Accelerating ideas through a big company's machinery: HP's Innovation Program Office

Technology 4 Responses »
Mar 302007

In HP Labs, we’re always looking for opportunities to get our technologies into our businesses and into our customers’ hands. One goal of industrial research is to have business impact, and we are always looking for ways to achieve it. This requires you to understand your customers’ needs, understand our businesses’ needs, develop technologies that satisfies those needs, and do whatever it takes to get the technologies from the lab to the customer through the business.

Is this hard? Yes. Is it a lot of work? Yes. Is it hard to do it in a big company? Yes. Is it worth doing in a big company? Yes. Why? Because once you get an idea rolling in a big company, you get the big company’s machinery working to amplify your idea in ways that you never imagined.

What does it mean to have a big company’s machinery amplifying your idea? Imagine having a business unit R&D team developing your idea. Imagine having a world-wide sales team selling your idea. Imagine having a world-wide solutions team deploying your idea around the world. Imagine having Q&A, customer support, and services teams supporting your idea. Imagine having a CEO, vice presidents, business unit general managers, and CTOs pushing your idea. Pretty cool, eh?

If you do manage to get a big company’s machinery rolling around your idea, your idea is no longer just your idea. All the people who have touched it along the way have added their ideas and helped grow it into something bigger. As a result, your little idea grows in ways you never imagined!

The vision is commendable, but how do you get a big company’s machinery rolling around your idea?

There are many ways to kickstart an idea in a company, and I’ll discuss them over time. But for now I want to talk about a new program that we have in HP. Alexei Oreskovic wrote the story Inside H-P’s Idea Incubator on TheStreet.com.

HP has created the Innovation Program Office (IPO) for bringing new ideas to market. The IPO is designed and run by Phil McKinney, the CTO of our Personal Systems Group and the creator of the Killer Innovations podcast. As you can guess, the IPO embodies many of the ideas that Phil discusses in his podcasts.

Many companies have incubation programs, and these programs may be done well or done poorly. While the HP IPO program will continue to evolve as its first projects go through it, it has a number of very interesting properties that I believe will make it a success. Here they are:

  • It accepts ideas from anyone.

  • Each idea requires a business sponsor to be accepted.

  • Each idea requires a champion to drive it through.

  • It sets clear goals and milestones.

  • It provides sufficient resources. Not too little and not too much.

  • It moves FAST! Once a project idea gets accepted, it rips through at record speed, getting resources to develop it along with milestones and goals that it has to achieve at each stage.

  • It makes tough YES/NO decisions. Along with the resources come speedy checkpoints where a YES/NO decision can be made to progress to the next stage. And, no means NO.

  • It makes bets. The YES/NO decision allows it to make bets. The IPO can’t peanut butter its resources around lots of little projects, rather, it has to make bets and provide enough resources to let the chosen projects fly.

  • It remains lean. It can’t under-invest, as it needs to be able to make a few big-enough wins. It also can’t over-invest to risk making upper management lose patience and cut it before it bears its fruit. The speed, clear goals and milestones, appropriate resource level, and tough YES/NO decisions also help it stay lean and resource projects appropriately.

So far, it is looking like the IPO will be a terrific outlet for HP Labs technologies! We have a few HP Labs projects going through the IPO right now. Our researchers are fired up and working hard with our business folks to do whatever it takes to make these projects a success. I’ll keep you posted as we progress.

This is one way to get HP’s machinery rolling around our ideas!

Phil- Thanks for creating the HP IPO!

Readers: What other properties are critical for success?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Feel free to include a URL in your comments.

Posted by susiewee at 12:01 pm

Learning is personal

Career tips 8 Responses »
Mar 272007

When I first started working after grad school, a coworker friend told me about a book that I just “had to get”. It was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. My friend was a husband, a new father of two, and a researcher, and he was trying to buy a house in the Bay area on a single income. So, he had lots of pressure in his life. My life was pretty simple since I just finished my thesis, tripled my income, had grad student living expectations, and wasn’t trying to buy a house.

