Entrepeneurship…jumping on the bandwagon

Fat startup: Learn the lessons of my failed Lean Startup — Word Sting.by John Finneran, CFA principal of Word Sting

I wanted to comment on the post  linked above, because 1) I am working a bit with the “lean startup” model with student project groups, and 2) I am always a bit skeptical of “flavor of the day” business jargon. I found it interesting that this was posted online shortly after the Harvard Business Review published “Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything” by Steve Blank. This release, in the May 2013 HBR, heralds the alleged “entry” of the lean startup concept into “mainstream” business concepts. While the two posts aren’t directly relevent, John Finneran’s brief description of his own experience in attempting to “implement” lean startup seems instructive at one level–even if “lean” is the right way to go, it might not be easy to do it “right.” It isn’t clear how much of the story might be due to incorrect implementation of the concepts, or whether the concepts are not broadly applicable to all situations. In my own brief experience, I hesitated to fully embrace the full lean startup methodology due to my own concerns along those very lines.

On the other hand, I chose to use the concepts in exactly the same context that Steve Blank implemented them–working with university students who are engaged with “first time” startup efforts. These students are engaged in learning activities, and not primarily in the startup activity (regardless of the rhetoric around the subject). I found the business model canvas and the very slick exciting MOOC of Lean Launchpad to be useful tools for students with little or no experience in business research. In doing so, I hoped to leverage the fame and popularity of “startup party” mentality, hoping this would be motivating to students. I also found this to be an efficient direction, since I don’t have a burning desire to set up my own “school” of thought on the subject. However, I am nothing if not practical, and for me, this model is just one way to have a standard methodology for asking the right questions.

In our student team projects (exploring real-world application of ideas to develop new products or new businesses) there are fewer of the downsides expressed in the “Fat Startup” article. The “potential clients” who are contacted understand that the  “startup” is really part of a class project. The students, no matter how serious they are about moving forward with the new venture, still expect a ‘grade’ for their final efforts. I many of the projects, the effort is being made too early for real “customer” interactions. These students are doing research, and there is no doubt about it. In fact, my expectation is that the majority of the projects will result in “failed” experiments. I try to prepare the students for this by telling them so–but I also tell them they will learn very valuable and practical lessons that they can use when they later find the right path to a startup (or development of a new product).

These projects offer a form of “real world” experience, but maybe not so “real” as that. The reality is in the tasks, but not in the context. The so-called enterprise may be little more than a group composed of college friends and roommates. They generally fit this activity into their overcrowded calendars in the same way they might do for fraternity or sorority functions (whether service or social). I can suggest that they use the Lean Startup methodology for their projects since I find it has some solid elements of logic, but I’m not concerned they will rely on this effort to support themselves (or any dependents). And they aren’t in a position to make promises to customers, just take suggestions and see if they can find a path that looks promising…but they really are planning a future journey.  Their project might involve “getting to the station” as their first “step” and they still have the option to take another train (or even consider an entirely different mode of travel, maybe a boat).

Don’t get me wrong–I wouldn’t suggest the model to my students if I didn’t find it valuable. I just want them to use their own judgement, and learn how to THINK before they make decisions. This includes the decision on whether, or not, to rely on something like the “lean startup” concept for taking that leap into the deep (and muddy) waters of entrepreneurship. University faculty are in much the same position as students, and they are being given direction to use the lean startup model in their own new ventures (for example, NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps)). I feel this might be useful with some faculty, those who can truly put themselves back into “student” mode for the purposes of learning a subject (business or entrepreneurship) of which they can comfortable admit ignorance. It might not be applicable to all new ventures or to all faculty entrepreneurs.

The moral of the story? Just be careful about jumping on passing bandwagons.

More of a good thing?

Stop Pushing Universities to License More Inventions – Businessweek.

This article argues that perhaps “we” (as in, the administrations of universities, and the government) are trying too hard to push research commercialization.The argument is primarily against special spending for programs and financial incentives to faculty encouraging them to pursue technology transfer.  It is an interesting take on the question of university technology transfer…and I admit, I’m more than a little sympathetic to the views expressed.  Which is unfortunate for me, since there are some who feel that my current role within the university is to find ways to “increase” commercialization levels on our campus.

