Communication For Makers

An address to the incoming class of the The Science and Engineering Apprenticeship Program at the United States Naval Research Laboratory emphasizing the importance of developing good communication skills for technical professionals. 

Making, building, discovering are the good parts. And getting sponsorship for making, building, discovering requires communication. Communication is a professional skill you need to master.

My mentor Leonardo was backed by the Medicis, the Sforzas, and several Popes, the power elite of his time. That got him the assignments, the resources, and staff to do important work. He won contracts for both basic and applied research for naval technology.

Do you know the difference between basic and applied research?

Leonardo spent a lot of time hanging around in taverns, grooming the legend, the myth, of Leonardo, more than most. Even so, there were times of no support, no jobs, but less than for his competitors who neglected their communication.

Today, it is even easier to develop your following.

How many of you have published professional papers? Written a book?

How many of you curate a blog?

How many of you keep a journal to remind you of what you were doing yesterday?

Today, with the internet, it is important to build a legend of what you are doing. Like anything else that is worthwhile it is a practice. The more you do it, the better you get.

Every time I post on my blogs, I syndicate to over 200,000 readers. That takes 20 minutes. The Washington Post claims 500,000 readers.

I meet people I don’t even know who know what I am doing. And when they want help, they come find me.

Now is the time to develop your communication skills, just as you are building your scientific skills, and meeting the people who will have an impact of your future careers. Make the most of this opportunity. You are now in the major leagues.

You are getting a copy of this presentation because another mentor, Doc Fails of the Fails Management Institute, told me, “If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.” Welcome to the major leagues.

More from the Junior Academy.

Joy’s Law

(Bill) Joy’s Law, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.”

What if overcoming Joy’s Law is the new baseline for succeeding?

Chris Anderson’s Makers showcases how Joy’s Law has already changed the front end of our economy.

If you’ve convinced yourself you’re not affected, God bless. My experience is that every time I have been unusually successful, we get out where no man has gone before, and start looking for signals for how to keep the party going.

If you noticed 2009 and 2010 were snafu,

That 2011 and 2012 were fubar, and

You suspect 2013 may be bohica...(NSFW), read on.

Makers gives some excellent ideas and case studies about why the old ways of working and organizing have have run their course, become uncompetitive, and how some are being successful in a number of industries. Showing up is no longer an acceptable baseline. Winners are going to have to attract the people who are really passionate and creative, the top tier for whatever they need done.

Chris Anderson is the guy to write Makers. The first time I met him, he was defending copyright by day as editor in chief of Wired magazine, and pushing the limits of copyright and Joy’s Law by night running the open source project for radio controlled flying vehicles (includes drones).

Yes, he’s a reporter, but he’s also writing about what he has learned making, starting, running, investing, and guiding more than a dozen companies. During his decade at Wired, they grew spectacularly. Consider what’s been happening to the rest of print media during that time.

What Chris has seen, done, realized, and written is that we are in a new paradigm. Limits sinking formerly well run companies have to be overcome and are being overcome.

We’ve learned a lot with open source software. Development is faster and more efficient, less error-prone, costs are lower, and open source has revolutionized the space formerly served by enterprise software. Anderson’s message is that “atoms are the new bits,” that technology has advanced enough to give the same increases in efficiency, opening new markets, that has already happened in software.

Read the book. Find your own models for moving forward. Move forward.

As Werner used to say, “Joy is when you have a new possibility.”

Happy New Year!

Kick off the New Year Right at Talk Your Business - How to make more and better sales right away! Wednesday Jan 30, 11:45 - 1:00 at the Arlington Chamber Small Business Roundtable

Rules Baytus

The term for someone fascinated with rules, not changing outcomes, obsessing over imagined possible violations. A spectator at life.

Their work product is a shifting, unprioritized list of what could go wrong, real and imagined. It’s a task that doesn’t ever need to end, a full time occupation without effort.

I was playing in a golf tournament and was admiring an old guy’s line of chatter. One of our group took me aside and said the guy was a cheater, he fluffed his ball.

I said, “That’s no problem, it’s just a stroke. Did you call it?”

He said he had never personally seen it, but he had heard...

After the round, one of my playing partners was describing my birdie. His wife asked me, “Did you cheat?” Lady, I didn’t hit the ball enough times to cheat.

I was ordering a keg. Someone, not attached to the group, asked me, “Did you consider the less fortunate?”

I said I was ordering a keg. What did they want me to consider? Again, “Did you consider the less fortunate?” I missed their point, again.

This gets into focus. If you don’t choose your path, you probably won’t get where you want to go.

In crew settings, I watch some people attach value to delaying launch. I guess that’s because when no one is moving forward, they look like they are making an equal contribution. After others start producing, the rules baytus’ lack of contribution becomes obvious.

Launch is required to find out which possibilities are real. Completion is getting past the obstacles, forecast and random, that truly stand between you and the goal.

Time costs, rust never sleeps.

What did I miss?

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