Sorry bud, but I do all of the above. It doesn't take much time, I learn a lot, and and I enjoy it. And above all, it invariably gives me ideas.
It's not difficult to justify to my supervisor ("I'm going to go talk to people who will actually be using the results of my current project. Back in two hour.") And if my supervisor objected to such things, I wouldn't bother asking his permission. I've been let go before - ain't no big deal.
I am truly astonished at some people's responses to the idea that researchers get more involved with the business. I'm not sure if it reflects reluctance of researchers to go outside of the comfortable haven of their technical fields, or a desire of managers to keep their researchers "barefoot and pregnant". I suspect mostly the former, but either way it's a serious problem.
They turn down EVERY SINGLE ONE with a literal wave of their hand, because all of them were obviously bad ideas..
It's also possible that the researchers did not communicate those ideas in a way that the managers understood. Or perhaps those ideas weren't great to start with because the researchers did not understand the business. That's the other side of the coin to just blaiming the managers.
My point is not that researchers need be brilliant at everything and do everything - only that it's not enough for them just to be good at some technical field. They must also have some understanding of the business, and be able to communicate with that business in a meaningful way.
It's bloody hard for a research manager to his or her job well when researchers aren't doing theirs, which at a bare minimum is to:
Come up with (or otherwise discover) ideas that have the potential to signficantly help the business.
Explain with the utmost clarity what these ideas are, how they might be implemented given the current situation, and at least guess at what the costs, risks, and potential benefits are.
Do whatever else they can help implement the idea without worrying too much about whose job it's supposed to be.
Not many researchers do that, which is to say there aren't many really good corporate researchers out there.
This fantasy that there should always be a team of specialists standing by to implement every brain fart a researcher has is just that - a fantasy. In the real world things are far messier, no matter how good the management. Corporate researchers must get involved in the real world and not be afraid to get their hands dirty. And they just might learn something in the process.
When talking to customers, naturally one goes through marketing or whoever handles the customer. But what's wrong with them saying to a customer "we want to take you out to lunch and have one of our researchers talk to you about your concerns"? I've often done that, and clients are generaly thrilled that (1) they are getting a free lunch, (2) they can talk directly to a researcher, and (3) someone is actually concerned about their problems and priorities. Slip of the tongues aren't a concern if you spend most of the lunch asking questions. Besides, most customers aren't that delicate - they know they are talking to a researcher, not senior management.
Research and marketing should be working hand-in-glove, and if they aren't then you should do what you can to improve the situation.
But even when you don't have access to your customers, you definitely have access to other employees - ones who know far more about the business than you do.
And so far as being too busy with your current committments, talking with employees and customers is how you meet your current committments. It's part of the task.
Regarding your point about risk, my point is this: (1) I've seen lots of ideas that are low risk. They are way more common than you would think. (2) If your company doesn't want to take any kind of risk - if researchers are just window dressing - why are you working for them? Do everyone a favour, including the company, and quit. In technical fields at least, companies that don't take some risk are soon out of business.
Researchers have usually spent many years in university, and that's how they often relate to the world - the mere generation of good ideas is sufficient and praise worthy. In a business setting it doesn't work that way. They are there to make a real difference to the business, and having brilliant ideas isn't good enough - those ideas have to address real problems, and researchers must do everything they can to turn those ideas into commercial successes. Researchers that don't appreciate that can easily turn bitter and petulant and begin blaiming others.
I'm not asking researchers to do everything, but they sure the hell should do more.
Many researchers seem to think that management has or should have infinite resources, wisdom, and patience, so that they can capture every idea the researcher has, fully understand its signficance, and immediately bring it to market. Dream on.
Many criticisms of management are valid, but in the end they have limited resources like everyone else. I find researchers more guilty of not understanding their job. Many simply don't want to make the effort to bring ideas to fruition - they figure that supplying the "genius" is enough, and it's the responsibility of management to take everthing from there. Such researchers need a kick in the arse, and be told what their real jobs are.
Or do you expect employees to develop and market innovative ideas on their own time without support from management?