Time had passed and I didn’t get around to buying the book, but my friend thought it was very important that I read it. So, he sent me an email with a web link, and all I had to do was click on the link to buy the book. So, I ordered it.

The book arrived a couple days later. But every time I tried to read it, I fell asleep. I tried again and again, but I kept falling asleep. So, I finally gave up and put the book on my bookshelf to rest.

Over the next couple years, I became a manager and started grappling with issues that all managers face. One day I was perusing my bookshelves and came across the book. I flipped it open and I couldn’t put it down! I stayed up all night and read it from cover to cover! It provided an interesting perspective on different problems I was facing and it provided lots of valuable insights.

How could a book that made me fall asleep turn into a book that made me stay up all night? How could a book be so important to my friend but not at all important to me?

I think it all boils down to one point: Learning is personal.

There is a time in life when you’re ready to learn about something and there is a time when you’re not. The timing depends on the experiences that you and those around you go through and the challenges you face. It depends on when you become sensitive to certain issues and when you decide you want to understand and solve them. It also depends on your interests at a particular point in time. Each person hits the point where a lesson becomes meaningful at a different time in their life. Learning is personal.

When I gave my Top 10 Career Tips and my Softer Side of Research talks, I began and ended with the point that: Learning is personal, so some tips may be meaningful to you now while others may become meaningful to you later.

Do you have an example of a life experience that made a learning become meaningful to you? Which tips are meaningful to you now? Which tips are not?

Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by susiewee at 11:30 pm

The agony of defeat!

Teamwork No Responses »
Mar 262007

Some of you might know that I’ve been playing on a women’s ice hockey team that has been working our way towards the USA Hockey nationals at the Women’s Senior B level. We’re the San Jose Lady Sharks and this is our second year together. Last year we earned our way to nationals in Buffalo but we didn’t place. This year we had a get-in-free ticket to nationals because we hosted in San Jose. Unfortunately, we got knocked out and we didn’t place. Arghhhh!!!

KTVU did a news story on nationals. My teammate Carrie was interviewed, and the Lady Sharks are the team in black. (I’m #2.)

It turns out that the two teams we lost to early in the tournament went head-to-head in the finals. Congratulations, Minnesota J Hawks and O’Leary Hawks!

By the score sheet: We soundly lost our first game 1-4, getting down 0-4 in the first half and then holding strong in the second half. We soundly won our second game 7-4, with an amazing comeback after being down 0-3 in the first 10 minutes of the game. We just lost our third game 0-2, it was 0-1 up until the last minute of the game when they scored an empty netter when we pulled the goalie to try to tie things up. We needed to win this game to make it to the quarter-finals, so it was a heart-breaking loss! But, we did play a solid game.

As you can see, our team had our moments, but we still have some work to do to become champions.

Why am I writing about this on my work blog? Because while it’s not fun to lose, you can learn a lot from it. And as you know, I think these learnings apply to sports and to work and to life! Sometimes you need to lose to learn how to win.

Here are some of my learnings from the tournament.

I (re-)learned…

… how to learn in real time… when it counts! The coach switched me from offense to defense for the entire tournament- Yikes! Fortunately, my teammates were giving me real-time tips between shifts and between games, and they were very supportive, too. Thanks, Ling! Thanks, teammates!

… that I can count on my teammates. I made one colossal mistake in our final game where I came around the net in the defensive zone, got pressured, and lost the puck in front of the net to two of their forwards. My goalie came out with a BIG SAVE, thus saving me and the team from my mistake. Thanks, B!

… that you can learn a lot by how a team behaves when they’re losing. Do they blame each other or support each other? Emotions fly high when you’re losing. If we start blaming each other when we’re losing, then we know we better snap ourselves out of it in order to have any chance of winning. If we hear the other team blaming each other when they’re losing, then we know we can win!

… that when a team is losing, any player of any ability can create the spark needed to energize the team and turn the game around. We had a number of sparks in our big turnaround in Game 2.

… that losing is easier to take if you know you gave it your all. When you lose, it’s natural to go through all of the if-only’s, “If only we . If only I “. But, you have fewer of them if you know you gave it your all during the game and if you know you gave it your all in preparing throughout the season! 

