The intuition I have is that in a research context striking out isn’t just overhead but a positive contribution; all the other people working on the problem can now see that is not the answer. We can also look at why it wasn’t the answer, which is a source of new information. Therefore the next guy is more likely to get a hit.
It seems like everyone treats this kind of thing as trivial—it’s why we have scientific journals after all—but what I don’t see is much articulation of what value comes from where, and how to keep it. It looks to me like Xerox PARC did an amazing job of capitalizing on all of the information valuableto progress, and I suspect that’s because it was captured in the environment.
As a specific example, you have mentioned elsewhere that peer review didn’t make sense for PARC. Clearly eliminating the bureaucracy was a factor, but I suspect it is more important that what was happening instead did a superior job of delivering the same value that peer review is meant to. The team-of-peers has knowledge of the environment, familiarity with the previous work, contact with the generative process for an idea, and they can provide a new perspective on most any element of each other’s work at any time. Regular peer review is a static and passive check of correctness; because the PARC example was active and dynamic I want to call it “peer stabilization”.
I guess what I am gesturing at is the group is the unit of action. I suspect that if we want to do great things, or even just good things consistently, we need to build the context for the group. Then if it is made up of amazing people it will do amazing things.
Maybe we can disentangle the context from the vision, or the how from the why. Then we could move building powerful contexts into technical execution territory, waiting only for an appropriate vision or need to motivate them. I bet if I could break all this down into “value-added” language businesses and governments would be more willing to give it a shot.
Honored to hear from you!
The intuition I have is that in a research context striking out isn’t just overhead but a positive contribution; all the other people working on the problem can now see that is not the answer. We can also look at why it wasn’t the answer, which is a source of new information. Therefore the next guy is more likely to get a hit.
It seems like everyone treats this kind of thing as trivial—it’s why we have scientific journals after all—but what I don’t see is much articulation of what value comes from where, and how to keep it. It looks to me like Xerox PARC did an amazing job of capitalizing on all of the information valuable to progress, and I suspect that’s because it was captured in the environment.
As a specific example, you have mentioned elsewhere that peer review didn’t make sense for PARC. Clearly eliminating the bureaucracy was a factor, but I suspect it is more important that what was happening instead did a superior job of delivering the same value that peer review is meant to. The team-of-peers has knowledge of the environment, familiarity with the previous work, contact with the generative process for an idea, and they can provide a new perspective on most any element of each other’s work at any time. Regular peer review is a static and passive check of correctness; because the PARC example was active and dynamic I want to call it “peer stabilization”.
I guess what I am gesturing at is the group is the unit of action. I suspect that if we want to do great things, or even just good things consistently, we need to build the context for the group. Then if it is made up of amazing people it will do amazing things.
Maybe we can disentangle the context from the vision, or the how from the why. Then we could move building powerful contexts into technical execution territory, waiting only for an appropriate vision or need to motivate them. I bet if I could break all this down into “value-added” language businesses and governments would be more willing to give it a shot.