I don't expect them to do full-scale marketing, but
I do expect them to do more than many of them do now, with or without the support of management. If a researcher said to his/her boss "I'll be away from my desk today talking to the users or marketing to find out what the real problems are", few bosses would object. And if they do object, then the employee should either do it without asking permission, or find work elsewhere.
if you could easily gain market share without risk, don't you think your competitors would have already done that?
Not always. Maybe their company has the same problems yours does. And even if they have done it, you should still do it.
Management is usually up to its eyeballs in ideas and projects and proposals and initiatives and plans and reviews and reports and paperwork. They are not supermen - they need a little help to sift the good ideas from the bad.
And researchers who can't see beyond the technical aspects of their work make things so much harder. How many times has a researcher gotten so carried away explaining the technical details of some idea that they forget to explain why it might benefit the company or the customer? How many times has a researcher given a presentation, only to have someone have to ask afterwards "How does this affect me?" (and then often receive a stuttering and incoherent reply).
Bringing new ideas to market is not just a technical problem - it's a social one as well. Researchers must learn that, or face a frustrating career. Downloading that problem entirely onto management is cop-out and doesn't work anyway.
Ideas are - in some ways - the easy part. You also have to
Make the ideas work within the existing framework.
Show how to move from the old method to the new method.
Convince people it's to their benefit.
Many innovators lack the above skills. They think that once they've performed some "innovation" their job is over, and thus get extremely frustrated when it's subsequently (and predictably) ignored, saying things like "innovation is given lip service".
Of course, to make the above work, the researcher would have to get down and dirty and actually talk to the end users to find out about the real world.
You know that tired old saw about the importance of communication? Well, it's going to feel real relevant real quick. You'll be constantly communicating with your employees, prospective employees, management, the internal "clients" for your department, the clients of the company, marketing, the front office, auditors, and God knows who else.
Therefore, I recommend as starters:
The Elements Of Style - Strunk and White
The Visual Display Of Quantitative Information - Tufte
Funny thing about computers. They were billed as labour-saving devices. If so, why is everyone working on one? If anything, they are labour-creating devices. Throughout history, numerous technilogical developments (e.g., the cotton gin) were condemned as putting people out of work. Strange thing though - we're all still working. You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical when you say "this time it's different".
Power does NOT have a runaway effect. Concentrations of power and wealth, if anything, tend to dissipate with time. This is particularly true when a "dynasty" gets past the first generation - maintaining power and wealth requires diligence and talent, and subsequent generations often lack the attributes that made the family successful in the first place. What's more, the powerful are constantly being challenged by the teeming masses who are competing for a piece of the pie. The powerful, of course, have certain advantages in this struggle, but the masses have advantages of their own.
As an example, the richest people in America are Gates and Buffett. They did not get that way throught inheritance but through their own efforts. The richest people in the future will likely do the same. Free enterprise is a constant process of building up and ripping down.
Your comment might not have been totally serious, but...
People have predicted the end of useful employment throughout much of the 20'th century. For example, read Jack Williamson's
"With Folded Hands" (1947) or Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano" (1952) .
The job market in America certainly has changed over the years. Far fewer people farm or work in factories. But the demand for skilled labour shows no signs of letting up - it's just different than it was. And the U.S. is about as close to full employment as it can come.
But the problem with living in an energy efficient mansion is that
it would probably require massive resources to build. There's more
than one way to harm the planet than inefficiency.
And I agree that living in a mansion doesn't make one's views invalid.
It can, however, make one a a hypocrite, and thus difficult
to respect. The day Gore (example #1 of the breed) sells his planes
and fancy cars, moves into a 1500 sq ft townhouse, and cycles to work is
the day I start liking the guy.
Our company is a huge Linux user, with clusters of
Linux nodes used for massive parallel computation.
So how much effect did SCO's threats have on us?
Nothin. Even though a number of developers and administrators
were aware of the SCO situation, I don't recall it even coming
up in a meeting. It's likely that upper management was complety
oblivious to SCO.
Was it irresponsible for us not to take it seriously?
