|
|
One
of the good things about cleaning out old boxes of
stuff is stumbling across newspaper clippings from
another time. Just this week, for example, I found
an old Wall Street Journal article from 1980 analyzing whether Ted Turner's
newest idea – a 24-hour news network called CNN
– could make it, given that there was no clear
market demand for such a service! This kind of
expert commentary is fun to look back on, like the
advice to Elvis from the manager of the Grand Ole
Opry in 1964, "You ain't goin' nowhere,
son."
Such
are the challenges of difference, change and
innovation. Since only a small number of people
see the value in making an investment, embracing a
new technology or swinging that pelvis to a new
beat, it always is hard to build critical mass and
get the investment made. Elvis still goes places, of
course, as does CNN, and so will Virginia's Center
for Innovative Technology (CIT), most recently in
the news for budget cuts, leadership changes and a
strategic mission review.
A
little CIT history is an important starting point.
Dust off old newspaper clippings from the 1980s and
one can grasp the state of the Virginia economy into
which CIT was born. The private sector had no
commercial Internet, no venture capital and no
technology councils in Virginia. Big Virginia banks
were living large in Richmond. The personal computer
was looking like a good idea.
State
government then had no Secretary of Technology,
Joint Commission on Technology and Science, House
Committee on Science and Technology or Virginia
Research and Technology Advisory Commission.
Virginia
's
universities, largely focused on undergraduate
education, had limited commercialization, business
partnership or economic development
related services to offer technology
companies or anyone else.
Still,
there were gleams in important sets of eyes about a
hybrid organization that could act as a focal point
and drive wheel for Virginia's interest in
technology going forward. Equipped with a set of
investment tools, the hybrid might help Virginia
universities and companies capitalize on
market-driven opportunities. Enough Virginians
grasped that idea in 1984 to launch CIT an arms
length away from state government, with
appropriations passed through the Innovative
Technology Authority. CIT still was to be audited by
the state and would provide its operating plans and
results to the General Assembly, but it was exempted
from state regulations on procurement and personnel,
the better to attract innovators and to innovate.
Its headquarters building at the Dulles Toll Road
and Route 28 was designed to reflect permanently a
different shape of things to come.
Looking
at
Virginia
today,
where technology has driven economic growth for a
decade, shows that the investment in CIT has paid
off, even as the mission and metrics of the Center
have evolved almost continuously. No one doubts that
there still is a need for Virginia to respond
strategically, intelligently and faster to
market-driven innovation. But all the questions
before the Commonwealth and CIT right now seem to
boil down almost to one call: Is the technology
future best served by a center
for innovative technology or by a network
of innovative technology? The information technology
and Internet revolutions have made clear that the
network is the thing. Thousands of technology
companies, hundreds of thousands of technology jobs,
a venture capital community, technology councils and
other developments make the network wider and
stronger than any one center.
How
CIT's board of directors, the Governor, the
Secretary of Technology, the Joint Commission on
Technology & Science, the General Assembly,
Virginia's universities and other nodes in this
network will respond to the current organizational
challenge isn't certain. Rapidly shifting risk and
reward equations in the last 18 months have even
made professionals, such as venture capitalists, as
wary and conservative as
Virginia
banks
before they were swallowed whole. And the short-term
financial outlook is the worst in decades for state
government, which even in flush times finds it
difficult to get out near the edge.
Whether
one structure or another can guarantee success isn't
even a question. There are no guarantees where
difference, change and innovation are the process,
the product and the service. But not knowing the
exact answer shouldn't keep Virginians from
informing and using their best judgment going
forward. Action creates answers. Innovative action
creates new answers. And in these times even if you
"get it right," it's only a matter of time
before you have to "get it right" again in
some other way.
Consider
one last, long-yellowed clipping. Back in the 1840s
members of Congress debated the need for an
appropriations for a telegraph line from the
District of Columbia to Baltimore by asking,
"What does anyone really need to say to anyone
else that fast from that far away?" and
"What could anyone do as a result?" How,
indeed, could they possible know what would happen
when communications no longer was tied
transportation? But how could they possibly keep
from organizing and investing to find out?
Research,
commercialization, technology extension services,
entrepreneurship, workforce development, science and
technology education, tax incentives and technology
policy all are a part of the network of innovative
technology in Virginia. Exactly what will be
clustered around the CIT node should reflect the
difference, change and innovation that still define
its core mission.
--
August 12, 2002
|
|
