"Creating the Future: Collaboration and the Value
of Partnerships"
Dr. Joseph Bordogna
Deputy Director
Chief Operating Officer
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Total Quality Forum IX
Penn State University
April 30, 2000
Thank you so much for the introduction, Graham. I'm
delighted to be here this evening for the ninth Total
Quality Forum.
I recognize many of you in the audience, and I'm reminded
of your pioneering work building partnerships between
industry and academe.
[Title Slide] Use Back
to Return to Speech.
I'm sure that when the first Total Quality Forum was
convened - now over a decade ago - many of us would
not have predicted how swiftly the winds of change
have swept across our institutions. They have reshaped
the once familiar landscape of the economy and have
forced us to clear new paths in business, in research,
in science and engineering, and in education.
When we look back, we recall the storm clouds on the
horizon. Economic growth was disappointing, and we
wondered where the new jobs would come from. There
were serious worries about the ability of U.S. industry
to compete in the global marketplace. There was little
real growth in overall R&D spending. Colleges and
universities were feeling the chill.
What a difference a decade makes! In the United States,
we are, for the moment, economically stronger than
we have been in decades. Partnerships among our various
sectors - government, industry and academe - are fashionable
and increasingly effective. A new inter-organizational
way of business and academic life is forming.
Service workers dominate in our workforce. The most
talented and highly skilled workers in every country
comprise the modern phenomenon of a global and mobile
workforce. They can easily gravitate to where the
best jobs are located. But information technologies
have also made it possible for them to stay home and
yet work abroad.
Colleges and universities are facing information-age
transformations with virtual centers and institutes,
shared infrastructure, collaboratories and long-distance
learning. The future portends even more.
Of course, this is familiar territory to all of us.
You are here because you collectively have designed
the partnerships that are becoming so common between
industry and academe. You have helped to redefine
the connection between academic training and economic
growth.
I'll take a page from one of the great practitioners
of American management theory, Peter Drucker.
[Drucker quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
That's a good way to introduce what I want to talk
about tonight: creating the future. First, I'll offer
you a framework for thinking about what lies ahead.
Then I want to explore what this means for the evolving
nature of our partnerships and collaborations. Finally,
I'd like to describe some challenges that I hope you
will consider as you discuss these issues over the
next two days.
As the baseball great Casey Stengel so famously said,
"The future ain't what it used to be."
[Stengel quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
That observation would probably have appealed to the
Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter
developed the "rule-breaking" theory of economics
in 1942. He described the "perennial gale of creative
destruction" that is the hallmark of technological
innovation.
[Schumpeter quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
"Entrepreneurship," he said, "incessantly revolutionizes
the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying
the old one, incessantly creating a new one."
According to Schumpeter, disruption is the normal state
of a healthy, vibrant economy.
Of course, it causes losses in its path. In fact, the
disruption caused by an innovation can bring down
a whole industry, while simultaneously creating new
opportunities for growth.
Transistor technology disrupted the vacuum-tube industry,
HMOs shook the foundation of the health insurance
industry, and the CD killed the needle in the groove.
[Economist Excerpt]
Use Back to Return to Speech.
The February 20, 1999, issue of the Economist
magazine included a major examination of innovation.
One of the sidebars to the text reads, "Innovators
break all the rules. Trust them."
Innovation is breaking the rules and winning - over
and over again. The kind of change engendered by innovation
alters our familiar landscapes forever. Eventually,
it reshapes our expectations in harmony with the future
it has created. And yes, it lays down a new set of
rules. Let me illustrate what I mean with an example.
Danny Hillis is a noted computer philosopher and designer.
He helped pioneer the concept of parallel computing,
and in 1996 he became the vice president of research
and development at The Walt Disney Company. He shares
this story from his past.
"I went to my first computer conference at the New
York Hilton about 20 years ago. When somebody there
predicted the market for microprocessors would eventually
be in the millions, someone else said, 'Where are
they all going to go? It's not like you need a computer
in every doorknob!"
Years later, Hillis went back to the same hotel. He
noticed that the room keys had been replaced by electronic
cards you slide into slots in the doors. There was,
indeed, "a computer in every doorknob," as well as
sensors and actuators - and other hardware to make
the software sing.
Danny Hillis may have seen that future for microprocessors,
but at that computer conference two decades ago, that
insight was in short supply. That's probably why Danny
Hillis is now head of R&D for Walt Disney.
[Economist Excerpt]
Use Back to Return to Speech.
The Economist article on Innovation points to
another way in which the future "ain't what it used
to be." Innovation is occurring at a breathtaking
pace. Industrial cycles appear to be getting shorter
and shorter.
If this is so, the Economist goes on to speculate,
that our current industrial cycle - the one powered
by digital networks, software and new media - has
already run two-thirds of its course, with only another
five or six years left to go!