… that it is easier to lose to a good team that plays hard, plays well, and plays clean.

… that great sportsmanship is very special! The Minnesota J Hawks beat the O’Leary Hawks 6-1 in the championship game. As soon as the game ended, the O’Leary Hawks goalie skated across the ice to the Minnesota J Hawks goalie and congratulated her. Wow!

… that I can talk about losing. I knew I would write a blog entry if we won. I wondered if I would write one if we lost. Well, here it is!

… that many of my teammates were born in the 80′s. I was born in the 60′s. So, next year I’m going to have them do all the skating. ;) Just kidding!

… how great our fans are! We have the most incredible fans! We had friends, parents, husbands, partners, relatives, and teammates (from our other teams) who were really rooting for us, throughout! Some fans flew in from Detroit and Boston. Some fans took off work to watch us play. One fan bought roses for the team! One fan came to our early Friday morning game to watch us play before going to work. Some fans came to watch in person, even if they didn’t know that many people on the ice. Some fans closely kept up with the stats on the web and one fan sent emails throughout.

THANK YOU, FANS and TEAMMATES!!!

Teammates and Fans- Do you have anything to add?

All- Do you think any of these lessons apply to work?

Tags: , , ,

Posted by susiewee at 12:26 pm

Eric Schmidt on high-potential disruptive technologies

Technology No Responses »
Mar 232007

iInnovate interviewed Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Guy Kawasaki outlined the main topics in a recent blog post. The last interview question was about high-potential disruptive technologies. Eric’s response included (a) having many initiatives to invent the killer app; (b) developing technologies around automatic translation, mobility, & media including video; and (c) automating advertising for traditional businesses such as TV and radio. Here is a transcript:

Q: What are some interesting little things that either Google is doing today or that you’re seeing other people doing out there that are really high-potential high-risk technologies that can potentially become potential disruptive technologies in the future?

Eric: It’s very hard to know. (a) Google is organized under the principle that we don’t know which is the killer app, but we’re more likely to be the inventors of it… because we have so many initiatives around it.
(b) The ones that are the most interesting are all around new technologies around, for example, automatic translation, the use of mobile technologies and new media, and of course the adoption of video broadly.
(c) From a revenue perspective, we have many many technologies that we’re applying in advertising, in the deployment of much larger advertising systems, and going into these large businesses that have not been automated and automating the advertising business, so, for example, in television and radio and that sort of stuff. There is a very large opportunity. There are a lot of clever ideas in those spaces.

Very interesting. Here are a few of my thoughts:

(a) Google may invent a killer app with all their initiatives, but, they should also be prepared to provide a platform that allows others to create new killer apps. Yes, there’s a lot of innovation going on inside of Google, but there’s also a lot of innovation going on outside of Google.

(b) I agree that mobile and media technologies will strongly impact the future! (Full disclosure: I manage the Mobile & Media Systems Lab. )

(c) Automating advertising for traditional businesses such as television and radio is a big opportunity, but there will be a lot of big players in traditional advertising that won’t want to see it happen. It will be very interesting to see how Google moves forward in these more traditional industries!

Tags: , , , , , ,

Feel free to include a URL in your comments.

Posted by susiewee at 1:20 pm

Panel on "The Future of Portable Communication"

Technology 3 Responses »
Mar 232007

On Tuesday night I was in a panel discussion on “What’s In Your Pocket? The Future of Portable Communication” as part of the MIT Club of Northern California Entrepreneurship series (which is open to the public). It attracted a full house with only a week of advertising and an entry fee, so apparently there is a decent bit of interest in the topic, in the food, and in entrepreneurial networking.

Moderator

Panelists

Julie did a great job leading the discussion and she kickstarted with some piercing questions to make the panelists “get real” from the start. She sprinkled in some very interesting statistics on the consumer usage of mobile applications in the U.S. Unfortunately, these stats bring us to the sobering reality that mobile services are going to be slow to take off in the U.S. market.