Probably not. Our line of work is riddled with risk from every direction.
The SCO affair was just another risk, and not a very credible one at that.
Thunderbay is about the worst (best?) example of an isolated population
in Canada. Most of the southern areas of Canada, including the western provinces,
are not like that.
What an insufferably snotty criticism of my insufferably snotty criticism!
But the joke's on you. I do so little mathematics these days that I rarely think of myself as one. Usually it's "software developer" or "geophysical researcher" or "overpaid paper pusher" some such thing.
But since when have mathematicians not been given enough respect? I've never
seen that. Indeed, recent movies like "Good Will Hunting", "A Beautiful Mind", and "Proof" display an awe for talented mathematicians, even as they show them to be psychologically suspect.
While studying there, she co-authored a proof and presented it at a conference.
What a quaint way of putting it. One gets a sense that the journalist doesn't know much about what it's like to be mathematician.
Anyone taking honours-level mathematics will author thousands of proofs before they graduate. In and of itself it's no big deal. I'm left wondering whether she proved a conjecture that had not yet been proved, or had found an alternate proof for an important theorem, or (most likely) had derived new theorems with accompanying proofs. What field the mathematics was done in might also have been a nice addition.
Same thing with insurance. They tack on all sorts of benefits
you don't want, and when you ask for the paired-down version they
tell you that you may as well take them cause they're "free".
Doubling the benefits if I die by accident is a good example. It's utterly
beyond me why I would want that, yet sure in hell it costs me money.
Professional athletes will no doubt find this new drug
most useful, particularly in the more violent or fear-inducing
sports. They can add it to their pharmacopoeia of performance
enhancers.
The real winners will be the sports fans, of course, as athletics is
taken to even higher levels,
I've been a little out of the loop lately, so I wasn't aware of the term "astroturfing."
Even accepting that it exists on an organized basis,
I agree with your assessment. Its use is both unnecessary (if your opinion is
sound you should be able to effectively rebut your opponent)
and lazy (it avoids the onerous task of having to - you know - think.)
They both represent one of the oldest and worst strategies in "debating" - when in doubt,
question your opponents motives. Of course, being a paid shill, I would say that.
Thankfully, slashdot's moderation system keeps things to
a tolerable level of civility. Name calling generally gets modded down.
I didn't appreciate that until I posted opinions on some political blogs. Those things
can get absolutely brutal.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry bud, but I do all of the above. It doesn't take much time, I learn a lot, and and I enjoy it. And above all, it invariably gives me ideas.
It's not difficult to justify to my supervisor ("I'm going to go talk to people who will actually be using the results of my current project. Back in two hour.") And if my supervisor objected to such things, I wouldn't bother asking his permission. I've been let go before - ain't no big deal.
I am truly astonished at some people's responses to the idea that researchers get more involved with the business. I'm not sure if it reflects reluctance of researchers to go outside of the comfortable haven of their technical fields, or a desire of managers to keep their researchers "barefoot and pregnant". I suspect mostly the former, but either way it's a serious problem.
They turn down EVERY SINGLE ONE with a literal wave of their hand, because all of them were obviously bad ideas..
It's also possible that the researchers did not communicate those ideas in a way that the managers understood. Or perhaps those ideas weren't great to start with because the researchers did not understand the business. That's the other side of the coin to just blaiming the managers.
My point is not that researchers need be brilliant at everything and do everything - only that it's not enough for them just to be good at some technical field. They must also have some understanding of the business, and be able to communicate with that business in a meaningful way.
-
Come up with (or otherwise discover) ideas that have the potential to signficantly help the business.
-
Explain with the utmost clarity what these ideas are, how they might be implemented given the current situation, and at least guess at what the costs, risks, and potential benefits are.
-
Do whatever else they can help implement the idea without worrying too much about whose job it's supposed to be.
Not many researchers do that, which is to say there aren't many really good corporate researchers out there.This fantasy that there should always be a team of specialists standing by to implement every brain fart a researcher has is just that - a fantasy. In the real world things are far messier, no matter how good the management. Corporate researchers must get involved in the real world and not be afraid to get their hands dirty. And they just might learn something in the process.
