No worries, the title is from an address by Hugh Robert Mill to the international Arts and Sciences Congress in St. Louis in 1904. Not sure anymore how it found its way to me, think I was googling Jstor and came across it at Jstore . It is published in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society.
If writings could be eloquent, this address certainly is. Some samples:
- “To begin with, the ground should be cleared by wiping off the globe the words terra incognita.”
- “The map of the world ought to be completed, and it is the duty and, I believe, the interest of every country to complete that portion which includes its own territory.”
- “Unsurveyed and unmapped territory is a danger as well as a disgrace, to the country possessing it; and it would hardly be too much to say that boundary disputes would be unknown if new lands were mapped before their mineral wealth is discovered.”
- “The acquisition of knowledge is a simple process, for which multitudes have a natural aptitude; but the co-ordination of knowledge and its advancement are very different matters.”
- “A more serious difficulty is that different languages favour different modes of thought, and thus lead to different methods of classification.”
- “It is the nemesis of the temptation to adopt a plausible and probably true hypothesis for the demonstrated truth and to proclaim broad and attractive generalizations on the strength of individual cases”.
I rest my case. I must end with this quote: “The methods of journalism – even the best journalism –are to be absolutely discouraged in science”. The content of the address is also very interesting, will get back to that later. Some of the problems of the past have not yet been resolved.
Wat een week, vol theorie en praktijk! Dinsdagochtend mocht ik onverwachts deelnemen aan de Masterclass Open Innovation and Corporate Enterpreneurship (jawel) bij Climate-KIC. Mijn social media filter is redelijk afgesteld – dacht ik – maar blijkbaar toch niet 100%: ik was hier zeker graag vanaf het begin bij aanwezig geweest: interessante groep mensen en uiteraard een zeer interessant onderwerp: Open Innovatie. Helemaal geweldig om Prof. Henry Chesbrough eens persoonlijk te ontmoeten, ik kon zijn one-liners amper bijhouden. Nog even zijn laatste boek bestellen.. het is er even bij ingeschoten.
Woendagavond de eerste Dev Meetup van Esri in Nederland. Ik had van te voren al wat data gezocht en de website Volg Innovatie gevonden, met daarop ook een “Innovatie op de kaart”. Die kaart geeft mij wel wat inzicht, maar het is toch lastig om te vinden waar er nu veel wordt geïnvesteerd en of het nu open of gesloten trajecten betreft. Open data to the rescue: het data bestand is ook te downloaden!
In een uurtje resulteert dat in onderstaande kaarten. Een snelle interpretatie: weinig projecten met “geen partners” (ik heb maar paars gekozen, rood vind ik wat te sterk uitgedrukt) en sommige regios zien er wel erg leeg uit. Maar dat is slechts een snelle interpretatie, van een snel gemaakt kaartje….
Of course there are none, but I often find myself in discussions where the point is made that these rules do exist. Hence I thought it would make a nice contribution as a topic for a lecture to students, who are about the endeavor on a research project.
On Strategy
Basically an introduction to the different schools of strategy (Mintzberg) with special attention to the Deliberate vs Emergent part of Realized Strategies. Good remark from the audience: that may very well resemble a thesis project. My main point: see strategy as a mashup of strategies and recognize these different schools.
On (open) innovation
First I gave an introduction to innovation, what it is and what it is not, who has which role to play in innovation, who benefits from innovation, … Then I put ideas.arcgis.com in an open innovation perspective. My main message was that the relevance of your role in innovation (as organisations are becoming more poreus) has increased, so claim that role!
I did shared a few tips as well (observe strategy from firms by their actions, not their words – who said that?; discussions on open innovation are best started with stating where you are closed) and in return received some good questions (is it smarter to be a second mover instead of a first mover? What do you recommend we study? How does Esri take decisions to go e.g. from AML to Python)?
Always interesting to discuss and present on the topics of strategy and open innovation. Looking forward to read a few thesis’s in a few months time!