4 ms·

This makes me think of war time vs peace time. During a war, the govt will put engineers and architects into an R&D incubator with all the resources they need.

This makes me think of war time vs peace time. During a war, the govt will put engineers and architects into an R&D incubator with all the resources they need. To the engineers, the fact that there is a war is irrelevant, they aren't paying attention to that, they're just focussing on innovation because it's their job. Couldn't this scenario be simulated, even without war? I think of bell labs. It strange that innovative environments, filled with hard work, aren't a priority until its a matter of life or death (of a company, nations, etc.) Related movie by studio Ghibli (engineers innovating during war time): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_Rises

ericmcer 6y ago
Money is how we measure the worth of time spent. In that mindset doing hard, innovative work and failing is worse than doing nothing at all, because you lose both your time and money.
njarboe 6y ago
In war time patents are suspended or the government forces everyone to cross license. Along with the hard focused work, I think this is a big reason why tech advanced so much during WWI and WWII.
jl2718 6y ago
Not in my experience (JIEDDO/Paladin in OIF/OEF). The R&D lab seems like a peacetime concept. All the ideas, all the experimentation, all the hacks that turned into programs, came from the field, often lab guys that got sent forward. The labs had their part for sending new toys, but the pace was so much faster for hacking things together at the front lines.
hpoe 6y ago
Point of correction on Bell Labs. There was a war going on not a shooting shooty war, but a cold war that was motivating a lot of the research. In war time the reason there is so much focus and emphasis is because a country is fighting for its survival, it forces efficiency and results in a brutal manner, because if you don't succeeded and out think and out maneuver the enemy people die. In the Cold War the same tension and feeling of fighting for survival was present.
svachalek 6y ago
If a department is doing well, or even just fair, it will do everything it possibly can to prevent any sort of innovation. When innovation happens, new rules and safeguards are put into place to make sure it doesn't happen again. Of course they'll keep talking about how innovation is very important and rewarded all the while they're stamping it out. Innovation is a rebellious act which is why it typically only happens in small startup environments. Occasionally a larger company will set up a "skunkworks" where it can be temporarily tolerated by hiding it from the view of the rest of the organization.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  This is a remarkably myopic view of innovation that completely ignores the roles of government, research institutions and yes, large companies, in a huge chunk of all the innovations of the last 120 years.
ptidhomme 6y ago
To the engineers, the fact that there is a war is irrelevant I'm not sure this is true. In my point of view, engineers would typically outdo themselves on wartime because they know there are big immediate stakes to their work.
muzani 6y ago
In my area, we had a massive overhaul of the hospital system thanks to COVID-19. Nurses used to do minimal work with patients, now they changed diapers of patients and helped them with everything. People with 11 AM appointments needed to come at 10.30 AM, not 6 AM... and parking and reception became more efficient too. Doctors were faster. You'd think that the workload dropped, but it increased greatly. But this kind of change needed hospital leaders and politicians on board putting it as a high priority. Change is difficult, and most of the time people don't care enough to. The book Peak Performance summarized that growth = rest + stress. Without the stress of a war, the system doesn't put innovation at a high enough priority, and you get an effect like the US faces, where universities and R&D departments are just a bottomless sink.

ericmcer 6y ago

Money is how we measure the worth of time spent. In that mindset doing hard, innovative work and failing is worse than doing nothing at all, because you lose both your time and money.

njarboe 6y ago

In war time patents are suspended or the government forces everyone to cross license. Along with the hard focused work, I think this is a big reason why tech advanced so much during WWI and WWII.

jl2718 6y ago

Not in my experience (JIEDDO/Paladin in OIF/OEF). The R&D lab seems like a peacetime concept. All the ideas, all the experimentation, all the hacks that turned into programs, came from the field, often lab guys that got sent forward. The labs had their part for sending new toys, but the pace was so much faster for hacking things together at the front lines.

hpoe 6y ago

Point of correction on Bell Labs. There was a war going on not a shooting shooty war, but a cold war that was motivating a lot of the research. In war time the reason there is so much focus and emphasis is because a country is fighting for its survival, it forces efficiency and results in a brutal manner, because if you don't succeeded and out think and out maneuver the enemy people die. In the Cold War the same tension and feeling of fighting for survival was present.

svachalek 6y ago

If a department is doing well, or even just fair, it will do everything it possibly can to prevent any sort of innovation. When innovation happens, new rules and safeguards are put into place to make sure it doesn't happen again. Of course they'll keep talking about how innovation is very important and rewarded all the while they're stamping it out. Innovation is a rebellious act which is why it typically only happens in small startup environments. Occasionally a larger company will set up a "skunkworks" where it can be temporarily tolerated by hiding it from the view of the rest of the organization.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
This is a remarkably myopic view of innovation that completely ignores the roles of government, research institutions and yes, large companies, in a huge chunk of all the innovations of the last 120 years.

ptidhomme 6y ago

To the engineers, the fact that there is a war is irrelevant I'm not sure this is true. In my point of view, engineers would typically outdo themselves on wartime because they know there are big immediate stakes to their work.

muzani 6y ago

In my area, we had a massive overhaul of the hospital system thanks to COVID-19. Nurses used to do minimal work with patients, now they changed diapers of patients and helped them with everything. People with 11 AM appointments needed to come at 10.30 AM, not 6 AM... and parking and reception became more efficient too. Doctors were faster. You'd think that the workload dropped, but it increased greatly. But this kind of change needed hospital leaders and politicians on board putting it as a high priority. Change is difficult, and most of the time people don't care enough to. The book Peak Performance summarized that growth = rest + stress. Without the stress of a war, the system doesn't put innovation at a high enough priority, and you get an effect like the US faces, where universities and R&D departments are just a bottomless sink.