> Afterward, she said, “I would go back to that person and he would say, ‘Oh, yeah, that should work.’ ” Each expert seemed to dwell in his own private silo, so

> Afterward, she said, “I would go back to that person and he would say, ‘Oh, yeah, that should work.’ ” Each expert seemed to dwell in his own private silo, so that whenever she crossed from one discipline to another, she would run into the same wall of constricted thinking. I do a lot of cross-protocol work, and I've seen that a lot from "domain experts". Me: Why can't we just do X? Them: It would violate the standards, and industry practice! Me: how could anyone tell? Them: Uh... they couldn't. Good idea. Let's do it. There's a danger in letting your brain ossify. Cray used to hire young people for precisely this reason: http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/tef/cray/tribute.html http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/home/tef/cray/tribute.html > Once asked why he often hires new graduates to help him with early R&D work, he replied, "Because they don't know that what I'm asking them to do is impossible, so they try."