Granted, I don’t consider this to be the essential role I play in this regard, but others would consider it a “failure” on my part if some metrics related to commercialization don’t “increase.” I tend to take a more balanced approach.  I don’t want to “increase” commercialization, per se. I am working to reduce or remove roadblocks to commercialization when there is a good opportunity to take some research findings to market.  There may be unnecessary difficulties–generally caused by either lack of experience on the part of faculty or administrative or financial issues that limit the perceived upside to pursuit of commercialization.  The article does a good job outlining the failure of “additional” incentives, and points out that the natural incentives exist for those cases where there is a big payoff–and as I often point out to faculty, those tend to be commercialized in spite of so-called barriers to the process. Most faculty aren’t overly influenced by the money argument anyway, although it falls under the category of “great if it happens.”

I’m not sure the article does justice to another aspect of the problem however.  There are instances where there is a clear benefit to taking the research outcomes and making them available in the “real world” but there is not a clear “profit motive” to do so.  Faculty may be very interested in seeing the results of their work applied and in being part of the effort to make this happen.  They are doing research ostensibly to help “solve” problems in many cases. Often, this leads to a lot of confusion as to how the university might proceed. There a quite a few options to consider, such as:

1. Publish the results and make them “freely available.”
2. Pursue some kind of “open innovation” strategy that includes a level of intellectual property protection (such as open source licenses for software).
3. Try to pursue commercialization through entrepreneurship, which may not include licensing of intellectual property.
4. Pretty much do nothing but sometimes think about it, etc.

All of the options while somewhat straightforward can lead to paralysis by analysis and other common forms of deadlock. Especially if the people involved (the research team) are inexperienced and unfamiliar with the process. The researchers have a goal that is consistent with technology transfer and licensing, but without all of the pieces coming together properly.

For example, their response may be to publish, but this winds up being unsatisfactory because there is no clear transfer of an idea into use. If there is a decision to hold off publishing, it may be that there is a naive belief that they will be able to enter into a commercialization relationship, and if they can’t it wouldn’t be fair if “someone else” got to make money off of the “idea” from the university.  Conversely, potential partners may be confused as well, if there is not a clear IP position that can be evaluated so they can make a decision to “license or not license.” There may be some strategies that the faculty can pursue in these cases, but as the article in Business Week points out, adding incentives doesn’t solve them.

The article further references an earlier publication,  by Richard Jensen of Notre Dame and Marie and Jerry Thursby of Georgia Tech titled “Disclosure and licensing of university inventions: ‘The best we can do with the s**t we get to work with.’” (click here for this paper). The Businessweek article notes the following (emphasis added):

The title, taken from a comment made by one of the licensing officers, sums up what happens when you give universities an incentive to commercialize additional faculty inventions but you can’t do anything to improve the quality of the inventions themselves.

Now, you can perhaps characterize those situations that I refer to above in this way–the “inventions” are not of proper “quality” to license. As a licensing manager, I can help faculty work through the problems and see if there really is a diamond in the rough, but we can’t make a diamond out of a piece of coal.  But notice, a piece of coal can still be worth something. And it can still be important to someone, even if there is no clear-cut way to “commercialization” for that.

There are incentives for most licensing offices to work ONLY with faculty who have the “quality inventions” and no incentives for those same licensing officers to find a way to “work with” the so-call “s**t” as it were (note, I don’t approve of a licensing office using  that attitude when referring to an invention disclosure–although I can feel a bit of empathy). So perhaps there is some room for universities to take some steps to encourage efforts at commercialization, and some of this may be in the form of incentives (although perhaps changes to incentives for licensing staff, not the faculty). The moral of the story is that incentives aren’t necessarily the best answer in all situations, and as they say…be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.

IUPUI Research Day : Happening @ IUPUI : IUPUI

IUPUI Research Day : Happening @ IUPUI : IUPUI.

Poor judgment and bad decisions

Infographic Created by: ClinicalPsychology.net

This posting isn’t particularly related to technology transfer, and not even strictly speaking to intellectual property. But I found this infographic to be quite interesting, and it struck a nerve with me, especially due to the recent news coverage of Jonah Lehrer‘s unfortunate decisions in writing his latest book (for reference and to read more about the story click here).  There is a common theme to both that leaves me troubled and sympathetic at the same time.

The troubling aspect is that there are certain individuals who apparently think some “rules” apply to other people, but who are more flexible when applying these to their own situation.  This is true even for some our society would consider the most well educated and intelligent. Perhaps they feel their own intelligence is a license to make a “judgment call” about whether, or not, a rule is a good one.  Maybe they even convince themselves that they are correct in the “spirit of the law” as it were, and that others don’t comprehend all of the nuances of their “particular” situation. They may claim to see no rational justification for a particular rule.

Nonetheless, the rules, or the laws, exist for a reason.

