Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking
Speaker 1: the podcast and looks at the future and says, let's
Speaker 1: get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think of all that
Speaker 1: we could share. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren voc Obama,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about working together, really collaborating, you know, sharing, holding hands,
Speaker 1: holding hand I'm against it, Lauren. Lauren's not with us
Speaker 1: on this one, Joe. It's just me and you against Lauren. Well,
Speaker 1: we can hold hands and she can't. We can, that's true.
Speaker 1: She can only hold her own all right. So and
Speaker 1: by the way, Lauren can hold her own anyway. So
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about really collaboration and the sense
Speaker 1: of how collaboration is contributing to innovation and invention. And
Speaker 1: this is something that's interesting to me because, for one thing,
Speaker 1: we tend to have this kind of concept in our
Speaker 1: minds about inventions are the product of a soul inventor,
Speaker 1: a man or woman who is working feverishly and all
Speaker 1: in a laboratory and suddenly shouts out eureka, and there
Speaker 1: and invention is is created out of thin air. But
Speaker 1: that's not really how it tends to happen. Yeah, who's
Speaker 1: the person who invented the light bulb? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the common answer is Thomas Edison, that Thomas Yison invented
Speaker 1: the incandescent lightbulb, the filament lightbulb, and that's not actually accurate.
Speaker 1: First of all, there were other people who are working
Speaker 1: on incandescent light bulbs before Edison was. Secondly, Edison had
Speaker 1: at his disposal a multitude of engineers who were working
Speaker 1: on various projects projects, including the light bulb. He actually
Speaker 1: took something that had already existed and made improvements upon
Speaker 1: it so that it became something viable, something that the
Speaker 1: average person could actually use, as opposed to something that
Speaker 1: proved the principle was was sound but wasn't actually practical. Well,
Speaker 1: surely Alexander Graham Bell is solely responsible for inventing the telephone, right, No,
Speaker 1: not exactly. In fact, you could also argue that not
Speaker 1: not only was Alexander Graham Bell working on something that
Speaker 1: other people were also working on, some with him and
Speaker 1: some independently, but or before him, he was he was
Speaker 1: building on technologies that had already existed. This is the
Speaker 1: same problem you have if you say, well, who invented
Speaker 1: the television or who invented the radio? Because as it
Speaker 1: turns out, these are actually very complicated stories. You could
Speaker 1: easily say, oh, Marconi invented the radio. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: meant Tesla, Tesla invented the radio. Sorry Internet, But no,
Speaker 1: neither is actually true. It turns out that these are
Speaker 1: inventions that came to us because of numerous engineers and
Speaker 1: scientists working on basic scientific principles that led to the
Speaker 1: development of these technolog Yeah. I think it's almost a
Speaker 1: function of the way we like to hear stories. Sure
Speaker 1: that that gives us this way of approaching the history
Speaker 1: of invention. Um, it's the fact that we like single
Speaker 1: characters responsible for actions anti hero Furthermore, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's much more interesting if if Han solo invented the telephone,
Speaker 1: then if you know, I don't know, all of the
Speaker 1: Empire worked together on it, Han called first. So but
Speaker 1: also not only that, but that we'd like to have
Speaker 1: stories to have a beginning, middle, and end, right, we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't like stories that have this bleed over where
Speaker 1: you don't really have a point that you can say
Speaker 1: this is exactly where it started and here is where
Speaker 1: it ended. It's just not the way that history actually works,
Speaker 1: but it's the way our minds tend to try and
Speaker 1: file information. Yeah. I think it's actually pretty rare, if
Speaker 1: not completely impossible, um to look at history and find
Speaker 1: an example of somebody who really invent did something in
Speaker 1: a vacuum that they were just this person is solely responsible. Ironically,
Speaker 1: the vacuum is a great example of that. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I couldn't take I had to had to take the vacuum.
Speaker 1: I honestly do not know. I just had to jump
Speaker 1: in on that one. D Yes, exactly. Why do you
Speaker 1: think it's called run by a man called Hohover? I
Speaker 1: think Richard James was the sole inventor of the slinky,
Speaker 1: So if that makes you feel any better, although because
Speaker 1: springs existed before the slinky completely, no, he didn't, but
Speaker 1: he invented what what became the slinky. You know, he
Speaker 1: took he took something that was being used in the
Speaker 1: navy and made a toy out of it. Certainly, I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's usually some kind of inception of concept
Speaker 1: that people that that an inventor or a small team
Speaker 1: of inventors will kind of clarify and and put out
Speaker 1: there and go like this new thing tots works. Guys.
Speaker 1: The point we're trying to make is that mostly inventions
Speaker 1: that we are relying upon today are in fact the
Speaker 1: result of collaborative efforts between many people. Even if it's
Speaker 1: it could be a formal collaboration where people are actively
Speaker 1: working together in order to achieve something specific, or it
Speaker 1: could be informal in the sense that someone picks up
Speaker 1: where another person left off and continues work that way.
Speaker 1: But really collaboration is kind of the name of the game,
Speaker 1: or it's it's certainly becoming that way, and especially given
Speaker 1: that say things like the Internet are letting us collaborate
Speaker 1: more deeply and across further spaces, more and more distant
Speaker 1: spaces then previously it's it's becoming a much more rich
Speaker 1: field now, Lauren, I understand that you actually looked into
Speaker 1: some interesting statistics when it comes to patents that kind
Speaker 1: of kind of illustrates this idea, right. Yeah. According to
Speaker 1: a patent law blog, since the nineteen seventies, the average
Speaker 1: number of inventors that's been listed on patents has crept
Speaker 1: up from from about one point six in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two about two point five in the year two thousand
Speaker 1: UM and overall, the number of one inventor patents has
Speaker 1: declined from again in about sixty down to about while
Speaker 1: the number of three plus inventor patents has risen from
Speaker 1: ten to up to about So. I mean, that's only
Speaker 1: in the US, and it's a relatively small sliver of time,
Speaker 1: but I still think that it's it's it's an interesting trend.