Here are a few of the main points I captured:

Jory showed OQO’s cool new device, the model 02. He stressed the importance of great design, stating that today’s devices “suck”. He also waved a flag for moving the industry towards fully capable devices and open platform architectures.

Jason discussed the importance of developing applications (such as games) that are specifically targetted for mobile devices, rather than retrofitting today’s existing applications. He also argued that people don’t want to walk around talking with a small computer on the side of their head, favoring a cell phone form factor. Jason also pointed out that most people don’t even know what features and capabilities their phones have today.

Michael described NVIDIA’s newest multimedia (audio/video/graphics) chipsets that are being integrated in portables (think low-power GPUs)- future devices are going to be a lot more capable. He also stressed the importance of giving people a great user experience.

David discussed the trends in wireless, questioning the viability of Mobile WiMAX deployments in the face of a nearly ubiquitous Wi-Fi install base. David expands on this in his own blog post. He also expressed that the enterprise segment will be important in driving forward the mobile market.

I talked about how we need to get the ecosystem of content providers, service providers, network operators, and device manufacturers to work together, so we should move towards open platforms with more capabilities and open APIs- where the platform includes devices and infrastructure. I also tried to stress the importance of looking globally to see what works in other countries. And, I mentioned that in the future more and more sensors will be integrated in mobile devices, so applications should be developed accordingly. I also mentioned a few cool HP Labs projects.

Julie kept us real as she kept reminding us about what most of today’s US consumers really want- free phones and cheap minutes. And, since operators need to subsidize free phones and cheap minutes for the majority, it will be tough for them to offer innovative new services for a small percentage of the population.

Some of the controversial issues:

  • Is it true that people only want free phones and cheap minutes? If so, is the “user experience” really all that important?

  • Do people in the U.S. really want new features or services? If so, what new application or service do people want? There was some agreement that social networking services like MySpace and Facebook could be very relevant here.

  • Will the mobile market be driven from consumers or enterprise customers?

  • What role does the network operator play in the future? Should they be allowed to differentiate service levels (the old net neutrality debate)?

For all readers:

  • What are your thoughts?

  • Do you have any questions?

For those who attended the event:

  • What did you think the main points were?

  • What were your takeaways?

  • What did you think about the event?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Feel free to include a URL in your comments.

Posted by susiewee at 3:39 am

Absorbing laterals into a team: Who's the new guy?

Career tips, Teamwork 4 Responses »
Mar 212007

Management guru David Maister has an interesting post on the effectiveness of the strategy of hiring “laterals” into an organization. David’s premise is that hiring laterals can only work if they are properly integrated into the company. I agree.

This got me thinking about the relationship between the “new guy at work” who has to get integrated in the company and the “new guy on the ice” who has to get integrated in with a sports team, and about what does and doesn’t work in these situations. More generally, the question is how does a new person get integrated with an established group, and what factors make this a success or failure? In other words, how does an “outsider” (the lateral) turn into an “insider” in an established organization?

Let’s take the example of a “new guy” joining a weekly ice hockey pickup game with a bunch of “regulars”. (Yes, I thought of this analogy on my way home from hockey practice over the weekend. And, yes, last night there was a “new guy” at my weekly Monday night skate.) When you’re reading this, think about the analogy with work.

During warmups: When a new guy comes out to a regular weekly skate, the first thing that happens is you (the regular) consciously or subconsciously make a little mental note based on the superficials- what kind of equipment is he wearing and how does he skate during warmups?

During the game, between shifts: Then, the game starts and when you’re on the bench between shifts you might lean over to another regular and ask: “Who’s the new guy? Where’s he from? Who brought him? What team does he play on?”

During the game, on the ice: Then, you start playing (with or against each other, depending on how the pickup teams are set) and different things happen during the game- a good play, a bad play, a pass, a goal, a little contact, a body check, a fight, and so on.

It certainly helps if the new guy can play his position well and if he can score some goals. Goals build credibility pretty fast. It also really helps if he is a playmaker and he gets some assists- setting up others to score goals goes a long way in building relationships with the regulars!

