The mood in Washington was a topic at dinner when I got home. "Vitriolic", is what I'd say. The cabbie said, "F****d up". I was headed for the Library of Congress, to research some forty-year old testimony to a Senate committee when he volunteered his view. The cabbie was trying to wend our way around the staging for the inauguration, in a cold drizzle that didn't encourage me to walk.
Everywhere the "fiscal cliff" was a topic. The rancor over that seemed to be dying down, but the 'agreement' hadn't yet been reached. The puzzle, everywhere I went, seemed to be "why is this an issue? Didn't these guys vote these expenditures?" It reminded me of capital budgets vs. operating budgets at HP. Totally separate processes, seemingly separate money pots, sometimes easy to buy new equipment for workers you could not hire, and even stranger when you could hire them, but not equip them to do their job.
The "gun battle" over lethal weapons and our right to own them was heating up, but it seemed a foregone conclusion that no action would happen. This, I was told repeatedly, is evidence that Congress can work across the aisle -- that too many Democrat Senators (Harry Reid, for example) are gun-toting characters themselves, so there is no chance the Senate could pass a bill that the House would have to consider. The House, of course, wouldn't pass such a thing under any condition. So here is a case that a heavily Democratic Senate and a fiercely combative Republican House can agree!
This week the nation was privy to the Hillary Clinton inquisition, and the spectacle of the Republicans deciding that if only they'd change the Electoral College rules, they could have elected Romney. Whether the Republican governor of Virginia will have the courage to deny the quick-time bill jury-rigged by his party while the swing vote attended the inauguration awaits discovery, but for sure we'll see a fair amount of manipulation and maneuvering on these topics in the next two years.
I met with two women at one meeting -- they were most upset about the pro-choice and invasive health care issues, topics about which my wife and daughters are vociferous.
And I thought about the keynote speech that Larry Lessig gave for the tenth anniversary of Media X at Stanford the week before (January 8th). Creator of the Creative Commons, and founder of the Cneter for Internet and Society at Stanford, Lessig now directs the Harvard Center for Ethics. He has been sub rosa since leaving Stanford five years ago, and he used our Media X platform to unveil his program for 'fixing Congress'. Lessig has always been a superb speaker, and this was a stemwinder performance.
He started with historic documents re Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand of the Market, and examined what we know today about such a hand, especially tied to the "Cornucopia of the Commons" called the Internet, "the largest library of human creativity ever assembled." I won't cover here his talk (might do it in a later blog), but the questions he posed eventually had to do with whether the Internet will 'stay free' and whether democracy in this country will survive. His fairly gloomy answer for both was "NO" but in response to questions, said he has young children and feels compelled to try to help. His current approach is "Rootstrikers", a group with the goal of "Fix Congress First" by getting the big money out of the election equation. His numbers were compelling. 0.05% of Americans gave money last year for the Presidential or Congressional campaigns, and only 1 in 300 of them gave $200 or more. Of those who gave more than $200, 1 in 30 gave more than $10,000, and 1 in 300 of them gave more than $1 million. 38 Americans gave 60% of all of the SuperPac money, which was half of the total spent. He called it "subtle, understated, camouflaged power" behind almost all elected officials. Hardly subtle.
The vitriol I sensed all week in Washington, from his view, is not that we have RED and BLUE states, which we do and which he decries, but that we have INSIDE the BELT WAY, and OUTSIDE, and it is that "DC is from Mars" and "We are from Earth". The three hundred attendees murmured a lot, and the conversation later was ... ah, how do I say it ... troubled.
Not sure how to grab ahold of this for InnovaScapes, but it certainly my belief in rational arguments about how to find more funding for COPD research or more attention to the ills of America's innovation policy seem a bit irrelevant.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Innovation Economics
I stopped by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) last week in Washington DC. The founder and leader, Robert Atkinson, has just co-authored (with Stephen Ezell) a new book, titled "Innovation Economics: the Race for Global Advantage" with Yale Press. Atkinson has a long pedigree, starting at OTA (Office of Technology Assessment) thirty years ago.
