Project patents for AI Inventions

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Patent an invention of an AI system?

Not so fast!

This we learn from David Miessler:

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that AI systems cannot be recognized as inventors of patents. In other words, only a natural person can be an inventor, which is fine, except it won’t stop inventors from using armies of inventor/documentation agents from not only coming up with ideas but writing and submitting all the paperwork. In the name of the human. (Read the source document here)

Will this be the position of the patent office and courts in the U.S.? Who knows, but then there is the question of enforcement of a U.S. AI patent in Europe.

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Compete -- Innovate -- Advance

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"They say" that competition fuels innovation (necessity is the mother of invention, etc).

"They say" that without competition, there's no motivation to innovate.

"They say" that without innovation, societies stagnate and fail; they do not advance.

"They" may have it somewhat wrong, or perhaps it's better to say "they" may have it somewhat incomplete.

From history

Renowned historian Niall Ferguson -- in his masterwork "Civilization" -- makes the point that competition within a closed system -- where "best achievement" is measured by how well the rules of the game are applied and utilized -- does not throw off much in the way of innovative inventions or changes. 

 

Furthermore, if the closed system is dogmatically protective of norms, and will tolerate no challenge to the status quo, inevitably 'protection' becomes the reason for being.

Indeed, 'going rogue', even if successfully innovative, in a closed and dogmatic system is usually not rewarded; such may be penalized instead.

As an example -- admittedly a bit dated -- Ferguson points out that:

• In 17th century western Europe:
• The church was not also the State, and religious diversity was tolerated
  
• Books were being printed
  
• Literacy was motivated by books, and 
• "Natural philosophers" (scientists of the day) were not bound by either the dogma of church or state
  
• There was nothing short of amazing innovation in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and biology.
  
  
• In 17th century Ottoman Empire -- essentially eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa:
• The church was the State
  
• Church dogma actually banned the printing press
  
• Printed books were burned; and 
• Philosophers who disagreed with the church were dealt with harshly. 
• There was no discernible innovation, in spite of the fact that a millennia earlier -- before the Ottoman's -- this area was the very cradle of advanced knowledge.

And so: where is Europe today? Where is the Ottoman Empire today?

What you need to know:

• To advance requires innovation
• To innovate requires freedom of not only thought but action
• To compete in an open framework is the surest way to innovation

 

 

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Coffee shop innovation

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Mr. Andrews and Chelsea Lensing at Coe College are working on another study, about the importance of coffee shops to innovation.

Looking at the expansion of Starbucks from its base in Seattle starting in the 1980s, their preliminary results suggest that patenting activity increased when Starbucks came to town. The same happened when Dunkin’ Donuts, Peet’s Coffee and other chains arrived (*)

Yes, of course, there is the counterpoint: There are many cases of the lonely genius. Although, you might ask, how many of them are quietly doing their thing at a coffee shop?

But more often than not, the informal mixing of disparate ideas, a propensity for a bit of risk taking, and a forgiving professional environment are the ingredients for innovative ideas that take off.

If you don't have it, build it

Don't have a coffee shop nearby? Maybe that's step one: build a coffee shop. And, then build in the relevant policies that allow for "flexible time" at the shop. You might even build it on your premises ... many do.

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(*) From the New York Times, November 3, 2020

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Be Bold; be brave; be calculating

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I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a 27-mile wind . . .

I look with amazement upon our audacity in attempting flights with a new and untried machine under such circumstances.

Yet faith in our calculations and the design of the first machine, based upon our tables of air pressures, secured by months of careful laboratory work, and confidence in our system of control … had convinced us that the machine was capable of lifting and maintaining itself in the air

— Orville Wright, from “How We Made the First Flight” (*)

I hope you were able to read the last sentence, as long as it is -- my editor would have been apocalyptic!

So, what have we got here with O.Wright's statement that can inform project management?

He begins with audacity! Audacity: "a willingness to take bold risks"
To be audacious! Audacity is a risk attitude that is at first personal, but then infects the whole project culture.

But not recklessly bold risks. Audacious is one thing; willful recklessness is entirely different.

Then comes the skill and science

So then comes the science, the engineering, and the risk management to leaven the audacity. Afterall, as we learn from author Jo Nesbo, "Someone will no doubt come up with an opinion with the benefit of hindsight, but we prefer to be wise in foresight".

In this case, wisdom in foresight requires:

• Calculations and tables of metrics
• Careful laboratory work
• Confidence in the system engineering
• Measurable goal: capable of lifting maintaining itself in air
  

And what does the world get with this elixir of bold thinking, careful consideration of risk, and skill-and-science?

