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“At first sight, when one comes upon it in its surprisingly rural setting, the Bell Telephone Laboratories’ main New Jersey site looks like a large and up-to-da
by nickdothutton 3y ago
“At first sight, when one comes upon it in its surprisingly rural setting, the Bell Telephone Laboratories’ main New Jersey site looks like a large and up-to-date factory, which in a sense it is. But it is a factory for ideas, and so its production lines are invisible.” — Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer, in his 1958 book, Voice Across the Sea.
- eries 3y agoPrescient, really. Almost all of us knowledge workers today work in factories where the production lines are invisible. It's why we struggle so much with concepts (like work-in-progres inventory or product development flow) that are relatively easy to understand when there is a physical factory to look at.