ORB Visualization
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National Knowledge Project
3/7/2004 8:58 PM
We have thought about what several members of the community have said.
Our discussions continue to return to the observation that the individual members of a community of innovators are each in the same situation, worldwide.
Of this we can agree. But beyond this agreement it is not clear, within the community, about what might be done. Most are waiting and trying to hold on as years of work dissipate and the innovation, originally found to be inspiring, wastes away from neglect. Plans to develop out the software to the specifications originally envisioned are set aside.
To describe the situation is to expose oneself to criticism not only from those whose interests are not ours, but to other members of this community who feel that any discussion about what the larger problems are will reduce that person's individual chances of coming out ok.
We are individually, and as a community, in an abused mode. We have learned from our past experiences, and only speak about the abuse in whispers.
We are unwilling to take what would otherwise be very rational steps - such as collaboration on educating the market and our potential clients. For example, the development of a co-operative marketing strategy with other small start-ups is not something that is easy to envision, and yet that might be the best use of scarce funds.
But the other processes are all to well known. These other processes establish the environment in which the small innovative companies are slowly dieing.
DARPA, NIST and perhaps NSF have allowed the peer review process to be a greedy harvesting of innovator thoughts and ideas, which are then turned over to people who barely understand the innovations and who screw up the implementation while gaining a great deal financially. The innovators do not even know that this is occurring. Special law, limiting Freedom of Information Act requests to see the official records related to one’s own proposal, protects NIST. DARPA is micro-managing all funding decisions in an attempt to sweep un-used funds off to OSD as unrecorded (off-budget) training and special operations expenditures.
At the State level here in Virginia, the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology, works to position innovators for cherry picking by business groups whose sole business model is in developing monopoly control over a specific technology area. Like lambs to the slaughter the innovators sit quietly in endless meetings listening to the virtuous. Those who are not selected for funding are considered losers, undeserving of even a faint memory.
Those who are selected have to agree to ownership and property agreements that allow investors to take control of the creative process. In most cases, the investors are not focused on the true social value of the innovation but on some narrowly framed proposition that they deem reducible to very simple business-exchange.
The scholars have not been able to settle the basic theory on knowledge representation.
Because the basic scholarship on knowledge representation and information theory are still in a confused state, most of the investment money is lost. The products do not come close to performing as advertised, but no one can say that this is a problem.
The waste and fraud is ok for those who have found it at least as profitable to lose someone else’s money as to make an honest dollar. Whereas not all venture capitalist are comfortable with this situation, but many are.
What we are suggesting above is not a conjecture. It may not be applicable in all circumstances, and most of the people involved may in fact be trying to do the best that they can.
It is a general systems model that is quite reasonable and which explains a great deal.
Why is DARPA seen to be unable to understand the proposals that are submitted? Why is the venture capital community claiming to not be able to understand more than simple sentences with simple words?
Venture capitalist behavior is intended to force the innovator to bring what is considered high-thinking down to earth where the common man will spend his nickel without thinking. This 'thoughtless' business-exchange is the primary objective. They are *specifically* looking for the deal that has no controversy or confusion and takes no thinking. VC's are most often managers of funds and they are accountable for profits and losses to the fund-investors. Most are very well trained and many are well-informed and well-meaning. They usually make no secret of their criteria. In this respect they are quite unlike government evaluators who determine where to spend taxpayer dollars, often without sharing the criteria and certainly without fear of being held accountable.
The process that we started in 1991 did not originally have the focused purpose that we now have. The 1997 BCNGroup Charter, however, does anticipate the current crisis long before anyone in the "IT" sector began to feel the effects of the .com bubble and the predatory behavior of large business processes that followed after the .com collapse and which mirrors the practices seen in the biotechnology sector.
Government policy, regulation and laws passed by the Congress also appear to have made it easier for an aggregation of intellectual property for the purpose of inhibiting competition.
This is a history that is independent of individuals. It is as it is, and will be known better as society moves on to what ever comes next.
The proposed National Project to Establish the Knowledge Sciences is one of several possible near future tipping points. The support of its existence may be one of the best investment individual innovators can make.
With this support, a group of scholars can continue to lobby for global change that can only come from the White House or the Congress.