We wrapped up NI Week last week and the NIers are all still coming down from the high. Despite all trends to the contrary, we had record attendence and the best NI Week yet. The work to prepare for the event is my excuse, by the way, for not posting for so long. Anyway, here are some of my highlights and observations:
- We have got to change our values in most of the western world with respect to how we view science and engineering versus other professions. Dean Kamen of DEKA Research and inventor of the Segway, among many other things, described this crisis most eloquently and I won’t try to reproduce all of it here. He did made one comparison that I found particularly instructive, though: he described countries and cultures as going through development much like individuals. They start life taking risks and learning quickly and over time become more risk-averse and conservative. In this sense, it is not a coincidence that the US was the great innovator in the world at the beginning of last century; we didn’t have smarter people, we were just willing to take more risks. Now, that risk taking has moved to other regions. He did mention that perhaps the set of crisis that currently face us will push us to reevaluate what is ultimately important in our culture and give us a renewed sense of purpose.
- We announced our co-development project with Tektronix on a high bandwidth PXI digitizer. This project is unique in that it leaverages the strengths of both companies to bring a unique product to the market that neither of us could have done alone. This got me thinking a lot more about the idea o Cooperative Innovation. In fact, I’m currently writing a column for Electronic Design on this subject. Look for it in the next couple of months.
- My kids loved the expo. As engineers, we all need to do a better job engaging our children and children in general on what we do. We often mistakenly think that our work is over their heads or will be boring to them. Instead, creating new things is fascinating to children and we need to encourage this. Of course, the fact that we had a “Robot Petting Zoo” didn’t hurt, either.
- Most of our community has dated impression of what NI does. So many of our key customers, after attending their first NI Week, say ” I now have a completely different impression of NI”. While it remains difficult to explain exactly what it is we do, as a marketer, this lays down a challenge to do a better job presenting our company’s vision to the world.
OK, that’s all I’ve digested for now. Time to get to work on NI Week 2010.