Ironically, most technology is the opposite. At least when you’re designing and developing things, it’s all individuals - you can have assistants or small teams, but institutions don’t invent new things, individuals do.
I don’t mean that pedantically, I mean one or two people were the driving force behind near every innovation. A company can sit those people in a room and fund them for a decade, but you have to keep them happy and leave them alone - if they leave or they’re meddled with too much, you’re back to square one
Big companies can’t innovate (except in monetization)… It’s all done by start ups now. Then they get acquired, and all progress halts
Just makes me think, in science (or academia at least) researchers are tied to their research to maintain their position, rather than their position deciding their research. It’s still a pretty broken system, but between that and the incentive for open collaboration it just makes me think. If every piece of technology was open sourced, if everyone from phone manufacturers to game designers existed in a world where designs could be improved upon, where would we be now?
My best and coolest work projects were basically all done in a caffeine-induced mania and had nothing to do with what my boss thought they needed but wound up creating huge benefits.
I’ve made guides and cheat sheets for legal and medical concepts four my coworkers, I collected a database of over 500 printable pdf activities to entertain my patients and created a nice graphical interface for them on the facility intranet. I even designed board games that can be printed on cardstock so my patients can enjoy themselves but not make weapons or self-injury implements. I can make d6 dice completely out of origami-folded paper, no staples, tape, or even glue.
Now we have a boss that’s micromanaging our time and dictating where on the unit we need to be every moment of the night. I used to just jump in to help even with other people’s patients whenever it looked like they could use an extra hand. Now I just don’t have the energy. They’re having meetings monthly to ask why the place is failing while actively choking it to death.
Ironically, most technology is the opposite. At least when you’re designing and developing things, it’s all individuals - you can have assistants or small teams, but institutions don’t invent new things, individuals do.
I don’t mean that pedantically, I mean one or two people were the driving force behind near every innovation. A company can sit those people in a room and fund them for a decade, but you have to keep them happy and leave them alone - if they leave or they’re meddled with too much, you’re back to square one
Big companies can’t innovate (except in monetization)… It’s all done by start ups now. Then they get acquired, and all progress halts
Just makes me think, in science (or academia at least) researchers are tied to their research to maintain their position, rather than their position deciding their research. It’s still a pretty broken system, but between that and the incentive for open collaboration it just makes me think. If every piece of technology was open sourced, if everyone from phone manufacturers to game designers existed in a world where designs could be improved upon, where would we be now?
My best and coolest work projects were basically all done in a caffeine-induced mania and had nothing to do with what my boss thought they needed but wound up creating huge benefits.
I’ve made guides and cheat sheets for legal and medical concepts four my coworkers, I collected a database of over 500 printable pdf activities to entertain my patients and created a nice graphical interface for them on the facility intranet. I even designed board games that can be printed on cardstock so my patients can enjoy themselves but not make weapons or self-injury implements. I can make d6 dice completely out of origami-folded paper, no staples, tape, or even glue.
Now we have a boss that’s micromanaging our time and dictating where on the unit we need to be every moment of the night. I used to just jump in to help even with other people’s patients whenever it looked like they could use an extra hand. Now I just don’t have the energy. They’re having meetings monthly to ask why the place is failing while actively choking it to death.