• Heavy machines that fly
• Semiconductors of near atomic size
  
• Electric, hydrogen, and possibly others that upend the transportation industry
• Social media
• Private space travel
• And all the other stuff yet to be envisioned!

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(*) Quotation courtesy of Herding Cats

 

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About organization

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"Organization is the enemy of improvisation
It is a long jump from knowing to doing
Committees take the punch out ...."

Lord Beaverbook, Minister of Aircraft Production for Britain in WW II

So, about "organization" Max Beaverbrook is really speaking of bureaucracy that is encumbered by rules designed to put accountability with the institution rather than the individual (just following the rules ....) and thereby contain or restrain those that would go outside the rules.

But wait!

Along comes an emergency and the rules go out the window. Now, risk-taking and entrepreneurship are in, and the organizational pyramid is a shambles. Ad hoc relationship meshes form that connect all the right people, regardless of where they ordinarily fit in the structure.

It's no small matter how flat and responsive an organization can get when the circumstances are dire.
One wonders why it takes an emergency .....

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Distorted reality field

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Imaginative innovation requires acceptance of a distorted reality field

Paraphrase of an observation and commentary by Walter Isaacson

"Distorted reality?
How does that fit with "we're all in this together"; committed scope-cost-schedule-quality; risk management; and "other people's money"?

When I think PMO, I think: Orthodox PM; rules; constraints; commitments; and all the rest
I'm not thinking "distorted reality"

But wait! How about "imagineering"? Disney has it; so could you! Just put the distorted realists off in their world, throw in money, delete for clarity (DFC) all bureaucracy; and sit back, but don't look down.

You might get the next big thing; you might get an Edsel.  

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Inspiration

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Does your work inspire you?

• Super if so
• Frustrating if not

Kristi Hedges tells us in an hbr.org essay that psychologists T. Thrash and A. Elliot have posited three contributors to an inspired work life:

1. We see new possibilities
2. We're receptive to outside influences
3. We've a feeling of energy and motivation

Not working for you? Hedges goes on (I paraphrase her ideas):

• Inaction is your enemy; get up and get moving (my paraphrase)
• Keep on learning; if you think you've arrived at the pinnacle of knowledge for your job (career), you're mistaken. Not learning new stuff is actually going backward; you're knowledge will atrophy
• Expand your network; new people brings new ideas
• Keep it simple; narrow the scope or choices so you can focus and set priorities

The one that works best for me is the "keep on learning".  Writing this blog is an example; you might be amazed at the background reading and research that goes into it, from which I get many ideas for my professional role.
 

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Creative constraints

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Most of us are familiar with the Theory of Constraints as postulated by Eliyahu Goldratt in his famous book: "The Goal".  In ToC, constraints are not good; they're the bad guy

Now, comes along a TED talk that sets up the opposite proposition: Constraints are 'somewhat' the good guy because they frame the issue, estabish a target, and get us beyond "writer's block".

Take a look:
"The power of creative constraints"

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Analyze, optimize, etc

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According to Tom Friedman, author of "The World is Flat, "we’re in the middle of a change in the “climate” of technology."

And .... We’re moving into a world where machines and software can  

• analyze (see patterns that were always hidden before);  
• optimize (tell a plane which altitude to fly each mile to get the best fuel efficiency); 
• prophesize (tell you when your elevator will break and fix it before it does);  
• customize (tailor any product or service for you alone) and  
• digitize and automate just about any job.

This is transforming every industry.

Could it happen to the PM job jar? Perhaps.

Certainly the challenge is to maintain value-add skills and knowledge that are not rules-based. The more your job has elements of randomness, the safer you are

Random is your friend!

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The Lord Beaverbrook model

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Lord Beaverbrook, a genious in getting things done with big bureaucracy under the extreme pressure of war, had this philosophy

Organization is the enemy of improvisation
It is a long jump from knowing to doing
Committees take the punch out of .....  [fill in the blank]

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Lord Beaverbrook was a close advisor and confidant of Winston Churchill during WW II. His genius: making processes work. His first job was making the production of aircraft stupendous enough to win the "Battle of Britain" in the air in 1940.

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Auteur model of innovation

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Good grief!  Yet another model to learn about.  Now we hear about the auteur model of innovation, an idea coined by John Kao, an innovation guru.

Auteur: an innovator that has a distinctly personal style and maintains artistic control over all design and production aspects of his/her work [a definition adapted for projects from the film industry where the auteur model has been practiced for many years].