I promised you a framework for thinking about what
lies ahead. So far I've described disruption that
is ubiquitous and pervasive, occurring at ever-greater
frequencies. That's dangerously close to a definition
of chaos. But let's not despair yet.
[Greenspan quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
Nearly sixty years after Schumpeter first linked dramatic
economic growth to technological progress, Alan Greenspan
said: "something special is happening in the U.S.
economy" - and it's happening because of science and
technology.
Today, the combination of new knowledge and innovation
are the driving forces of the current economic expansion.
In a more formal sense, Peter Drucker tells us that
innovation is the process of applying new knowledge
to tasks that are new and different, demanding that
society's new knowledge bank be constantly renewed.
[Drucker quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
There are two ways to do better than we've done. We
can improve upon our performance through incremental
additions to productivity, doing better what we already
do. Or we can create fresh wealth and value through
new enterprises - doing things we have never done
before.
The current balance is strongly tilted toward innovation
in Drucker's sense. Today's composite of digital,
electronic, optical and biotechnologies is reframing
society as concept-driven and knowledge ridden.
We can already calculate the impact. The Economist
probably said it better than I could.
"America gets more than half its economic growth
from industries that barely existed a decade ago-such
is the power of innovation, especially in the
information and biotechnology industries."
The recognition that new knowledge is the driving force
behind innovation and economic growth is in turn changing
perceptions. It highlights the importance of R&D in
the nation's science and technology enterprise.
[S&T Linkage] Use Back
to Return to Speech.
I am sure you are all familiar with recent studies
that indicate a strong and growing linkage between
patents granted in the U.S. system and frontier research
published in archival journals. Nearly two-thirds
of the patents that were granted cited research supported
primarily by public funding. That is powerful evidence
of the catalytic effect new knowledge has on innovation.
[Patent Citations] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
Even more dramatic is the rate at which this dependence
is increasing. Over 100,000 of the patents granted
in the U.S. in 1998 cited scientific and technical
articles. That's a ten-fold increase since 1988 and
a doubling in just the two years 1997 and 1998.
We know that many of these technologies, from the Internet
to biotechnology, are the result of federal government
investments over the decades.
This fresh awareness of the power of new knowledge
to generate economic growth has helped wake up Washington
- and the nation - to the importance of science and
technology for sustained economic growth.
Of course, thinking about what lies ahead in these
terms does not allow us to predict the future.
Its value lies in providing us with a general strategy
for recognizing change so that we can embrace it and
turn it to our advantage.
It does this, in part, by putting our eyes on the frontiers.
That's risky and uncomfortable, but that's where the
action is bound to be.
It also makes us think more deeply about innovation
itself and what we can learn about doing it better.
And finally, it prepares us to ask the right questions
in the face of the inevitable uncertainty confronting
us.
[Drucker quote] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
Drucker put it this way: I never predict. I just look
out the window and see what's visible - but not yet
seen.
Let me use the National Science Foundation to illustrate
one way this strategy can work in practice.
NSF's vision is clear and simple: Enabling the Nation's
future through discovery, learning and innovation.
We are in the business of discovery and innovation,
and we are serious about it.
To move toward the realization of this vision, we have
just completed a five-year strategic plan, containing
three major strategic "thrusts." We call them "thrusts"
because we think of them as lively and dynamic directions,
not hidebound prescriptions.
Their value lies in how they crystallize our thinking
as we consider new opportunities.
[Strategic Thrusts]
Use Back to Return to Speech.
I like to think of them as posing questions that we
should ask each time we consider a new project or
program or organizational change.
The first strategic thrust, "Invest in Intellectual
Capital," puts our attention squarely on the new knowledge
that drives innovation and creates new wealth and
value.
With each new opportunity we consider, we have to ask
ourselves, "Will this enhance individual and collective
capacity to discover, learn, create, identify problems
and formulate solutions?" If the answer is "no," then
we shouldn't be investing.
Our second strategic thrust - "Integrate research and
education" - goes to the heart of how we prepare students
and shape the American workforce for the future. The
corresponding question we need to ask is, "Will our
action infuse learning with the excitement of discovery,
and assure that the findings and methods of research
are quickly and effectively communicated in a broader
context and to a larger audience?"
"Promote Partnerships" is our third and final strategic
thrust. It brings me back to partnerships and why
we are here tonight.
Here, the question we need to ask is especially critical:
"Will our action enable the movement of ideas, people
and tools among disciplines and institutions and between
academe, industry and government in order to optimize
their impact?"
Partnerships are becoming increasingly important because
discovery and innovation can only rarely get on without
them. They bring to the table participants with different
expertise and resources, and a diversity of perspectives.