The book is refreshing. He calls it like it is: "while the essence of relative industrial decline is crystal clear to anyone who cares to look, most U.S. economic pundits, policymakers, and academic economists remain in denial." He is lethal in description: "conventional (i.e. neoclassical) economists remain the most powerful intellectual force working against robust innovation policies. Fundamentally, the neoclassical economics guild (and it is just that...) neither understands nor appreciates innovation."
His key point, with which I agree, is that: "America (is) asleep, convinced of its own innate economic superiority and preoccupied by the challenge of the "War on Terror" and conflicts between "Red" and "Blue" states over a range of hot-button social issues. Losing this race will have profound implications for the future of the American economy and society."
Atkinson focuses primarily on government policy, not surprising for a Washington DC denizen, but he does a capable job of quoting Paul Otellini and a spate of others re the true issues about globalization. He mentions (in one sentence) Andy Grove's masterful outburst in Business Week in the summer of 2010, saying "only time will tell whether Immelt, Grove, Gates, and Liveria are anomalies or representative of a maturing U.S. business community as it wakes up to the nature and scope of the international competition it faces."
This book is worth your time....
The book is refreshing. He calls it like it is: "while the essence of relative industrial decline is crystal clear to anyone who cares to look, most U.S. economic pundits, policymakers, and academic economists remain in denial." He is lethal in description: "conventional (i.e. neoclassical) economists remain the most powerful intellectual force working against robust innovation policies. Fundamentally, the neoclassical economics guild (and it is just that...) neither understands nor appreciates innovation."
His key point, with which I agree, is that: "America (is) asleep, convinced of its own innate economic superiority and preoccupied by the challenge of the "War on Terror" and conflicts between "Red" and "Blue" states over a range of hot-button social issues. Losing this race will have profound implications for the future of the American economy and society."
Atkinson focuses primarily on government policy, not surprising for a Washington DC denizen, but he does a capable job of quoting Paul Otellini and a spate of others re the true issues about globalization. He mentions (in one sentence) Andy Grove's masterful outburst in Business Week in the summer of 2010, saying "only time will tell whether Immelt, Grove, Gates, and Liveria are anomalies or representative of a maturing U.S. business community as it wakes up to the nature and scope of the international competition it faces."
This book is worth your time....
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Are you a COPD victim?
COPD is today's third biggest killer in America, well behind heart attacks and cancer, but now ahead of strokes for the first time. COPD is really a combination of two diseases -- chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Each is a debilitating situation, to be sure, with twenty years of declining health and no effective treatment.
COPD diagnoses do not include asthma victims or influenza or pneumonia, although all of these are often present in COPD victims.
Some statistics intrigue me: the comparison of incidence rates versus other diseases, and versus other countries, is telling. Also, the comparison of National Institutes of Health and other funding for research on killing and crippling diseases.
So, here goes -- the good ole USA has 37% of the world's COPD victims, the only disease in the top ten killers where America is even remotely that dominant. COPD has grown in this country by a factor of 500% in the past sixty years, and 16% in the past twenty years. Cancer deaths are down 17% in the same twenty years, and heart attack deaths are down 35%.
COPD receives about $116 Million for research per year, versus $3.1 Billion for AIDS research. Yet AIDS killed 11,061 folk in 2010 and COPD killed 141,075. Hummn, some 3500% more research per person? Similar numbers exist for other diseases. Asthma, debilitating to be sure, killed 3,397 folk.
What is fascinating is that there is a reasonably compelling story about causal action re emphysema, that has been "known" for forty years, yet ignored by the American Medical Association throughout. This is perhaps one of those 'perfect storm' areas that InnovaScapes Institute might be able to help illumine.
"Only 15,000,000 Americans have COPD diagnoses today; estimates are that 35,000,000 have it." With such huge afflictions, and NO KNOWN TREATMENT, wouldn't this seem worth looking at?
COPD diagnoses do not include asthma victims or influenza or pneumonia, although all of these are often present in COPD victims.