When talking to customers, naturally one goes through marketing or whoever handles the customer. But what's wrong with them saying to a customer "we want to take you out to lunch and have one of our researchers talk to you about your concerns"? I've often done that, and clients are generaly thrilled that (1) they are getting a free lunch, (2) they can talk directly to a researcher, and (3) someone is actually concerned about their problems and priorities. Slip of the tongues aren't a concern if you spend most of the lunch asking questions. Besides, most customers aren't that delicate - they know they are talking to a researcher, not senior management.
Research and marketing should be working hand-in-glove, and if they aren't then you should do what you can to improve the situation.
But even when you don't have access to your customers, you definitely have access to other employees - ones who know far more about the business than you do.
And so far as being too busy with your current committments, talking with employees and customers is how you meet your current committments. It's part of the task.
Regarding your point about risk, my point is this: (1) I've seen lots of ideas that are low risk. They are way more common than you would think. (2) If your company doesn't want to take any kind of risk - if researchers are just window dressing - why are you working for them? Do everyone a favour, including the company, and quit. In technical fields at least, companies that don't take some risk are soon out of business.
Researchers have usually spent many years in university, and that's how they often relate to the world - the mere generation of good ideas is sufficient and praise worthy. In a business setting it doesn't work that way. They are there to make a real difference to the business, and having brilliant ideas isn't good enough - those ideas have to address real problems, and researchers must do everything they can to turn those ideas into commercial successes. Researchers that don't appreciate that can easily turn bitter and petulant and begin blaiming others.
I'm not asking researchers to do everything, but they sure the hell should do more.
Many researchers seem to think that management has or should have infinite resources, wisdom, and patience, so that they can capture every idea the researcher has, fully understand its signficance, and immediately bring it to market. Dream on.
Many criticisms of management are valid, but in the end they have limited resources like everyone else. I find researchers more guilty of not understanding their job. Many simply don't want to make the effort to bring ideas to fruition - they figure that supplying the "genius" is enough, and it's the responsibility of management to take everthing from there. Such researchers need a kick in the arse, and be told what their real jobs are.
Management is usually up to its eyeballs in ideas and projects and proposals and initiatives and plans and reviews and reports and paperwork. They are not supermen - they need a little help to sift the good ideas from the bad.
And researchers who can't see beyond the technical aspects of their work make things so much harder. How many times has a researcher gotten so carried away explaining the technical details of some idea that they forget to explain why it might benefit the company or the customer? How many times has a researcher given a presentation, only to have someone have to ask afterwards "How does this affect me?" (and then often receive a stuttering and incoherent reply).
Bringing new ideas to market is not just a technical problem - it's a social one as well. Researchers must learn that, or face a frustrating career. Downloading that problem entirely onto management is cop-out and doesn't work anyway.
- Make the ideas work within the existing framework.
- Show how to move from the old method to the new method.
- Convince people it's to their benefit.
Many innovators lack the above skills. They think that once they've performed some "innovation" their job is over, and thus get extremely frustrated when it's subsequently (and predictably) ignored, saying things like "innovation is given lip service". Of course, to make the above work, the researcher would have to get down and dirty and actually talk to the end users to find out about the real world.Therefore, I recommend as starters:
/. reader's wrists are already strong enough, thank you very much.
Funny thing about computers. They were billed as labour-saving devices. If so, why is everyone working on one? If anything, they are labour-creating devices. Throughout history, numerous technilogical developments (e.g., the cotton gin) were condemned as putting people out of work. Strange thing though - we're all still working. You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical when you say "this time it's different".
Power does NOT have a runaway effect. Concentrations of power and wealth, if anything, tend to dissipate with time. This is particularly true when a "dynasty" gets past the first generation - maintaining power and wealth requires diligence and talent, and subsequent generations often lack the attributes that made the family successful in the first place. What's more, the powerful are constantly being challenged by the teeming masses who are competing for a piece of the pie. The powerful, of course, have certain advantages in this struggle, but the masses have advantages of their own.