Note that the new guy actually gets many chances during a game, so even if he makes a bad play, he can make up for it with a good play later in the game. So, the new guy is allowed to make mistakes, but over the course of the game he has to make more contributions than mistakes.

During the game, between shifts: When you’re on the bench together between shifts, if you’re not shy (but most people are!) you may introduce yourself and ask “Are you playing on a team? Who do you play for? How did you find out about the skate?” Also, there may be little exchanges on the bench like “Nice shift” or “Nice play”.

During the game, a fight! Let’s say the new guy gets into a fight during his first skate! (No, this did not happen last night, but I have seen it happen a number of times.) In general, this is not a good thing to do on your first skate with the team. But even this may or may not be a show stopper. For example, if the new guy started a fight with a highly respected player, then it’s pretty much Game Over… unless he makes an apology. An apology can go a long way. Also, if he got into a fight with a jerk, then he may end up a hero. An apology goes a long way here, too. (By the way, I don’t recommend this approach to get integrated into a team.)

After the game, in the locker room: After the skate, everyone is in the locker room changing. If the new guy gets involved in a little locker room chat, then that can help him get integrated. (If he brings beer, he’s IN!)

Then the question is does anyone say anything to him? In reality, he’ll only get feedback if he was really awesome, if he was really terrible, if there is an unusually social regular, or if there is a really good team leader/manager. But in general, people don’t give feedback. So, the new guy shouldn’t be discouraged if he doesn’t hear anything.

Getting integrated = Building credibility and relationships

All these things factor into how the new guy gets integrated with the team. The main thing is that from the first skate the new guy is building his credibility and relationships with the regulars.

Note that a little “nice skate” or “thanks for coming out” from a regular goes a long way with the new guy, since the new guy was a little nervous about his first time playing with the group and even the slightest bit of feedback is really appreciated. But, the new guy should note that in general people are shy and don’t give feedback. So, even if noone says anything, he can still come back next week to continue to build his credibility and integrate himself with the team.

How does this relate to the new guy at work?

I’d say that warmups is analogous to when the new guy is meeting people in the company for the first time and making his first impressions. This may be through hallway introductions or at the first group events. The post-game locker room chat is similar to hanging out after meetings to continue discussions and socialize a bit.

The first game is analogous to the new guy’s first project at work. What is important is what happens during project meetings (on the ice), and what happens between project meetings (between shifts). Note that over the course of the project, there will be successes and there will be mistakes, but the mistakes are surmountable. The key is having more successes than mistakes over the course of the project.

My recommendations for the new guy

During warmups and beyond

  • Be respectful of the regulars.

  • Build credibility.

  • Be respectful of the team culture.

  • Let others know who you are. Learn who others are. Have a decent answer when someone asks you about yourself.

On the ice / During a project

  • Be a playmaker. Make good passes.

  • Score some goals. Better yet, get some assists!

  • Don’t worry about making a mistake. Instead, get fired up to follow up with a good play.

  • Skate hard. / Work hard.

  • Help out with the little tasks, e.g., Fill water bottles. / Take meeting notes and share them.

  • Try not to get into a fight. If you do to get into a fight, make sure its against a jerk. If you do get into a fight with a well-respected guy, then apologize! Actually, apologize to the jerk, too.

  • Follow the culture of the team. If the regulars don’t check during the pickup, then don’t check.

  • Don’t play dirty.

After the game

  • Hang out in the locker room for a bit after the game. Chat, have a beer, and get to know people.

Questions

Do you think this analogy relates to the new guy at work and how he gets integrated into an organization?

Do we have any management lessons to learn from this?

Do you have any other group experiences that are analogous to “the new guy at work”?

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Feel free to include a URL in your comments.

Posted by susiewee at 12:52 am

Multimedia search 2.0: tagging vs. analysis / man vs. machine

Career tips, Technology 2 Responses »
Mar 162007

Yesterday I was in a large meeting with a number of people from across the company. My blogreader was in the corner of my screen, and this post popped up on my screen (screenshot shown on right).