Some statistics intrigue me: the comparison of incidence rates versus other diseases, and versus other countries, is telling. Also, the comparison of National Institutes of Health and other funding for research on killing and crippling diseases.
So, here goes -- the good ole USA has 37% of the world's COPD victims, the only disease in the top ten killers where America is even remotely that dominant. COPD has grown in this country by a factor of 500% in the past sixty years, and 16% in the past twenty years. Cancer deaths are down 17% in the same twenty years, and heart attack deaths are down 35%.
COPD receives about $116 Million for research per year, versus $3.1 Billion for AIDS research. Yet AIDS killed 11,061 folk in 2010 and COPD killed 141,075. Hummn, some 3500% more research per person? Similar numbers exist for other diseases. Asthma, debilitating to be sure, killed 3,397 folk.
What is fascinating is that there is a reasonably compelling story about causal action re emphysema, that has been "known" for forty years, yet ignored by the American Medical Association throughout. This is perhaps one of those 'perfect storm' areas that InnovaScapes Institute might be able to help illumine.
"Only 15,000,000 Americans have COPD diagnoses today; estimates are that 35,000,000 have it." With such huge afflictions, and NO KNOWN TREATMENT, wouldn't this seem worth looking at?
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Paradigm Wars
Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions nearly fifty years ago to describe how difficult it is to change minds when they are wedded to a paradigm about the basic assumptions in their field. His point was that evidence could be dismissed for a very long time by believers in the extant assumptions, in fact it usually required that the old guard died rather than any thought they'd change their minds.
Joel Barker picked up on Kuhn's thesis twenty-five years ago, and developed some terrific videotapes for corporate training groups, seeking to inspire "out of the box" thinking to fuel innovative corporate thinking. Alas, it mostly doesn't happen. I have just finished a memoir about our Logic Analyzer inventions that documents some of the issues we faced at HP. The book, Permission Denied: Odyssey of an Intrapreneur, discusses seven rules for Intrapreneurs, but more importantly, seven rules for managing them. It is the management failure, not the creative failure, that dooms most corporate innovative efforts. People prefer to stay with what they know, rather than bet on the unknown.
And here we are, coming off a Red vs. Blue election that revealed fairly dramatically how differently two sides view many issues within America -- whether jobs creation, gun control, women's rights, who pays what taxes, entitlements, immigration or a myriad of other topics. These views have become increasingly rancorous and unable to be reconciled -- a sure sign of a religious war or a paradigm war.
But the bigger issue is that while both sides are essentially unable to 'hear' the other, each is basically blind to the real issue that is causing angst. Re the jobless recovery, and whether Obama or Romney could do better, the fact is that American jobs have been decimated by American business leaders sending the work to other countries, either by outsourcing or offshoring. Why? Because other countries are more competitive than the US at this point for these jobs. Simple arithmetic, one might say, but it seldom entered the election campaigning. On this one, it is the elephant in the room.
Similar issues exist all over the place. Land taxes in Silicon Valley are eessentially frozen at 1975 rates unless a true sale happens, in which case the land can be reappraised. This is due to a unique law, passed in 1978 in California known as Proposition 13. It froze both residential and commercial real estate taxation until a sale or until 35 years of leasehold. So -- all commercial leases have, guess what, a 34 year, 11 month termination today, and then they're renewed at 1975 rates when Silicon Valley was still mostly apple orchards, and the name of the place was still more known as the Valley of Heart's Desire. How much does this matter? Estimates are that IBM, HP, and Stanford plus their brethren are camped on savings PER YEAR of $6 billion in unassessed current value land taxes, this while the state deficit is $16 billion. Sizable loophole. And the once-vaunted University of California graduate schools programs have been decimated in the meantime, which is a big part of what built Silicon Valley
So, one task for InnovaScapes research is to ferret out some of these challenges, to try to illuminate the problems and potential solutions, or if not that grandiose, at least they'd be 'food for thought'.