As an example, the richest people in America are Gates and Buffett. They did not get that way throught inheritance but through their own efforts. The richest people in the future will likely do the same. Free enterprise is a constant process of building up and ripping down.
Your comment might not have been totally serious, but...
People have predicted the end of useful employment throughout much of the 20'th century. For example, read Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands" (1947) or Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano" (1952) .
The job market in America certainly has changed over the years. Far fewer people farm or work in factories. But the demand for skilled labour shows no signs of letting up - it's just different than it was. And the U.S. is about as close to full employment as it can come.
I'd be whiny even if I was rich.
But the problem with living in an energy efficient mansion is that it would probably require massive resources to build. There's more than one way to harm the planet than inefficiency.
And I agree that living in a mansion doesn't make one's views invalid. It can, however, make one a a hypocrite, and thus difficult to respect. The day Gore (example #1 of the breed) sells his planes and fancy cars, moves into a 1500 sq ft townhouse, and cycles to work is the day I start liking the guy.
He used to live in a 7,100 square foot home. It was up for sale a year ago - I don't know if he's sold it.
I get a little tired of rich, jet setting, mansion owners going on about the environment, even when I agree with them or approve of the work they do.
Our company is a huge Linux user, with clusters of Linux nodes used for massive parallel computation.
So how much effect did SCO's threats have on us?
Nothin. Even though a number of developers and administrators were aware of the SCO situation, I don't recall it even coming up in a meeting. It's likely that upper management was complety oblivious to SCO.
Was it irresponsible for us not to take it seriously? Probably not. Our line of work is riddled with risk from every direction. The SCO affair was just another risk, and not a very credible one at that.
Thunderbay is about the worst (best?) example of an isolated population in Canada. Most of the southern areas of Canada, including the western provinces, are not like that.
That was going to be my joke.
But seriously folks, about 80% of Canadians live in urban areas, as opposed to about 75% for the U.S. Apparently we huddle together for warmth.
I am guessing that the rate of urbanization matters more than population density in regards to ease of broadband access.
What an insufferably snotty criticism of my insufferably snotty criticism!
But the joke's on you. I do so little mathematics these days that I rarely think of myself as one. Usually it's "software developer" or "geophysical researcher" or "overpaid paper pusher" some such thing.
But since when have mathematicians not been given enough respect? I've never seen that. Indeed, recent movies like "Good Will Hunting", "A Beautiful Mind", and "Proof" display an awe for talented mathematicians, even as they show them to be psychologically suspect.
Thanks. I guess the journalist should have said "published" and removed any ambiguity.
Anyone taking honours-level mathematics will author thousands of proofs before they graduate. In and of itself it's no big deal. I'm left wondering whether she proved a conjecture that had not yet been proved, or had found an alternate proof for an important theorem, or (most likely) had derived new theorems with accompanying proofs. What field the mathematics was done in might also have been a nice addition.
Same thing with insurance. They tack on all sorts of benefits you don't want, and when you ask for the paired-down version they tell you that you may as well take them cause they're "free".
Doubling the benefits if I die by accident is a good example. It's utterly beyond me why I would want that, yet sure in hell it costs me money.
Chess is a doddle. Call me when you've solved go.
Professional athletes will no doubt find this new drug most useful, particularly in the more violent or fear-inducing sports. They can add it to their pharmacopoeia of performance enhancers.
The real winners will be the sports fans, of course, as athletics is taken to even higher levels,
I've been a little out of the loop lately, so I wasn't aware of the term "astroturfing."
Even accepting that it exists on an organized basis, I agree with your assessment. Its use is both unnecessary (if your opinion is sound you should be able to effectively rebut your opponent) and lazy (it avoids the onerous task of having to - you know - think.)
They both represent one of the oldest and worst strategies in "debating" - when in doubt, question your opponents motives. Of course, being a paid shill, I would say that.
Thankfully, slashdot's moderation system keeps things to a tolerable level of civility. Name calling generally gets modded down. I didn't appreciate that until I posted opinions on some political blogs. Those things can get absolutely brutal.