The article is about over-the-air digital video broadcasting (DVB-H), specifically about Quantum’s new portable media player that can be used to watch it. The focus of the article is the device, which is interesting.

What caught my eye at that moment was not the device, but the video that happened to be showing on it. The video shows my work buddy and famous Killer Innovations podcaster, Phil McKinney. As a coincidence, Phil was in the meeting and he was actually talking at the moment the article popped on my screen. So, I ripped him a short email that said: “Look!” with the link. This email caught his eye, and after he finished talking, he clicked on the link. And we privately laughed together across the room, because we both thought this was pretty funny.

Later, Phil told me that my email was actually the second email he received about the link. But he clicked on my email first because of the catchy title. So, I surprised him! (I’m just showing off here- We’ve worked together for a number of years, but I think this is only the 2nd time in my life that I’ve actually been able to surprise him.) By now, he must have received many more emails about it.

So, my question in all this is Which is better: user-generated tagging or machine-based content analysis?

I was able to spot and get this content over to Phil pretty quickly, and by now I’m sure many other people have as well. Would a machine running a content analysis algorithm linked into a subscription-based alert service have been able to pick this up and get it over to Phil as quickly? Would it have been able to identify Phil? Would it have labelled Phil as part of the content, or just the main content of the story?

There are many researchers working on multimedia analysis. They are trying to create media processing algorithms that can understand what is going on in the pixels of a scene. I do think this is a very important and very hard research problem. There are a number of applications that require you to analyze large existing archives of multimedia streams that do not have any metadata associated with them, so these algorithms can help to process it.

On the other hand, for many applications, users may be around to tag content. These users could tag it much faster and more accurately than a machine. In the web 2.0 and video 2.0 world, make sure to think about the power of the users! Let them help you with the analysis!

Researchers: Please think hard about the broader problem or application that you are trying to solve, and frame the problem accordingly. You don’t want to spend too much time working on the wrong problem!

Which is better: Tagging or analysis? Man or machine?

UPDATE
Alex Vorbau poses a better question: What are the best uses of human tagging and machine analysis and how can we make them better?

Digg! 
Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by susiewee at 11:07 am

Watching mobile video in bed

Experience 2 Responses »
Mar 142007

Some researchers in my lab did an interesting study on how people use mobile video. I often share the results of this study in my presentations to stress the importance of coupling experience and technology.

One of their findings was that people like to “watch mobile video in bed”.  Alex Vorbau writes:

People watch mobile video in bed. We were surprised by this and we weren’t looking for it. We asked people if they watched mobile video at home. Again and again people told us that they watched their mobile devices in bed, usually before going to sleep. Some wanted to be near their spouses who were watching something else on TV. Some just wanted to watch something quick to relax.

Needless to say, this sound bite usually sparks an energetic discussion in my presentations. Well, it does in the US and in Europe. But, I often get a puzzled look with Asian audiences. One of my researchers in Japan helped me understand why.

US: In the US, many people sleep on their bed at night and treat their bed like a couch during the day. Kids play on the bed. Adults read in bed. In college dorm rooms, the bed is used like a couch and students hang out on the bed. So, the statement that people like to “watch mobile video in bed” is at first surprising, but then understandable.

Japan: Traditional Japanese households are different. Traditional Japanese households are small and have futons instead of beds (though the use of western-style beds is increasing). Japanese futons are thin mattresses that people sleep on at night and fold up and put away during the day. So, the observation that people like to “watch mobile video in bed” doesn’t make sense to most Japanese people. Actually, the concept of “kids playing on the bed” doesn’t seem to make much sense to them either.

We did our mobile video study in the US and the UK. As you can see, we need to do a separate study in Japan! This shows the importance of working globally and understanding the user experience by culture and geography.
 
How does the idea of “watching mobile video in bed” fit within your country or culture?  How well do you think this will apply in different regions?  How about in other countries in Asia other than Japan?  For those familiar with Japan- Does this characterization of bed/futon usage sound right?

