well as a failing in HR.
I see very little in the way of willingness to train in modern companies. Personnel are expected to just have the knowledge. Very often, if an IT person admits to not knowing a topic, management is more likely to hire someone with a greater skill set (and by its nature invalidate the first job) than they are to build training time and money into the production schedule and costs to enhance the current employee. Perhaps I am dating myself here, but where did the loyalty to the employee go? The tech bubble bursting is not an excuse to treat a creative technical person like an automata that can be ordered on a menu, rather than a human being with the ability to learn, and adapt to new situations.
HR is also massively devoid of technically competent persons to screen for applicants. I suspect this is because the technically trained mind tends not to enter the HR field. As such, we get this nasty list of requirements that no one on earth could possibly satisfy, and which are also not really needed for a job. While a particular project may have been written in python, there is no reason to reject the applicant with 10 years of perl experience, who could very easily be cross-trained.
What can we, as technically competent minds, do to change these two things?
Want to know another nasty little irony? My contracted employer runs a fairly popular accounting package, once owned by a company called Great Plains. It runs on SQL Server 2000. We were explicitly told by tech support not to patch the SQL server-side components with SP2, because it would break the app. They have still to release the update that would work with the SP.
The funny, ironic bit about this is that Great Plains was bought by Microsoft a little while back....
Needless to say, when we were told not to patch the software, we wrapped it up in a cocoon and stuffed it into a dark pit.