Does state-sponsored innovation work? Ask Russia -http://nyti.ms/cKvNd5 via / @NYTimes

Here’s the direct link to single-page view. My replies:

1. @robertgrevey Ugh. Soviet-style ‘innovation.’ My grandfather ran a nuc sub research center there. Little innovation happened w/out the KGB.
   @robertgrevey The article cites the # of Russians the Bay. Neglects to mention that many, like Sergei Brin, fled systemic antisemitism.

I tried to find the buried lede that would best summarize this proto-Soviet adventure. The most telling line:

…the new city was conceived by what is called the Commission on Modernization

At least the Times wasn’t credulous enough to swallow the party line, but they failed to provide the necessary context. Perhaps rightly believing it to be obvious and reducing my invective below to irrelevancy.

Soviet innovation wouldn’t have existed without the KGB assisting in the reverse-engineering of Western technology (casually mentioned American equipment mysteriously appearing on scientists’ desks, completed plans emerging from the ether), or the lower ethical standards of Soviet science and its willingness to sacrifice human life. That’s no aspersion on the scientsists themselves, but rather on the flaws of Soviet isolationism, both on a national scale and in the microcosms of research cities.

They crushed Georgian innovation, marginalized, murdered and exiled the Jews (do I even need to cite references for this?), and emerged a Dutch disease blighted autocracy with atavistic delusisons of empire, dissipating and depopulating itself with drink at a rate matching the casualties of the Great Patriotic War.

The Times continues:

For nationalistic Russian officials, it only rubs salt in the wounds that Silicon Valley companies so easily recruit bright Russian scientists. AmBar, the Russian business association, estimates that 30,000 to 60,000 Russian-speaking professionals work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A marquee name in the high-tech world, the Google co-founder Sergei Brin, immigrated to the United States from Russia with his parents when he was a child. Had Russia been a different place, perhaps Mr. Brin might have started Google there instead of in Silicon Valley.

Mentioning the Jewish Sergey Brin in this context is akin to the Antebellum South lamenting that Frederick Douglass chose to pursue his career elsewhere.

Besides, new ideas in technology emerge from density (the Valley’s suburban distances notwithstanding), amplifying the diversity of thought. They come from people negotiating the spaces between disciplines. They acuminate on interaction with customers and the market. All of these elements are missing in the silo of a research city. Boffins aren’t immune from the reality outside of their village palisades.

With SV innovation focused on disrupting and democratizing media and back-channel connections (the utterly forgettable Fouresquare and Gowalla aside; if anything, they make it easier for the Politburo to keep tabs on those threateningly capricious early adopters), what’s the likelhood of something competitive emerging in a country that makes a habit of assassinating dissidents and journalists?

The only ideas to emerge out of Russia that channel the open spirit of the internet have been Chatroulette, started by a 17-year old in his bedroom, and the black market for stolen credit cards.

What a sad waste of Russian talent, forged in a culture that venerated the engineer, the chess grandmaster, the scientist (but notably, not the intellectual; a necessity for an entrepreneurial culture?).

I’ll conclude with another excerpt from the Times piece:

Skeptics see a deeper strain of Russian tradition: trying to catch up with the West by wielding the power of the state. Looking askance at the incongruous blend of the Kremlin’s will and the openness prized by Silicon Valley, they refer jokingly to the new city as Cupertino-2.

Good luck, Putin Medvedev. I hope the inevitable collapse of this Potemkin village serves as a warning to those who might try it stateside.

The New York Times on SMS advertising,

The vast majority of people say they are averse to having advertisements text-messaged or otherwise sent to their cellphones. But nearly a quarter of people who have gotten such ads say they have responded at least once, a figure that is highly encouraging to marketers.

True as far as it goes – though the “vast majority of people” say that they’re averse to any kind of advertising, so that isn’t much of a surprise. The Times does find a correlation between availability of unlimited text plans and ad response rates. Even so, advertising is the nail for those with only a hammer. It’s still nice to know that consumers are coming around to having their walls perforated with nail holes.

This underscores our approach to SMS: provide a useful service first.

The Economist has an incredible piece on the global cultural impact of mobile phones, The Apparatgeist calls, ”How you use your mobile phone has long reflected where you live. But the spirit of the machines may be wiping away cultural differences.” It demands deeper commentary than I’m offering here.

Two related stories: teachers are finally starting to use cell phones in the classroom, here and here. To the doomsayers I say, relax, embrace foenetic speling and cold showers. You’ll live longer. Also, smoke a lot more and eat a lot less.

Boston police have had great success with an anonymous SMS tip line:

In Boston, the first city to heavily promote texting for crime tips, police have received more than 1,000 tips since the program began two years ago. Police credit text tips for providing them with key leads in at least four high-profile killings

A Jewish Mother in Your Cell Phone: “How nagging text messages can make you healthier and richer.”

How Gambian beggars became mobile SIM vendors.

African mobile subscriptions grew 550 percent in 5 years.

On GSM hackery

The Athens Affair, “How some extremely smart hackers pulled off the most audacious cell-network break-in ever.”

GSM decrypted.

OpenBTS, a cheap, easy-to-deploy cellular network for the developing world.