India (contributed by rkrish67): In some of the space constrained cities in India (like Mumbai), I have seen people use futons. There is also the folding sofa that converts to a bed at night and back to a sofa during the day. Then there is the single cot that doubles up as seating during the day and as a bed during the night. In most cities, space is not such a problem and people have beds much like in the US. However, most adults do not read in the bed (some parents discourage this habit in childhood fearing it might affect the childs eyesight). Eating while seated on the bed is also discouraged. Some people in cities have televisions in their bedrooms which means people are not averse to watching video lying on bed. Overall, I think India might be closer to Japan in that people do not treat their beds as couches.

Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by susiewee at 3:38 pm

Playing position and trusting your teammates

Career tips, Teamwork 4 Responses »
Mar 122007

This morning I had practice with my women’s ice hockey team. We were discussing plays that we can use in our upcoming games and tournaments, including plays for how to work in the offensive zone, in the defensive zone, on a power play, and on a penalty kill. Since you are often in a 5-on-5, 5-on-4 (a power play), or 4-on-5 (a penalty kill) situation, these plays require everyone on the ice to do the right thing, not just the people closest to the puck. In other words, everyone has to play position.

A very interesting discussion came up about ”trusting your teammates to do the right thing”.

If you don’t trust your teammates to do the right thing, then when you are on defense you will start chasing the puck and when you are on offense you won’t pass the puck (and you will get very tired!). It then becomes an individual game– everything breaks down and everyone falls out of the position, and the other team will dominate.

If you do trust your teammates to do the right thing, then each player can play position so that when you are on defense the team can work collectively to cover the opposing team and when you are on offense the team can work collectively to get open for each other and work the puck up the ice to create scoring opportunities. It then becomes a team game– each person plays position and the team can execute team plays, and your team can dominate.

This applies to sports, work, and life. Can you think of situations where you are “not trusting you teammates” and as a result everyone is “falling out of position” and your team play is “breaking down”? Can you think of situations where you are “trusting your teammates” and everyone is “playing position” and you are “executing team plays”? I’d love to hear your experiences with this in sports, work, or life.

Posted by susiewee at 4:55 am

How Singapore manages research

Uncategorized 2 Responses »
Mar 102007

I just finished a week in Singapore serving as an international panelist for A*STAR‘s Thematic Strategic Research Programme on mobile media. Every time I go to Singapore, I am impressed with how the country manages its research. Singapore has a very good understanding and appreciation of how research can benefit the country and its people, and it invests accordingly.

The government provides significant research funding to universities and research institutes and it has established organizations to manage this investment. It directs research by having calls for proposals on strategic themes such as mobile media. It also has nation-wide strategic initiatives such as Intelligent Nation 2015 and Interactive Digital Media.

The country takes a long term view on research. For example, the A*STAR Science & Engineering Research Council states its objectives as:

  • To develop a foundation of high quality research in key disciplines;

  • To nurture human capital for research; and

  • To promote information dissemination and technology transfer

Singapore continually evolves its approach as it sees what works and what doesn’t. It solicits feedback by asking international reviewers to serve on boards and panels to evaluate their work and hold it to the highest quality standards.

Singapore views research as a way to develop technologies that can help the country stay competitive. It actively tries to find ways to transfer technology to industry, building linkages with the global industry. It also encourages and supports its researchers to participate in international standardization efforts.

Singapore very strongly views research as a way to train and develop its people. It explicitly states manpower training as a primary objective. It has established programs to identify its brightest early on and provide them with special development opportunities.

Singapore understands the importance of working globally. It allocates funds to bring international researchers into the country to help develop the in-Singapore researchers. It also has programs to send its researchers to other countries to give them international exposure. Singapore struggles with finding ways to keep researchers in the country, since many of the researchers value international work experience. But the country also has an understanding that it should develop researchers as best as it can and it maintains a goal of having a fraction of them to stay in the country.

It is very respectable how Singapore views and respects research, keeps the long-term benefits in mind, and invests in its research and researchers accordingly!

Singaporeans: Did I get this right? Do you have anything else to add?

All: How does this compare to how other countries manage research?

Posted by susiewee at 12:51 am
Older Entries
© 2011 Reflections by Susie Wee Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha

Array