It’s time to kick off my 2017 blogging activity and my readers have asked about my absence on this blog. Well because of the depth and research required by some of the issues that I consider essential, most of my blogging energy has been going to contributions to AITS.org. I strongly recommend that you check out the site if you haven’t already. A great deal of useful PM information and content can be found there–and they have a strong editorial staff so that what does get to publication is pretty well sourced. My next post on the site is scheduled for 25 January. I will link to it once it becomes available.
For those of us just getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, there were a number of interesting events that occurred during that time that I didn’t get a chance to note. Among these is that SecDef Ash Carter appeared (unfortunately a subscription wall) on an episode of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s excellent show “StarTalk“, which appears on the National Geographic Channel.
Secretary Carter had some interesting things to say, among them are:
a. His mentors in science, many of whom were veterans of the Second World War, instilled in him the concept of public service and giving back to the country.
b. His experience under former SecDef Perry, when he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, taught him that the DoD needed to be the “petri dish” for R&D in new technologies.
c. That the approach of the DoD has been to leverage the R&D into new technologies that can be leveraged from the international technology industry, given that there are many good ideas and developments that occur outside of the United States.
d. He encouraged more scientists to serve in the federal government and the Department of Defense, if even for a short while to get a perspective on how things work at that level.
e. He doesn’t see the biggest source of instability will necessarily be from nation states, but that small groups of individuals, given that destructive power is becoming portable, will be the emerging threat that his successor will face.
f. There imperative that the U.S. maintain its technological edge is essential in guaranteeing international stability and peace.
Secretary Carter’s comments, in particular, in realizing that the technology industry is an international one strikes a particular personal cord with me since my present vocation has caused me to introduce new capabilities in the U.S. market built from technologies that were developed by a close European ally. The synergy that this meeting of the minds has created has begun to have a positive impact on the small portion of the market that my firm inhabits, changing the way people do business and shifting the focus from “tools” as the source of information to data, and what the data suggests.
This is not to say that cooperation in the international technology market is not fraught with the same rocks and shoals found in any business area. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that new information technologies can be used as a means of evening the playing field because of the asymmetrical nature of information itself, which then lends itself to leverage given relatively small amounts of effort.
This also points to the importance of keeping an open mind and encouraging international trade, especially among our allies that are among the liberal democracies. Recently my firm was the target of a protest for a government contract where this connection to international trade was used as a means of questioning whether the firm was, indeed, a bonafide U.S. business. The answer under U.S. law is a resounding “yes”–and that first decision was upheld on appeal. For what we have done is–under U.S. management–leveraged technology first developed elsewhere, extended its capabilities, designed, developed, and localized it for the U.S. market, and in the process created U.S. jobs and improved U.S. processes. This is a good deal all around.
Back in the day when I wore a U.S. Navy uniform during the Cold War military, many of us in the technology and acquisition specialties looked to reform our systems and introduce innovative methods from wherever we could find them, whether they came from private industry or other government agencies. When coming upon resistance because something was “the way it always was done” our characterization of that attitude was “NIH”. That is, “Not Invented Here.” NIH was a term that, in shorthand, described an invalid counterargument against process improvement that did not rely on the merits or evidence.
And so it is today. The world is always changing, but given new technologies the rate of change is constantly accelerating. Adapting and adopting the best technologies available will continue to give us the advantage as a nation. It simply requires openness and the ability to identify innovation when we see it.
Life, Project Management, and Everything 