Joel Barker picked up on Kuhn's thesis twenty-five years ago, and developed some terrific videotapes for corporate training groups, seeking to inspire "out of the box" thinking to fuel innovative corporate thinking. Alas, it mostly doesn't happen. I have just finished a memoir about our Logic Analyzer inventions that documents some of the issues we faced at HP. The book, Permission Denied: Odyssey of an Intrapreneur, discusses seven rules for Intrapreneurs, but more importantly, seven rules for managing them. It is the management failure, not the creative failure, that dooms most corporate innovative efforts. People prefer to stay with what they know, rather than bet on the unknown.
And here we are, coming off a Red vs. Blue election that revealed fairly dramatically how differently two sides view many issues within America -- whether jobs creation, gun control, women's rights, who pays what taxes, entitlements, immigration or a myriad of other topics. These views have become increasingly rancorous and unable to be reconciled -- a sure sign of a religious war or a paradigm war.
But the bigger issue is that while both sides are essentially unable to 'hear' the other, each is basically blind to the real issue that is causing angst. Re the jobless recovery, and whether Obama or Romney could do better, the fact is that American jobs have been decimated by American business leaders sending the work to other countries, either by outsourcing or offshoring. Why? Because other countries are more competitive than the US at this point for these jobs. Simple arithmetic, one might say, but it seldom entered the election campaigning. On this one, it is the elephant in the room.
Similar issues exist all over the place. Land taxes in Silicon Valley are eessentially frozen at 1975 rates unless a true sale happens, in which case the land can be reappraised. This is due to a unique law, passed in 1978 in California known as Proposition 13. It froze both residential and commercial real estate taxation until a sale or until 35 years of leasehold. So -- all commercial leases have, guess what, a 34 year, 11 month termination today, and then they're renewed at 1975 rates when Silicon Valley was still mostly apple orchards, and the name of the place was still more known as the Valley of Heart's Desire. How much does this matter? Estimates are that IBM, HP, and Stanford plus their brethren are camped on savings PER YEAR of $6 billion in unassessed current value land taxes, this while the state deficit is $16 billion. Sizable loophole. And the once-vaunted University of California graduate schools programs have been decimated in the meantime, which is a big part of what built Silicon Valley
So, one task for InnovaScapes research is to ferret out some of these challenges, to try to illuminate the problems and potential solutions, or if not that grandiose, at least they'd be 'food for thought'.
Launch time
The New Year, 2013, for me is exciting. I am launching InnovaScapes Institute, ISI, to tackle challenges and issues with technology and society.
InnovaScapes is a contraction of "Innovative Landscapes" and a play on the idea of Innovation Ecosystems. I think of innovation much more often as a local and specific set of activities than a broad sweep on the historic pantheon, and "landscape" captures that mood and perspective better than the all-embracing "ecosystem".
ISI has several topics underway at the moment, some with commercial sponsorship, and some with a personal vector. We'll have some active discussion, and some stimulating debate. Topics might include the wonders of location-sensitve devices (your smart phone, tablet, and camera) which help you with social media, but give both authorities and 'bad guys' the chance to find and finger you.
Or the idea that our emerging medical instrumentation for gene tracking and molecular measurement can help change the AMA (American Medical Association) fiction that COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is 85-90% caused by smoking, when in fact smoking has been on the decline in America for three decades, and COPD is on the rise, now the third leading killer in America, higher than strokes or auto accidents -- and virtually no research into its true causes or treatments.
Similarly, the rise of the InterNet, while fueled by Tim Berners-Lee and his URL work at CERN, the brilliant TCP/IP work of Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Len Kleinrock, et al fifty years ago, and of course Netscape with Marc Andreasson (now on the HP Board, right?), was really installed and made nearly ubiquitous by much more prosaic work in the trenches (or would it be in the Hubs and Routers and glass fiber in the ground). We will examine how the trench warfare unfolded, which elements mattered the most, and why and how they got done.
Why are these things important? Who will care? Can we in fact provide some useful service? Time will tell, but I for one am as excited as I've been with any project I've ever undertaken. Here's an invitation to come along and join in....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)