Overcoming Commoditization

This post here is a must read:

  The problem at Dell wasn’t the CEO. It’s the commodity R&D by ZDNet‘s David Berlind — Michael Dell’s reassumption of the CEO’s post at Dell is a shell game that can do little more than temporarily assuage Wall Street. Let’s be honest. As chairman of the company, Michael Dell had whatever opportunity and access he needed (to the now-ex CEO Kevin Rollins as well as other Dell execs) to implement a [...]

The above post discusses the R&D commodity principle and how Dell’s reliance on it, rather than innovating and developing its own intellectual property (like IBM and SUN), has eaten into its competitiveness.  That discussion, in of itself,  is reason to read the blog entry.  But this concept should make us reflect on how we develop ourselves as solution architects. 

For example, how many of us strive to obtain commodity certifications (MCSE, CISSP, etc) but do not work towards developing our own intellectual property (IP) or a persona separate from industry credentials?  How many of us implement existing technologies rather then participate in the development of new technologies or methodologies? 

Now, I am not saying we should all rush out and become R&D “scientists”.  This is impractical for many reasons. There is still considerable bias in academic circles.  These circles still believe that a PhD (or at the very least master) degree is a requirement for creative and intellectual thinking.  This bias makes it hard to get published in academic journals or convince researchers to use our spare cycles in their acadmeic pursuits. 

Of course, the need for a degree is a huge fallacy and smacks of protectionism, especially when we consider that historically some of the greatest discoveries and innovations were made by people with more passion than formal education.  Therefore, hobbyists (such as ourselves) have as much right to contribute academically and scientifically as people with formal education.

Of course, this brings up the whole issue of scientific process, integrity, and research methodologies.  All of these different elements (and much more) are usually covered in what is called the “Scientific Method”.  This is where many hobbyists fall down, they either don’t understand or try to subvert the scientific method.   This is not good. 

Avoidance or neglect of scientific method destroys the validity of anything one would say.  So if you do not understand scientific method, then please take some time to read-up on it.  As a starting point, go here  for a quick and dirty overview.  The links at the bottom of that page are a great place to begin a deeper discovery.

Another reason that most of us do not or will not participate in R&D is that unless you are one of the fortunate few who work at Google, IBM, etc; a career in R&D does not pay the bills.  Solution architects at the top of their game can make $200k – $300k (man, do I wish I was one of those blokes).  Moreover, proper R&D is time consuming and expensive so unless you are one of those lucky few (e.g. founders/creators of Kaaza, Skype, and now Joost) the possibility of creating a self-funded R&D environment is impractical.

All the above said, it is still possible to innovate and  meet your financial goals. We probably won’t be the next Phil Zimmerman, Linus, or Billy Gates but we can take small but significant steps to create IP or at least a persona that will demonstrate our unique take on mainstream technology.

Start a blog, join a collective or organization writing standards, get involved in an open source project.  Becoming part of the collective knowledge system is a duty for all of us who earn a living off the innovations of others (open source).  Information Technology, has and will continue to change the world.  It is up to us to ensure these changes are for the greater good.  Our lack of involvement or decision to leave innovation to the commercial institutions will still result in great technological advancements, just not necessarily ones that will improve the human condition equally around the world. 

More importantly, especially for those of us just trying to pay the bills, by developing your own IP (white papers, journal articles, writing code, developing software for commercial or GPL) you will stand out from the crowd.  Technology/Solution Architects are becoming common and only those with a proven track record AND evidence of innovative thinking will find the good jobs.  You know, the ones that pay well and let you do things the way you want to do them (the right way).

On my part, I am starting small.  My first foray into the public space is this blog, a few small speaking engagements, and the odd snippet of code.  My next step will be to join a open source project or committee.  My dream or end goal, is to make enough money in my professional life to fund the development of an interoperability lab.  This lab (at least at first) would focus on providing incremental innovations in the semantic web space and converged media. 

But that last one is a dream . . .