[rescue] The end is one day nearer....

[rescue at sunhelp.org]

This is all a good thing. IBM learned the hard way that when you try to put
R&D in a gilded cage you get nothing usefull. Boring products with no real
new ideas.

What this does is allow fresh new companies with fresh new ideas to spring
up and thrive. Oddly, Compaq was once just such a company. They rose up from
nothing and stole IBM's ideas and made them work.

Someone in HP realized this and started the "invent something" movement.
Sadly, it feels like this initiative doesn't have the full backing of the
exec staff/board.

The problem that companies suffer from is actually familiar to many of us.
You start out driving 10 year old Chevy's. Then you buy a 2 year old Chevy
and don't want to drive 10 year old Chevy's ever again. Then you buy a new
Toyota and don't want to drive used cars ever again. Then you buy a new BMW
and don't want to drive "family" cars ever again. Now you are in a position
where your income MUST remain at a certain level for life to be acceptable.
Now you are trapped. You do whatever it takes to insure your income remains
level. You don't take that job with the exciting but risky start-up with IPO
shares potential. You don't propose products/projects at work that are risky
because you will jepordize your job if they go bad.

Meanwhile, someone who doesn't mind driving 10 year old Chevy's will take
that job with the start-up. He will propose risky products/ideas because he
can get another job anywhere because his income requirements are low. The
start-up thrives on his new ideas, and his IPO shares make him rich (or,
post-dot-bomb, comfortable).


~ -----Original Message-----
~ From: Joshua Johnston [mailto:flagg at midmaine.com]
~ Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 12:53 PM
~ To: rescue at sunhelp.org
~ Subject: RE: [rescue] The end is one day nearer....
~ 
~ 
~ Nono. Remember, the only use of the word "innovation(tm)" has to be
~ approved by Microsoft now. After all, they're the only ones that're
~ "innovating(tm)" anything. All innovation has to be a product of
~ closed-source private projects that can be swallowed up by a massive
~ mono... crap, sorry folks.  Thought for a second I was on Slashdot.
~ I'll stop now.
~ 
~ - Josh
~ 
~ P.S. I'm still annoyed I'm way too young to have been able to 
~ appreciate
~ Xerox PARC when it mattered.
~ 
~ -----Original Message-----
~ From: rescue-admin at sunhelp.org [mailto:rescue-admin at sunhelp.org] On
~ Behalf Of ed at the7thbeer.com
~ Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 9:06 AM
~ To: rescue at sunhelp.org
~ Subject: Re: [rescue] The end is one day nearer....
~ 
~ *sigh*  It used to be that companies like ATT would give their lab
~ divisions a nice chunk of cash and say "OK, wacky scientist types, go
~ come
~ up with some cool shit and have fun."  And it was good.
~ 
~ Now, marketing convinces senior management to drop a metric assload of
~ cash into some or another engineering group (nerds they may 
~ not be) and
~ tells the engineers "Make our stock rise and be quick about 
~ it".  And it
~ sucks.  *sigh*  Once innovation became a suit-n-tie buzzword, the end
~ was
~ upon us.
~ _______________________________________________
~ rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
~