Nicely stated Matthew. Companies are about investing money to obtain more
value back, along with the money invested. R&D budgets have to be justified
to the financial stakeholders based on ROI, risk, market share, strategic
and tactical grounds. If the parameters aren't within acceptable limits,
the investment moves along to the next choice. (01)
That's why the blue sky stuff has always been done sometimes by wealthy
aristocrats (Newton), the compulsively curious (Einstein), and other
oddballs (Turing, Von Neumann ...). At least, until DARPA started funding
targeted projects which the NSF hadn't thought worthy of science. And of
course Bell Tel spent its subscribers' money on blue sky R&D to justify
their investments instead of handing the money back as the regulators urged. (02)
But no company is giving it away for free.
-Rich (03)
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Matthew West
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 9:12 AM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologist Aptitude Test? (05)
Dear John, (06)
A nice cartoon. Although I think it is a little pessimistic. Whilst I do not
think you should attempt to justify blue skies research, I think there are
things you can do to work out if industrial, or applied research is
worthwhile, based around the reduction in risk of decisions that you make
based on the results of the research. (07)
Let's take a topical example from the energy sector. (08)
Should I invest in fission reactors, fusion reactors, solar cells, wind
farms, tidal barrages, carbon capture, biomass (which sort), clean coal? I
have $50b+ to invest over 20 years. (09)
Making a bet on any of these today carries a huge risk. What is the
information that would help reduce that risk? Notice that it is almost as
useful to discover that any of these is a non-starter, as it is to discover
that one or more of them is viable, and at what energy price it is economic. (010)
Tens of millions of dollars is a good investment to reduce the risk of
getting it wrong. You just need to be clear how the results of the research
are going to answer the questions, which is where research design comes in. (011)
Regards (012)
Matthew West
Information Junction
Tel: +44 560 302 3685
Mobile: +44 750 3385279
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/ (013)
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City,
Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE. (014)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: 05 January 2010 14:54
> To: [ontolog-forum]
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontologist Aptitude Test?
>
> Joel,
>
> A recent document appeared on the WWW today, which may help to
> clarify those points:
>
> >> ... we've been doing software (creating 1,000s of languages in the
> >> process) for about 50 years & still have no widely accepted means
> >> of measuring it.
> >
> JB> ... Yet every one of the ways of measuring software performance has
> > been successful in its own right for building a foundation of
> > something to improve.
>
> Following is the document (but check it for Jan 5, since it changes
> every day): http://www.dilbert.com/fast/
>
> The text without the graphics:
>
> Pointy-Haired Boss: "Maybe somebody can help you quantify your
> research and development work."
>
> Dilbert: "The only people who can quantify research are liars
> and morons."
>
> PHB: "Maybe we could hire a consultant."
>
> Dilbert: "That just turns a liar into a thief."
>
> John
>
>
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