Sounds a bit autocratic!  Whatever happened to the empowered team and even more broadly: the wisdom of the crowds?  What happened to the embedded customer model--think: SCRUM -- and other customer-intimacy models like the market leader ideas of Treacy and Wiersema? 

Indeed! where is system engineering in this model?
In our world, the project world, and especially the technology project world where anyone can have an idea, the auteur model is a rare occurrence; a successful implementation, sustained over time, is even more rare.But take a look at the poster child for the auteur model:  today that is Apple.

Without its innovative leader, the company foundered; with its bold visionary, the company prospered. And, in a decidedly not-agile way of doing things, it is said Apple never asks its customers anything.  They sure did not ask about a name for the iPad!
 
Obviously, the dependency on one personality is Risk 1 for this model -- both an upside opportunity and a downside risk.  For the successful, it's evident opportunity triumphs! Obviously, Tim Cook is having a good run post Steve Jobs; but I think everyone would agree Jobs set the bar.But it's evident that Apple, and others with this model, go a step or two further.

• Step 1: make  your own market where one didn't exist;
• Step 2: exploit that market with the simplest possible product that has the highest possible wow! factor. 
• And, step 3: guard the gate!  Be selective about letting others ride the coattails of your own auteurist [is that a word?]

Mr Kao writes: "Mr. Jobs is undeniably a gifted marketer and showman, but he is also a skilled listener to the technology. He calls this “tracking vectors in technology over time,” to judge when an intriguing innovation is ready for the marketplace.

Skilled listener?  Perhaps so.  One of the mantra's of the agile movement today is to be value on simplicity.  Apple has certainly gotten that.   Jobs told us that the floppy was dead 18mos before it was indeed dead; and now Cook has done away with the headphone jack (gasp!)

  The best possible example of the wisdom of simplicity.  Not that things Apple builds are simple; they are simply minimally complex!

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Morse code on a Smart Phone?

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OMG! Now we learn about an experiment to "simplify" typing on a smart phone -- perhaps someday coming to you. Google has been thinking about a variant of Morse Code they call TAP

Don't remember your Morse? Perhaps you remember this:

Of course, on a smart phone, it's much "simpler". You merely 'tap' on two large buttons, one for dot and one for dash. The code is simpler also:

So, what's the connection to project management? Well, consider the ideas of simple,complicated, and complex:

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• Simple: The least complicated or complex possible (for the situation)
• Complicated: a lot of parts
• Complex: complicated, but also burdened with a lot of part-to-part interactions, many of which are difficult to predict

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If you were the project manager working with the product manager on TAP how would the conversation go? Presumably the goal is a faster typing experience, one attuned to the world of digraphs and trigraphs like LOL and OMG, etc. And, faster is supposed to be better--less overhead for the same message content.

But is two-button TAP really simpler than a 26 letter keyboard, 10 more for numbers, and a few more for special characters? It would seem so: 2 is surely more simple that 36+. Of course, the information content behind each of the 36+ is much greater than the information content behind one tap of TAP. Thus, it seem from an information encoding perspective TAP is going backward to 1890.

On the other hand, just as Morse was developed with efficiency in mind (the most common letter in the English alphabet is "E", so the Morse symbol is one "dot"), I imagine that TAP will go the same way. Whole thoughts, like LOL, will be simply encoded and perhaps the actual throughput will go up. We'll have to see how the smart phone generation handles this.

On the other hand, it could go the way of other Google innovations. Perhaps the Google folks should read Everett Rogers "Diffusion of Innovation".

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Disruptive defined -- again!

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I'm not one to obsess over the number of angels on the head of a pin, but a recent posting about what's disruptive and what's not caught my eye -- to wit: an innovation that captures and exploits excess capacity may well be disruptive even it doesn't it the traditional definition that it must come from below from a less capable competitor

The poster child for this idea is the smart phone that exploits the excess capacity in a mobile telephone to do decidedly non-telephonic things. Certainly disruptive! Does anyone have a land line anymore? But it didn't come for a poor below the horizon start-up. Apple was a big dog before the iphone, etc.

For those of us raised on the Theory of Constraints, 'exploiting excess' is certainly a different book. In the ToC world, the idea is all about efficiency: maximize the capacity and capability of the least capable functionality, and then do no more!

But then fostering disruption is not about efficiency; it's about creating and promoting and adopting new effectiveness, even if a bit chaotic. So, if you're out to be disruptive, the button-down is out and the t-shirts are in! The precision of project management is subordinate to eccentric ideas and free thinking. (Does PMI know this?)

