As an industry, we have become too conservative, preferring to coax more years out of an automation system that is already 20 years old rather than take advantage of today’s technology.

Careful - extreme conservatism with something as expensive as process automation systems leaves you ripe for disruption.

Overall spot-on column from John Berra.

It turns out that while large companies and organizations are phenomenally good at managing complexity, they're actually quite bad at tackling ambiguity. A complicated problem is like playing a game of chess, an ambiguous problem is like having your in-laws over to dinner for the first time. In the latter situation, it's not the number of variables that kills you. It's what you don't know that you don't know.

Fortunately, there is an answer, and that answer is hybrid thinking. It turns out that the antidote to ambiguity is hybridity. Take healthcare for example. Is fixing the American healthcare system a medical problem, a political problem, an economic problem, a social problem, a religious problem, or a technological problem? The answer is "yes." It's all of the above.

However, the solution isn't just gathering together different disciplines. I've attended several conferences on healthcare that tried to get a doctor, an economist and a priest to walk into a room. That's the start of a great joke, but not an answer to the problem. Getting these folks together just results in having them talk past each other.

Hybrid thinking is more than just having multidisciplinary teams. It's about having multidisciplinary people -- folks who are one-part humanist, one-part technologist and one-part capitalist. When multiple disciplines inhabit the same brain, something magical starts to happen. The disciplines themselves start to mutate. They hybridize. We start practicing business like a designer -- think Mark Parker at Nike. We shape technology like a culturalist -- think Steve Jobs at Apple. And we start thinking about the most complex problems that plague our societies like an entrepreneur.

In a "startup culture," everyone does lots of different things because they *have* to, and amazing things get done and big problems get solved. In a "corporate culture," we specialize and compartmentalize to get scale, which lets us manufacture solutions but makes it hard to solve problems.

Generally, you should only need three.

1. Zero in on what really, totally, absolutely sucks.

2. Ask yourself why, why, why, why it sucks until you reach the root cause.

3. Now come up with at least ten ridiculously, hopelessly utopian, childish ways to make it totally, unstoppably awesome. The dumber in yesterday’s terms, the better.

Google had, and still has, the power to force openness. Instead, it has decided to play nicely with the wireless carriers in hopes of winning market share and mining advertising gold from miniature computers.

Google’s real problem is that it hasn’t found sufficient ways to diversify its revenue stream beyond its still stunningly profitable search ads. Now, those just aren’t growing the way they have been, and Google is struggling to find another gold vein to mine.

I think Wired has Google's motivation pretty much nailed. The open internet, more you use = more we profit strategy that has guided Google to this point may not work in the near future. Much to the chagrin of idealists like Jeff Jarvis (and myself), the reality is that the internet is already split.

It's split between the world of mobile apps and the open web, and it's split between Facebook and the open web. The only way for Google to profit from the other side of this split is to concede here. By teaming with the carrier, they make a bet that the cooperation with those who hold the keys to the wireless networks will get them a preferred seat on their phones. I would guess that the Google experience will be more tightly coupled with phones from the carriers (maybe higher-priority network management for their apps for instance), and that apps like YouTube (and especially the upcoming Google Me, Google Games, and Google Music) may actually have a chance against Facebook and a way to make money in a closed ecosystem.

To catch up with Facebook, they have to make a huge bet, and this is it. Since Google doesn't own the distribution channel, they have no way to compete without some kind of inside track.

Innovation is about recombining existing resources in new ways and always has been. 

Listen. Hear what she’s saying. Synthesize what you hear in your head, but be slow to offer advice or “solutions.” Women (like many men, including me) often think by talking — or, if you like, by being heard. Shut up and listen. Seriously.

Being an engineer and always looking for solutions for things that are just observations (not necessarily problems) is the number 1 thing that gets me in trouble with my wife.

Bonfire Letter
by Eric Opiela, UT Student Body Vice President

I had the great privilege of attending the memorial service at A&M tonight and was deeply moved by the events I experienced. The A&M student body is truly one of the great treasures of our State.

As part of the UT delegation, we sat on the floor of Reed Arena, and immediately following the end of the service, I heard this rustling sound behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the sight of close to 20,000 students spontaneously putting their arms on their neighbor’s shoulders, forming a great circle around the arena.

The mass stood there in a pin-drop silence for close to five minutes, then, from somewhere, someone began to hum quietly the hymn "Amazing Grace". Within seconds, the whole arena was singing. I tried too—I choked, I cried.

This event brought me to tears. It was one if not the defining moment of my college career. I learned something tonight. For all us Longhorns discount A&M in our neverending rivalry, we need to realize one thing. Aggieland is a special place, with special people. It is infinitely better equipped than us at dealing with a tragedy such as this for one simple reason. It is a family. It is a family that cares for its own, a family that reaches out, a family that is unified in the face of adversity; a family that moved this Longhorn to tears. My heart, my prayers; and the heart of the UT student body go out tonight to Aggies and their family and friends as they, recover, from this great loss. Texas A&M, The Eyes of Texas are Upon You—and they look with sincere sympathy upon a family that has been through so much  tragedy this semester.

I was at Reed Arena then, too. It was the most moving thing I have ever witnessed.

A hero...

Subject: The Twelfth Man

The twelve young people who died were truly remarkable kids. They were scholars, student athletes, active in Boy Scouts, 4-H, Church groups,they were leaders. If you had to chose a dozen students to represent the best of Texas A&M, you probably wouldn't do much better than these.

I have just learned about Timothy Doran Kerlee, Jr. He was the twelfth student to die, when his life support was disconnected last Friday evening. Let me tell you about this amazing kid.

Tim graduated last year from Germantown High School in Germantown,Tennessee. He was an Eagle Scout, graduated third in his class, and was elected to his High School Hall of Fame. He was a student athlete, and a member of the National Honor Society. He was active in the youth group and drama club at his Methodist Church.

He was actively recruited by Texas A&M, and when he enrolled he tested out of his entire freshman year. That is how this 17 year-old could be classified as a sophomore. Tim's father said that he was thrilled to be at A&M, and especially excited about bonfire.

When the stack collapsed, his pelvis was crushed, his arm was broken, and his (organs badly damaged.)

On the front page of Friday's Dallas Morning News is a large photo of the collapsed stack taken during the early part of the rescue effort. You can see a team working at the base of the logs to save a trapped student. About five feet above the rescue team is Tim Kerlee, reclining on a pile of logs, propped up on one elbow. Unless you look carefully at the photo you will probably not notice that his legs are laying in an odd position.

What was happening,according to the rescue teams, was that Kerlee was directing the teams to other students trapped in the stack. He kept telling them that he was O.K., and he directed rescuers to at least five other students before he allowed them to take him down from the stack.

He was taken into emergency surgery, and when they opened him up they found his organs so badly damaged that they couldn't identify much of what they saw. They closed him up, wrapped him in a sheet to hold him together, and placed on life support. He lived long enough to see and speak to his parents. He was aware that he was dying and asked to be removed from life support. When his parents asked him why he wanted to, he asked them why he should fight for a few more days of life when he could be in Heaven with Jesus right now. Well, he got his wish.

I feel sorry that I never had a chance to know Tim Kerlee, but I praise God for kids like Tim Kerlee. If you had to pick a twelfth man you couldn't do much better.

-- Fred Maddox

J.P. Beato/The Battalion