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Scientists, national growth and Kingston's toilets
Franklin JOHNSTON
Friday, September 02, 2011
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1Wp9RGO2U
It is time we stop playing head games with our economy when it comes to innovation. If you hear the words "science" or "innovation" or "technology", some twit is about to speak fuzzy high-sounding words which mean absolutely zilch! Commercial innovation requires people with roots in science but few scientists know production; most are elitist, in medicine, pure science, academia and few are in industry, commerce, services - the areas we need to grow. We have the wrong scientists! A science adviser may have the right image and words, but not the right skills. Cabinet needs a strategy to grow state and private sector innovation and also elicit it from taxpayer-funded universities which now consume more than they produce.
Science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) is the core of growth strategies. The STEM we need to grow isn't esoteric, arcane high science, but mundane know-how as levers, torque, matter and how to work. We are weak in this know-how and many with degrees can't find a level, plumb or square - can you? We need a focus on STEM from primary level, some special secondary schools, a dedicated campus and ruthless strategies to achieve results in business and the state sector. It will not happen by the normal route! A big job is to embed STEM in the civil service and if ministries are in functional groups - production, infrastructure, health and human services, legal and regulatory services - each with a czar to drive results, it is easier. The production group - agriculture, industry, tourism, mining, energy - the axis of growth and prosperity needs a top executive, a "production czar" to monitor, benchmark and derive results. In the private sector, if Cabinet says that local goods must be compliant with US standards this will fast-breed STEM in business and we will buy local!
MANY SCIENTISTS do not know about business. Do you see them debating production, nuclear energy, manufacturing processes, export, labour productivity or matters related to growth? No!
They embrace high science, but low technology and shop floor innovation is what delivers the quick returns and ignites growth. High scientists have not served us well. Some rubber stamp Cabinet's high-tech biases but high-tech is not inclusive and may alienate poorly educated workers. If the mechanic sees your car and puts back his tools you know his brain is closed to car computers! We need a raft of basic technologies to deliver volume production and habilitate workers in industry, services, farming and government to a culture of innovation. High scientists are lost in industry and may escalate hands-on issues to justify their presence. We need scientists who can adapt and adopt low-tech innovation in the workplace and start our technology revolution. How do we seed innovation? Is there a fail-safe strategy to guide
us? Yes!
FIRST, copy, copy, copy! We are not expert at making everyday items so we can't export most things we make. Why? They are shoddy! Do our detergents or personal-care items sell abroad? We harm our ladies' hands and bodies with chemicals but we can't do this abroad! We make world-class condensed milk thanks to expert copying by good scientists, managers and workers. We must replicate this. Copy everyday items to US standards in export volume and we get local quality by default. Japan started by copying, China too - they copied Rolex, etc, for years as that's how skills are honed. India copies and we can still buy a copy Lister engine or the Ambassador (Morris Oxford) car with improved suspension for Indian roads - loved by taxi men. Brazil made the old VW, Russia the old Fiat (Lada) and now have their own cars. Copying is a necessary precursor to innovation. We should start copying! Assembly and copying quality products is the route to transfer industrial skills to people and get ready for manufacture and innovation. Do we have generics - say, in pharmaceuticals? Our scientists want a Nobel prize; we need factories to make tablets, capsules for the world. Our national goals conflict with personal aspirations and neither serves us. Our science is ego and image, yet none can show their patents and innovation in the market! Copying is the ABC of innovation. We used to laugh at Japanese goods. Copy, become expert, the rest will come!
PRODUCT improvement is next. Copying frees a manufacturer to focus on cost, quality, and market feedback allows him to improve. We make no quality toilet tissue. If we make quality, move to a five-inch perforation and two-second absorption - we may have a new product to displace imports, carry our brand and go global - everyone wins! Make premium goods for us locals and export is now easy! Poor goods can't be exported! JMA, look at yourself and repent!
INNOVATION is our goal. In business it is product and market-linked and usually comes from within. We have little, as our top scientists have no connection to or training in manufacture, and copying is beneath them. Which top scientist is in industry or services firms? A few big food firms, yes! A STEM university is vital to training product and process scientists. They can link staff to firms to develop hands-on skill. Our best scientists are too set in their ways so the young ones must choose new majors, get into construction, manufacturing, services in the private and public sectors. How many product or process patents do UWI and UTech hold? They can change! Cabinet must link some of their funding to innovation for industry and government. They must "patent or perish"! We need STEM specialists by industry and product in all entities to build a culture of innovation. We need more so let's train them!
KINGSTON's recent plan to erect public wash houses and toilets is an indictment of our politicians. In the 18th century we had communal toilets and wash houses, but these were cutting-edge hygiene, even in England.
They are backward today. Bathrooms in-house came in the 19th century. Our ministers are posers, they parade technology and innovation and how modern we are. So why do we build community toilets for our 50th Independence? They went out a century ago! Did my mayor approve it? Our scientists? Does Cabinet have no respect or value for people? What shall we tell our kids? Our visitors? How far can we fall? Our PM says we are "technology-driven"; a "great place to live, work and bring up children". Community toilets are the antithesis of Vision 2030! Our capital is 300 years old and we are to spend millions to erect outside toilets in 2011. Wow, "Tenk yu, Massa!" Are in-house toilets a luxury? If MPs lived in their constituencies every house would have a bathroom and people would have their privacy. I weep for my venerable capital city. Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1Wp92Ry8Z
Franklin JOHNSTON
Friday, September 02, 2011
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1Wp9RGO2U
It is time we stop playing head games with our economy when it comes to innovation. If you hear the words "science" or "innovation" or "technology", some twit is about to speak fuzzy high-sounding words which mean absolutely zilch! Commercial innovation requires people with roots in science but few scientists know production; most are elitist, in medicine, pure science, academia and few are in industry, commerce, services - the areas we need to grow. We have the wrong scientists! A science adviser may have the right image and words, but not the right skills. Cabinet needs a strategy to grow state and private sector innovation and also elicit it from taxpayer-funded universities which now consume more than they produce.