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Innovation or efficiency

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For F.W. Taylor, the scientific management guy, success was to be found in efficiency. He was the guy with the process stop watch and the job descriptions. But recently, efficiency has given way to innovation, even in PM. Traditional methods, honed and efficient, have been displaced by agile and empirical methods, not particularly efficient they are, but resilient with failure, to be sure.

WW II  and innovation
Now, it may seem that a war that ended some 60 years ago this summer is a bit distant to connect to contemporary dots. But no! WW II ushered profound changes into the culture and society of the United States that is fuel for the innovation fire.

• WW II empowered 50% of our workforce for the first time. Women entered the workforce in large numbers doing jobs never open to them before. They have never looked back
  
  WW II beget the 'GI Bill' that sent millions to college and all but invented the modern middle class from which yet more innovation, inventiveness, and entrepreneurship has arisen.
  

The scope of WW II projects was unprecedented, leading to the military-industrial complex that defined and codified program management, system engineering, risk management, analog simulation, and a host of other project practices heretofore unknown or undefined.

• WW II unleashed innovation as no other world event. The modern research university was empowered. During the war, the laboratories at MIT and CalTech and Stanford were at the forefront of new ideas, inventions, and applications. Since then, a multitude of research universities have been drivers of the innovation explosion in the United States.
• Although the war drove atomic science, atomic science drove quantum mechanics, an understanding of the sub-atomic structure. From this we have all manner of semiconductors that have in turn been the underpinning of the information age.

Throughput won the war
The enormous industrialization of WW II all but put defined process control on the map. Repeatable process and process control gave us unprecedented throughput. Who knew you could build 55K ships and 600K aircraft in four years?

And now, we have "throughput accounting" which many say is the only way to value projects: the value is in the "add", ignoring the infrastructure and permanent staff sustaining cost that gets allocated into the project overhead.

The "good" war?
It sounds like "...there's nothing like a good war".  But that's not the case.  The emergency of warfare has always raised the bar.

Before the U.S. civil war in the mid 19th century, railroads as a means for tactical support for forces was unheard of; so also electronic messaging ... the telegraph in those days ... changed not only the timeliness of reporting, it changed forever the influence of "high command" on the tactics of the moment.

What we can say:
Innovation, as a consequence of great national emergency, is the sidebar that always gets a boost.

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Adm Rickover on 'good ideas'

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Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.

Admiral Hyman Rickover

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Quoted by Jurgen Appelo


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Is genius a force multiplier?

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In military circles a "force multiplier" is a factor, capability, or other influence that has the effect of making the force larger or more effective than it physically is. Instead of massed troops, a less awesome force -- multiplied up in some way by a force multiplier -- has the effective impact of the larger force.

Does this idea apply to our domain: project management?

It could of course.

One possibility is the impact of a true genius. Can one individual have the impact of many? Possibly.

We've all played the management training game of having a team solve a problem more effectively than one individual -- but can it work in reverse? Can the intersection of genius with project teams really work?

Genius is often iconoclastic... a challenge to all the norms. Genius is often temperamental, intolerant, arrogant, and self-centered.  We know: arrogant people take risks; arrogance begets mistakes.

Not exactly your team player, but hey!... the genius is supposed to have an extraordinary impact; not necessarily to blend into a team

And, here's some news you can use: You can't schedule epiphanies; you can't schedule break-through innovation; you can't schedule the next discovery of a new law of physics. And, you can't schedule the impact of genius...

But over time, something is bound to happen if a genius is given latitude: arrogance, intemperance, etc are accepted as the cost of doing business. That of course is the power of small business with little bureaucracy... nothing administratively to get in the way (and vice versa: don't look for break-out genius in a large organization, Apple perhaps excepted... but only because Jobs was at the top)

So, back to PM: can you make room for genius among your project processes, metrics, and dashboards?

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Lean entrepreneur in the enterprise

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Brandt Cooper added something to the body of knowledge at the Australia 2014 Agile conference in Melbourne. His topic is the lean entrepreneur, though there's not much in the presentation that is lean specific. Nonetheless it's a worthy read about the trials and tribulations of the experimenter - entrepreneur

He starts off by declaring that there are two upfront killers of entrepreneurial innovation:

• a demand for ROI and 
• a demand to know when innovation will arrive. 

Likely so.

What caught my eye was the use of these charts to develop his ideas that it's not all predictable, not all estimateable, not at all a sure thing worth of a ROI commitment, and certainly not easily put on a calendar.... Thus our Hero!