As our products, processes, problems and solutions
continue to increase in complexity, our need for a
diversity of combinations and partners will grow as
well.
Partnerships must also be responsive to innovation.
Corporations have had to reinvent themselves - over
and over again. Universities have begun moving to
this mode. Partnerships must permute, reshape, and
regenerate to stay fresh and responsive to the demands
of new knowledge and innovation.
Scientists and engineers must be able to work across
many different disciplines and fields - and make the
connections that will lead to deeper insights and
more creative solutions.
We will need new mechanisms and designs to prepare
talent from all fields and sectors to move in and
out of combinations as new challenges arise. That
means encouraging flexibility, creativity, and agility,
among other skills.
Increasingly, partnerships will be innovation driven
as well as innovation oriented. That is why NSF has
just launched a new program: "Partnerships for Innovation."
The program aims to foster creative partnerships designed
to stimulate local and regional economic development
through innovation.
We should always view these combinations as creative
arrangements. They are not formulas to be automatically
replicated but rather new patterns to be ingeniously
enhanced each time we create the next combination.
As one example, the very diverse set of NSF-funded
Engineering Research Centers and Science and Technology
Centers attest to this.
[Making Partnerships Sing]
Use Back to Return to Speech.
Of course, even in such a whirlwind, there are some
constants to give us comfort. These are the sine
qua non's that make partnerships "sing." I offer
a few drawn from my own experience that I believe
will probably withstand the winds of change.
The first is trust among the partners. This is not
just the recognition that the parties all stand to
gain - or lose - from a successful outcome. Trust
also encompasses a matter-of-fact acceptance of what
others don't know as well as respect for what they
do know.
A partnership works best when its membership is eclectic.
Different perspectives are like the best metaphors.
Odd couplings help us see the familiar as startling
and fresh. As a sentence in the Evaluation Report
of the Total Quality Forum - NSF Total Quality
Organization (TQO) Program puts it: "a team with no
dissenting opinions is unlikely to generate innovative
approaches."
Every partner should bring something of value to the
table. And every partner should also have something
to gain from working with the others. An analogy from
poker is appropriate here: if you don't have any chips,
you're not going to be playing the same game as everyone
else.
As in any endeavor, the best partnerships deserve the
best people. "The best" should be very broadly interpreted
here so that no useful perspective is excluded.
All parties should be present from the start. If you
have had a hand in cooking the soup, you are usually
much more inclined to find it tasty.
Good partnerships encourage dialogue. It isn't enough
to share creative perspectives. Ideas must survive
the rough and tumble that comes from rubbing up against
competing propositions.
[Grand Challenges] Use
Back to Return to Speech.
Now for some challenges. Among the many facing us,
I've chosen three because each has extraordinary power
and reach. Meeting them will probably require the
"creative destruction" of some of our current ways
of thinking about education, business, research and
partnerships.
One of the single most important challenges we face
is teaching today's students - at all levels - how
to innovate.
Can it be done? Of course it can. Students can learn
the process of innovation, risk taking, and rule breaking
from models taken from our collective experience -
and long before they are sent out into the world.
Second, we need to nurture partnership skills and reward
those who practice them. That means resolving an apparent
dilemma. We are all encouraged to be our own person,
and to succeed on our own merits. Yet in many situations,
cooperation, pooling talent, knowledge and experience
is what is needed.
We will need to discover how to embrace and reward
both ways of working. A great baseball team
knows how to do this: it values both its homerun hitters
and the players who make the double plays.
Third, we need to make the practice of innovation inclusive
and pervasive. Including a diverse array of expertise
and perspectives strengthens the pool of creativity
from which we can draw our new knowledge and technologies.
But innovation must also be pervasive, not simply the
province of a few scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs
- no matter how diverse. As Alan Greenspan put it
earlier this month: "It is not enough to create a
job market that has enabled those with few skills
to finally be able to grasp the first rung of the
ladder to achievement. More generally, we must ensure
that our whole population receives an education that
will allow full and continuing participation in this
dynamic period of American economic history."
It shouldn't be surprising that these challenges involve
purely human and social endeavors and arrangements,
and that brings me to my concluding point.
As we face the "perennial gale of creative destruction"
we possess too little knowledge about learning, about
cognition, about human behavior as we confront change
and take risks.
Thanks to new methods and new tools, many social scientists
believe that this field is poised for many exciting
new discoveries. We may end up with something like
a "Cognitive or Knowledge Revolution" that makes the
information revolution look very small indeed.
Keep this in mind when you create new partnerships
- you'll surely want to give social scientists a seat
at the table. This will help us balance the chaos
that could result from the natural disruption of innovation
with a semblance of order needed to move us ahead
as a society.
Thank you.
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