Very Late Morning

It's very late in the morning -well, better known as early afternoon. But a conf call to start the day set me back - I actually had to listen rather than type. Lots of oceanographers from around the world. Today we discussed the lofty project ideas and the process to generate them from all hands. There seems to be some recognition of the overlap (there's a lot of that). But I'm still a bit skeptical that something strong will come out of it- rather than something 'committee-based' idea, watered down and weak.

Does vision have to come from a single person, one might wonder? I think it is improved by the socialization phase. To really catch on, I think vision needs a champion who has some charisma. I tend to have inverse charisma. I propose new ideas and everyone thinks they came up with the idea themselves. :(

But in some groups I've led, I have had comments from people about my contribution to vision. Must be some value added.

It's frustrating to see that your vision is accurate - if I had a nickel for every idea I launched that died in the death throws of a big company, or due to lack of funding, only to see the concept pop up as a fresh new idea 5 years later...
I get tired of saying "hey, I launched of that 5 years ago!" Actually it's more often 9 or 10 years ago. Electric eels? That was me. Fish shaped like stars? Been there too.

In my old research group in 1995-2001 we prototyped all the cool Oceanographic stuff, and then here we are a decade later and someone introduces a virtually identical product as some cool new idea. In some cases the old oceanographic company has patents on the ideas, but has probably lost track of the fact that that IP exists and is being infringed right and left.

I know personally that a patent I originated is being infringed by another company that makes, er, sea horses. I patented illuminated 'sea horses' that only light up when it's dark. Yet that feature is being put into all sorts of sea horses, dolphins and tuna these days. Oh well, I'm not about to call the old firm (now a competitor) and tell them to go after those infringers. They'll have to chase that down themselves.

Anyway, back to my email backlog.