Technology Transfer I

Technology transfer is the process of transferring a body of knowledge or specific technology from one entity to another. No big deal, this happens every second of every day, in fact it is happening now as the knowledge of this blog is transferred to your brain (or, if you're a Web crawler, this is being transferred to a search engine's database). However, in the official definition, tech transfer is the transfer of technology developed at a scientific institution as the result of their research efforts, to a commercial organization for the purposes of commercializing the technology into a product or service that has value to a larger market. Fundamental to this process is the concept of core competency; a scientific institution's core competency is research and a commercial company's core competency is developing and marketing products and services for profit. Since many scientific institutions are non-profit, employing commercialization resources is not within their mission and therefore must be outsourced.

Exactly where this division between research and commercial is is not clearly defined; during economic periods of growth research can be transferred at an earlier stage of development than during periods of slow growth. This amounts to the ability of the commercial entity to accept risk; during periods of slow growth the capital markets are tighter and have a lower tolerance for risk. Research laboratories that receive the majority of their funding from government sources are not as sensitive to economic cycles, in fact their funding usually increases during periods of slow growth (recessions) due to government fiscal policies.

In general the capital markets determine the point at which the technology is commercializable. Research laboratories use a variety of methods to promote their technologies including forming relationships with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and spinning off their own entrepreneurial efforts. Some university systems have technology transfer offices set up to facilitate this process. The bottom line is; no one has a formal process at this point, it's much more an art than a science. One thing is clear: research organizations in the U.S. are sitting on huge amounts of valuable intellectual property; their ability to translate this property into capital rests on their ability to successful transfer the technology.

Networking on Steroids

Being a basic techno geek by nature, I've often been puzzled by the back-slap-hand-shake road to success. Just what makes this path so valuable and how does it operate? In his book "Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time" Keith Ferrazzi provides a very detailed description of the social networking side of business. Before email, the Internet, blogs and IMs, this was the ONLY way to do business. Ferrazzi doesn't go into too much detail about what kind of business he's in, that's really beside the point, instead he presents how he networks and the benefits he's reaped from it. If you have the total introvert techie on one end of the spectrum, Ferrazzi would be at the opposite end. He invests heavily in his network and it seems to be his most valuable career asset. His two main objectives are:

1. Quantity
2. Quality

and the two work to complement each other; if you cast a wide enough net, you're bound to find some people that you can work with, if you work well with those people more will want to join your network. Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet and found of 3Com, advanced the theory now called Metcalfe's law: the value of a network increases in proportion to the square of the number of participants. This was first applied to computer networks but now seems to be gaining some traction as a model for social networks. Now this is starting to make sense!

In the original Metcalfe's law, each node of the network, i.e. each computer, was valued equally. The value of the network didn't depend upon whose computer it was just as long as it was a computer. However, some computers did give you access to other large networks, if you could gain access to a corporation's or university's network that would increase the overall network significantly with a single node. With social networks, there may be a gatekeeper that controls access to a valuable contact or group and without that gatekeeper's acceptance you cannot get access. Therefore the gatekeeper increases in value. There are other factors that can increase or decrease an individual's value in a network, which will degrade Metcalfe's law for social networking, but the basic idea is there: social networks increase in value at a super-linear rate.

The Value of Evangelists

I had a conversation this morning with long time medical informaticist Rob McClure. Having been at the forefront of health IT for years, Rob has seen his share of companies rise and fall as the healthcare industry has struggled with its information issues. His belief is that our society values the evangelists over producers; that we are all too easily pulled in by the next great thing. He does admit that when he uses the word "value" he means "attracted to." Put that way, I tend to agree with him. If he meant "value" as in "invest resources in," all academics would be billionaires. But the days of throwing money at good ideas before they've been demonstrated are over as any entrepreneur can tell you. Nevertheless, ideas are sexy, and we'd much rather listen to someone telling us about the way their new idea will save us time, money and make our belly's flatter than to listen to someone tell us that nothing less than 1,000 sit-ups a day will do the trick.

I continue to be reminded of the film Envy (obviously left a better impression on me than the vast majority of the film going audience) where the Jack Black character comes up with a winning, although completely unproven, product idea and the Ben Stiller character dismisses the thing outright as inane. Sure enough, Black makes a mint while Stiller wallows in mediocrity. And sure enough again the whole thing comes crashing down when one LITTLE detail (as originally foretold by Stiller) was overlooked. Oh well, off to the next big thing...

Building Prototypes

I should provide some explanation into what I have occupied myself with over the past 16 years. I have been involved with developing and commercializing new embedded systems and enterprise IT systems. This usually starts at version 0.0 and proceeds through 1.0 if all goes well. So my teams are always building software from scratch, not incrementing existing code bases. Well, scratch is a relative term, we always start with some code base, just nothing written for the particular application.

Because some of the problems that will be encountered are either poorly defined or not identified at all, a higher risk is incurred in predicting and planning the development process. Nevertheless, there are always resource constraints so some commitment to deliver must be made in exchange for resources. Can a commitment be made without careful planning? Agile methodology would state that loose commitments could be made and renegotiated periodically. Although realistic, managers and clients may resist this type of arrangement and feel they're being taken advantage of. The pressure is to provide a firm commitment to deliver. And that is the exact point where so many projects get into trouble.

Software Development as Theater

Lee Devin, who with Rob Austin wrote Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work, spoke last night at the Agile Denver meeting on "Preparation versus Planning." This one was perfect for the Agile audience; if you are unsure of what the end product will be how can you plan for it? The analogy was with a theatrical production where every performance, every night, is different. What the actors lack in planning they make up for in preparation; learning their lines backwards and forwards, rehearsing and trying out every emotional nuance, working with the other actors to work through the scenes. There is, in fact, quite a bit of planning that goes into a theater production, the point is that there is a distinction between planning the framework around the creative process and planning the creative process itself. I do have some feeling that the script gives the actors and directors somewhat more of an advantage than software developers. Although the developers have roles, and some ideas from other projects, they pretty much write or assemble the software as they go along.

Does this make the planning process in software development irrelevant? The model of software development as a manufacturing process has proven to be flawed; software projects cannot be as tightly controlled as manufacturing and therefore planning them as precisely as manufacturing is a waste of resources. However, providing a flexible structure, such as Agile methodologies, to the development is essential to creating quality results.

Start Blog

This has been on my task list since 3/3/06. Had to make sure I actually had enough material to keep this thing going. Now that I have assured myself of that I can get down to business. I have produced one blog already, a travel blog which appeared to have some success, so how about a work blog? An overwhelming number of blogs have been showing up on my Google searches, some good and actually useful ones too. I am a huge consumer of information and feel that it is only right that I produce some as well. If I'm really productive I should be able to get the ratio to 100:1...? I do intend to produce some useful stuff here and not a train of thought type blog (although this one is not setting a good example) but this first entry is somewhat experimental.