On products

Des Traynor of the stellar dev shop, Contrast, illustrates the elegant idea that “quality is fractal” in The Thickness of Napkins. And have a look at another excellent post of their’s on entrepreneurship:  Good or Lucky?.

An awesome example of an XP Team Room, via William Pietri of the Lean Startup Circle.

37Signals reflects on a comment by Steve Jobs, who says that “Great products are triumphs of taste.” Something I emphatically agree with, though I could do without 37s’ treacly Mid-Century Modern affectations, even if I share them; like how Jason Long’s smugness makes me want to use Windows though it spites the face, and makes me want to spite his face with my fist.

The downside is that having taste only informs, not catalyzes, creation. There aren’t shortcuts to mastery, even if Tim Ferriss can tell you how to fake it - useful advice for aspiring polymaths looking to emulate Richard Feynman’s linguistic prowess (scroll down), but not his Nobel recognition.

I previously cited Ira Glass on the subject of taste - the curse is knowing the music, but struggling with the words. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, straight out of the Book of Job, or at least a Coen brothers screenplay (“Why does he make us feel the questions if he’s not gonna give us any answers?“).

While we’re on the subject of Jobsian aphorisms, my favorite and most referenced:

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

In the same piece, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s VP of Industrial Design, describes the iterative design process at Apple:

…the key to the iPod wasn’t sudden flashes of genius, but the design process. His [Ive's] design group collaborated closely with manufacturers and engineers, constantly tweaking and refining the design. ”It’s not serial… It’s not one person passing something on to the next.”

Oh, speaking of Job, Marc Suster writes about the physical trials and struggles with faith of the entrepreneur (alright, the allusion wears thin, and raises exegetical questions about the examined life/substitute faith) in The Yo-Yo Life of a Tech Entrepreneur – A Cautionary Tale (see also Paul Graham’s notes on the subject). Even if most of us don’t have Steve Jobs emerging from a cloud to rain vitriol like Malcolm Tucker, below.

On stuff I liked

I’ve been watching the brilliant BBC series, The Thick of It (on which the film In the Loop is based). Here’s some dialog, Malcolm Tucker on reality.

Searching for the Wiki links just now, I came across The Thick of It (U.S.). An adaptation produced by Mitch Hurwitz, with Christopher Guest directing? And the result was awful? A new attempt might make it to HBO? Does anyone know anything about this? Or will this go the way of the Deadwood or Arrested Development movies? Questions, questions.

The Wisdom of Children, from The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs. Brilliant.

On speaking human.

Does anyone know where I can get Aziz Ansari’s shirt from Parks and Rec[reation]? I’m serious. It’s the precursor to intimate moments for a sensual evening. Oh no, I just had a vision of myself on Twitter. Strike all of that.

The brilliant photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The Onion on the iPad.

So Serious | Creating Controversy for its own Sake (and How Humility is a Rare Bird Indeed on the Web These Days).

I’m trying to stay away from politics on this blog, but I give this a pass as it doesn’t directly advocate policy (perhaps because, frighteningly, any victory on this front will be Pyrrhic): Christopher Hitchens on North Korea (and the WSJ review of the book referenced, a good read whether or not you believe that the paper has jumped the shark). As for policy, I’m reminded of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,

… if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn’t they kill him?

Knut Haugland, sailor on Kon-Tiki (and so much more), dies at 92. A bit on his shipmate, Thor Heyerdahl. For more tales of true-life derring-do, see Was Ian Fleming the real 007?, “The war heroes, spymasters and beautiful women who inspired Ian Fleming to create James Bond.”

The video is fairly long, it’s the entire Sunday night event with speakers and pitches from all teams, diibs presentation is at 2:07 – 2:20

Direct Tire differentiates itself with a less painful wait time:

5. They are also served who only wait Uncomfortable chairs. Cold coffee. Issues of People magazine older than Cloris Leachman. So go the waiting rooms at most auto service shops. When Barry Steinberg launched Direct Tire and Auto Service in the 1970s, he insisted on bright, clean waiting areas with comfortable chairs and good coffee. To ensure employees would be chipper no matter the time of day, he interviewed applicants on three days at three different times. The myriad service awards still look great on Direct Tire’s pristine walls.

Green Hills Farms runs a loyalty program on steroids:

16. Hey, big spender In 1993, Gary Hawkins, founder of Green Hills Farms in Syracuse, New York, showered gifts on those who loved the store as much as the store loved them. Spend $100 a week, and you got $15 back on your next purchase, a $25 gift certificate for the garden department, coupons for 5 percent off your bill all year, a Christmas tree, and more. Folks who came in sporadically in search of bargains got very little. Green Hills prospered by knowing who its friends were.

Jet Blue tried to specifically address customer complaints. I just realized how ridiculous this is to highlight – in what other industry would it be novel?:

22. Filing a flight plan David Neeleman’s business model for JetBlue, which got off the ground in 2000, explicitly revolved around not twigging customers off. Neeleman’s team assembled a long list of fliers’ bêtes noires, then methodically came up with ways to eliminate them.

On a Jet Blue-related note, check out Dustin Curtis’ quest to visit every Jet Blue-serviced city in 30 days.

This is like all the information out there on starting up condensed into mini-sexiness!

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