[EAS]What to Build

[pjk]

Subject:   What to Build

Dear Colleagues -

In going through some old email and EAS-INFO mailings, I ran across
this item, now going on a year old.

http://www.yale.edu/engineering/eng-info/msg00702.html

In looking back over the last 10 months, the Iridium project has
been reprieved by the government, that buyer of last resort for a
lot of misfit technology. 

http://www.yale.edu/engineering/eng-info/msg00701.html
http://www.yale.edu/engineering/eng-info/msg00777.html

And I see virtually no progress, in our academic pursuits and in
how industry behaves, toward bringing our emphasis on "how to"
methods into sounder balance with choosing "what to do". Why are
the rewards of being a "how" specialist so much more firmly
entrenched than the rewards available to the "what" generalist?

Please think about it at least once in preparing each lecture, or
policy paper, or business proposal. And please think enough to
realize that the proper answer to a "what" question is not a
different "how".

    --Peter Kindlmann