And, don't forget the change thing....

 

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Too many cooks in the kitchen!

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We've all seen situations where there are too many people in the mix all working on the same problem (when not multi-tasking on one of their screens). So, it should come as no surprise that we hear this wisdom from the corner office:

We’re known for having very small meetings, usually three people. There’s a little clicker for counting people that hangs on the main conference room door.

The reason it’s there is to send a message to people that I care about this issue. If there’s a bunch of people in the room, I’ll stick my head in and say, “It takes 10 of you to decide this? There aren’t three of you smart enough to do this?”

I just hate design by consensus. No innovation happens with 10 people in a room. It’s very easy to be a critic and say why something won’t work. I don’t want that because new ideas are like these little precious things that can die very easily.

Two or three people will nurture it, and make it stronger, give it a chance to see life.

Paul English, co-founder and CTO of Kayak,

in an interview by Adam Bryant

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The art of invention

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I take a certain pride in being an alumnus of Georgia Tech.

Without GT, there might not be WD-40 or Elmer's Glue! (Invented by GT guys) Good grief...

But, moving on from glue, the image at right is a nano-tube rendering of the famous GT logo created by a team at Tech’s Nanotechnology Lab. Nanotubes are cylindrical structures built of carbon; each “GT” is about 50 micrometers wide. (A micrometer is one millionth of a meter.)

Nano technology is great stuff, but greater still will be the practical inventions that come from it and may other budding technologies. But, who will do the basic research and the applied inventing?

By coincidence (which I pass along to you) I read an interview on this question, and shortly thereafter viewed a TED talk that are thematically aligned.

The interview was with Nancy Nersessıan, "... a Regents professor of cognitive science at Georgia Tech, .. who .. conducts ... research into the art of innovation—how scientists and inventors actually think."

Speaking of famous scientists and researchers, she says: "What we’re taught often is that you make a hypothesis, deduce a result and then test it empirically. But that’s not what they did. They went through a different process. I call it model-based reasoning. It’s the engine of creativity. It’s what drove people to their solutions."

And what is a model? (I get this question a lot): "A model is an integrated representation that provides an interpretation of the phenomena under investigation. Models are selective (you can’t model everything) and are constructed to exemplify what are considered to be the important features of phenomena, and so a good model focuses the mind on the cognitively relevant features and enables manipulation of these."

What makes a productive researcher/inventor? "A major one is cognitive flexibility—the ability to see something from different perspectives. ... I think philosophy is great training for any scientist. It teaches you how to formulate problems. It teaches you how to think—how to understand things conceptually. ... Music also fosters creativity more broadly. Einstein played the violin.

It's this last idea that brings me to TED. Ken Robinson has a very large library of videos on TED, and he is a prolific author with a new book just released. The video below is the all-time most viewed video on TED with over 4.7M views.

In this video, you'll hear this: "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original"
And Robinson's definition of creativity: "... original ideas that have value"

About the difference between (for example in our domain) a project model and a human factors model is the difference between what he calls the industrial model and human flourishing model. The former is characterized by: linearity, conformity, and batching. The latter by the antithesis of the industrial model with one important other feature: outcomes are not predictable.

Spoiler alert: some laughing may be required!

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Haptics: the technology of touch

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Got six minutes to spare for viewing a TED video? Here's one that will add new words to your technology vocabulary, starting with 'haptics', the technology of touch.

Katherine Kuchenbecker is a mechanical engineer practicing at the University of Pennsylvania. She does experiments in haptics.

What's the big idea here?  To add a heretofore unavailable human factor to what we can already see and hear, to wit: synthesized touch.

This can be used to train those that work with their hands, like doctors and artists, about what something is going to feel like when they encounter it for real. So also rehabilitation of those with artifical limbs

And, ever stared through glass case in a museum and wonder what the object felt like? Just put you and on a senor pad to 'feel' the object. (Hand cleaner supplied separately)

If you're running an engineering project, you might hear words like these from your SME's
Tactile: referring to contact location, pressure, shear, slip, vibration, temperature
Kinesthetic: referring to position, orientation, force

If you like this TED video, you might also follow-up with this TED video, materials and technologies you might see in your next project (Caution: risk mangement required!)

• Building blocks that blink, beep and teach: (5:27) TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir introduces littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable blocks that make programming as simple and important a part of creativity as snapping blocks together.
  For project prototypes, human factor experimentation, and putting down options, these may be a project winner    

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