Even IF you can make an argument that a particular rule or law is inherently flawed, that doesn’t justify making a decision to break it unless you also acknowledge this is what you are doing.  I  have no problem with someone taking a stand against an unjust law or an unreasonable and arbitrary rule.  But when the rules or principles of good scholarship are violated by a researcher as described in the infographic, it undermines the foundation on which other researchers are attempting to build new knowledge. Researchers who do this are intentionally making choices to enhance their own professional status, to add achievements or successes to their reputation that are fraudulant.  In this situation, researchers are allowing self promotion to trump the social contract that is essential for the research community. The scientific research enterprise has evolved such that researchers are meant to benefit from the work of others, in order to advance the overall body of knowledge in a particular field. There may be situations in which, truly, one is only hurting oneself with bad decisions, but this is not one of them.

The sympathic response is just a reflex, as I realize that in so many cases these researchers–academics, scientists, scholars–are only human, and it is so easy to slip into these habits. Most of the training or mentorship that people receive is focused on field specific knowledge (Jonah Lehrer, for example, has an undergraduate degree from Columbia with a major in neuroscience).  Students are expected to master large bodies of scientific or technical knowledge, while some of the ethical and/or philosophical principles of scholarship and research is given little emphasis.

Even when someone with a great deal of interest and motivation to learn and understand attempts to grapple with some of these issues, it can become confusing.  What is the difference between copyright infringement and plagarism?  Can you truly “plagarize” your own work?  For me, it’s natural to assume that someone didn’t really “mean” to do something wrong, as I like to think the best of people, especially of those engaged in scientific or scholarly research. But there seems to be an element of defiance in some of this behavior.  Given my experience in academia, I repeatedly encounter students who explicitly discount some of the “older” traditions of scholarship.  Their notions of how to appropriately “paraphrase and cite” another’s work are often made on the assumption that it doesn’t matter that much.  Frequently, they will even defend some of the most egregious examples of plagarism (perhaps, copying entire sections of a Wikipedia article and “changing the words”). Their position appears to be that they are merely playing an intricate game, and that the end results (the appearance of “expertise”) justify their means.

I’m sure that there are multiple levels of self justification and self deception that allow researchers to make this kind of decision.  They may think (or rather “feel” since I can’t say they “think” much at all on this subject) that this is not so different from driving 75 mph in a 70 mph zone–as long as no one gets hurt, and you don’t get caught, what is the harm?  If you go 85 mph, is it that much worse?  Certainly there are all the earmarks of a slippery slope that will lead the unwary or lazy researcher into a spiral of unprofessional and unethical behavior. Likely, each little step seems more akin to a “white lie” and not anything ugly or immoral, like fraud.

Still, it is important for everyone–both as individuals and as a community–to see that the rules and laws that we put into place are good ones, and that everyone understands that it is important to follow them. The rules must truly support the common good, and thus if you follow them it is more beneficial than breaking them.  Even if it seems that breaking the rule will be “better” (for your own benefit at least) this isn’t truly the case.  This is one of the most basic lessons that all good parents attempt to teach their children–yes, the homework is hard and skipping it “feels” better now, but in the long run, you are better off doing it.  Even if you think that it won’t hurt anyone, even if you probably won’t “get caught” it’s still important.

Jonah Lehrer was by all accounts, considered a gifted and insightful writer, but now, each of his prior achievements in life is suspect, so he is certainly paying a price for his own poor judgement.  Perhaps, as a journalistic writer, his actions didn’t undermine a great deal of “serious” scholarship or research, but there is still a cost to society. How many people bought his book with sincere interest and respect for his reputation, only to now feel a sense of betrayal?  They spent some small amount of their own resources on this, perhaps not a huge loss to most of them, but they were defrauded at least to some extent.  For the scientific misconduct described in the infographic, the cost may be unmeasurable.  A scientist who falsifies data may be guilty of steering others away from promising directions that could result in tremendous advances, or lead them afield through false leads, wasting valuable resources in vain pursuit of something that was never there. Thus, my tiny impulse to sympathy is short lived.

If someone is truly confused, and not simply feigning this as a rationalization for their choices, then the answer is to be more open about these issues.  We should be more explicit in teaching students how to properly conduct themselves in the course of research and publication. This  can include more education on how intellectual property rights figure into the equation, but it is important to realize that this is more than an issue of “property rights.” All of us could probably benefit from a bit more self awareness and reflection in their own professional conduct in this respect. I’m sure that many of these people who have admitted “misconduct” might, at one point or another, have written a very similar posting, and felt they would not fall prey to such temptation. Your own “bad habits” might seem small, insignificant but it’s important that you can say you actually made the effort to do the right thing, and not take advantage of the loopholes or rationalizations.