Science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) is the core of growth strategies. The STEM we need to grow isn't esoteric, arcane high science, but mundane know-how as levers, torque, matter and how to work. We are weak in this know-how and many with degrees can't find a level, plumb or square - can you? We need a focus on STEM from primary level, some special secondary schools, a dedicated campus and ruthless strategies to achieve results in business and the state sector. It will not happen by the normal route! A big job is to embed STEM in the civil service and if ministries are in functional groups - production, infrastructure, health and human services, legal and regulatory services - each with a czar to drive results, it is easier. The production group - agriculture, industry, tourism, mining, energy - the axis of growth and prosperity needs a top executive, a "production czar" to monitor, benchmark and derive results. In the private sector, if Cabinet says that local goods must be compliant with US standards this will fast-breed STEM in business and we will buy local!
MANY SCIENTISTS do not know about business. Do you see them debating production, nuclear energy, manufacturing processes, export, labour productivity or matters related to growth? No!
They embrace high science, but low technology and shop floor innovation is what delivers the quick returns and ignites growth. High scientists have not served us well. Some rubber stamp Cabinet's high-tech biases but high-tech is not inclusive and may alienate poorly educated workers. If the mechanic sees your car and puts back his tools you know his brain is closed to car computers! We need a raft of basic technologies to deliver volume production and habilitate workers in industry, services, farming and government to a culture of innovation. High scientists are lost in industry and may escalate hands-on issues to justify their presence. We need scientists who can adapt and adopt low-tech innovation in the workplace and start our technology revolution. How do we seed innovation? Is there a fail-safe strategy to guide
us? Yes!
FIRST, copy, copy, copy! We are not expert at making everyday items so we can't export most things we make. Why? They are shoddy! Do our detergents or personal-care items sell abroad? We harm our ladies' hands and bodies with chemicals but we can't do this abroad! We make world-class condensed milk thanks to expert copying by good scientists, managers and workers. We must replicate this. Copy everyday items to US standards in export volume and we get local quality by default. Japan started by copying, China too - they copied Rolex, etc, for years as that's how skills are honed. India copies and we can still buy a copy Lister engine or the Ambassador (Morris Oxford) car with improved suspension for Indian roads - loved by taxi men. Brazil made the old VW, Russia the old Fiat (Lada) and now have their own cars. Copying is a necessary precursor to innovation. We should start copying! Assembly and copying quality products is the route to transfer industrial skills to people and get ready for manufacture and innovation. Do we have generics - say, in pharmaceuticals? Our scientists want a Nobel prize; we need factories to make tablets, capsules for the world. Our national goals conflict with personal aspirations and neither serves us. Our science is ego and image, yet none can show their patents and innovation in the market! Copying is the ABC of innovation. We used to laugh at Japanese goods. Copy, become expert, the rest will come!
PRODUCT improvement is next. Copying frees a manufacturer to focus on cost, quality, and market feedback allows him to improve. We make no quality toilet tissue. If we make quality, move to a five-inch perforation and two-second absorption - we may have a new product to displace imports, carry our brand and go global - everyone wins! Make premium goods for us locals and export is now easy! Poor goods can't be exported! JMA, look at yourself and repent!
INNOVATION is our goal. In business it is product and market-linked and usually comes from within. We have little, as our top scientists have no connection to or training in manufacture, and copying is beneath them. Which top scientist is in industry or services firms? A few big food firms, yes! A STEM university is vital to training product and process scientists. They can link staff to firms to develop hands-on skill. Our best scientists are too set in their ways so the young ones must choose new majors, get into construction, manufacturing, services in the private and public sectors. How many product or process patents do UWI and UTech hold? They can change! Cabinet must link some of their funding to innovation for industry and government. They must "patent or perish"! We need STEM specialists by industry and product in all entities to build a culture of innovation. We need more so let's train them!
KINGSTON's recent plan to erect public wash houses and toilets is an indictment of our politicians. In the 18th century we had communal toilets and wash houses, but these were cutting-edge hygiene, even in England.
They are backward today. Bathrooms in-house came in the 19th century. Our ministers are posers, they parade technology and innovation and how modern we are. So why do we build community toilets for our 50th Independence? They went out a century ago! Did my mayor approve it? Our scientists? Does Cabinet have no respect or value for people? What shall we tell our kids? Our visitors? How far can we fall? Our PM says we are "technology-driven"; a "great place to live, work and bring up children". Community toilets are the antithesis of Vision 2030! Our capital is 300 years old and we are to spend millions to erect outside toilets in 2011. Wow, "Tenk yu, Massa!" Are in-house toilets a luxury? If MPs lived in their constituencies every house would have a bathroom and people would have their privacy. I weep for my venerable capital city. Stay conscious!
Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants currently on assignment in the UK.
franklinjohnston@hotmail.com
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1Wp92Ry8Z