Speaker 1: It does illustrate what we're saying here. The number of
Speaker 1: patents has also been going up also, Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: the the sheer number is definitely increased year over year. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we're getting to a point now where entire industries
Speaker 1: are becoming multidisciplinary, meaning that there are industries that depend
Speaker 1: upon contributions from people who specialize in very different fields. Now,
Speaker 1: this is also a fairly recent development if you look
Speaker 1: at all of human history, right, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: go back just a few if you go back a
Speaker 1: few centuries, you can get to a point where it's
Speaker 1: feasible for a human being to reach a point where
Speaker 1: they have learned more or less the cutting edge of
Speaker 1: of of human knowledge in a specific area, or even
Speaker 1: across a couple of areas, if you go back far enough,
Speaker 1: like let's say, we'll go to the ancient Greeks, who
Speaker 1: were pretty smart guys. Right, you get back to right, thanks, Joe. Yes,
Speaker 1: In fact, some of the ancient Greeks were pretty smart guys.
Speaker 1: But you can get to you your point to someone
Speaker 1: like uh, Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, someone especially like Aristotle.
Speaker 1: Aristotle was the person who ends up inspiring things like
Speaker 1: logic and biology as actual areas of study. At that time,
Speaker 1: you can have someone who not only is a specialist
Speaker 1: in a particular field, but actually has a body of
Speaker 1: knowledge that spans all fields of human knowledge. At that time,
Speaker 1: they're basically an expert on almost everything their culture knows. Right,
Speaker 1: and then as the cultures get more complex, as our
Speaker 1: body of knowledge grows, and those disciplines become deeper and
Speaker 1: more rich, it becomes increasingly difficult to be the master
Speaker 1: of multiple disciplines. And today we have disciplines that are
Speaker 1: so incredibly vast and deep that even to be a
Speaker 1: master of a single discipline is covers a lot of
Speaker 1: different specializations within that. Right, you might not you might
Speaker 1: not find someone. I doubt you could point to anyone,
Speaker 1: anyone in the world who would be the leading expert
Speaker 1: on medicine. That's just too big a field you're you're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, I mean, you could have a
Speaker 1: leading expert in terms of just relative placement. Maybe this
Speaker 1: person knows more than anybody else. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you know who that person is, right, but you or
Speaker 1: someone who's a really good spokesperson and or a really
Speaker 1: good researcher. But I'm saying looking at the top level. Off,
Speaker 1: if you got five specialists, right, you've got someone who
Speaker 1: was each oncologist, right, you know, you get you get oncology,
Speaker 1: you get you know, pediatrics, you get all of the
Speaker 1: different fields of medicine, the major fields of medicine together,
Speaker 1: and you get the leading expert in each of those,
Speaker 1: and then you take the person that you think is
Speaker 1: the leading expert in medicine overall. I guarantee you those
Speaker 1: those people who are specialists are going to have a deeper,
Speaker 1: more nuanced, uh grasp of those fields than the you know,
Speaker 1: jack of all trades approach. Right, So you're not going
Speaker 1: to get someone who is the leading specialist or the
Speaker 1: leading expert in a huge discipline who is going to
Speaker 1: have that same level of knowledge as someone who is specializing.
Speaker 1: So multidiscipline approach is really necessary. Even within a single discipline,
Speaker 1: you have these little subdisciplines. So if you have something
Speaker 1: as broad as as medicine obviously, and you want to
Speaker 1: tackle something like cancer, you actually are probably gonna be
Speaker 1: working with a couple of different specialists, not just an oncologist,
Speaker 1: but others as well, who are leading giving their expertise
Speaker 1: to research and development of treatments. Certainly, and beyond that
Speaker 1: you need to start considering the other societal impact factors,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit of an industry pint I
Speaker 1: apologize for um that that are going to affect your research,
Speaker 1: like the laws of getting a drug out to the public,
Speaker 1: for example. Sure, yeah, I mean obviously there's lots of
Speaker 1: things to practically consider beyond just the research side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing that's, uh, that's a big deal in
Speaker 1: medicine today is you can't just know about the body
Speaker 1: when you become a doctor. These days, you're you can't
Speaker 1: just know, well, here's anatomy, here's where this organ should be,
Speaker 1: here the symptoms of this disease, because lots of the
Speaker 1: treatments we have involved advanced knowledge of other fields. Say
Speaker 1: you might need to know a little bit about physics
Speaker 1: in order to give say a radiation treatment to a
Speaker 1: cancer patient, and and more things about chemistry. Sure, also
Speaker 1: lots of drug therapies. You you really have to consider
Speaker 1: what comorbidities they're going to cover, you know, what other organs,
Speaker 1: what other bodily systems, what other functions they're going to affect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and as we get to a world where we have
Speaker 1: more and more personalized medicine, obviously, then you're talking about
Speaker 1: specialists who can actually understand a particular patient's needs, not
Speaker 1: just across an entire you know, we we have doctors
Speaker 1: who specialize in specific diseases. Now, right, We've got people
Speaker 1: who are specifically devoting they're all of their work to studying, understanding,
Speaker 1: and fighting specific diseases. We're going to get to a
Speaker 1: point where we have doctors who are very much focused
Speaker 1: on specific patients, to the point where the treatments given
Speaker 1: to a patient are of tailored to that specific person
Speaker 1: their biochemistry based on their genetic code exactly. You're you're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, having a level of specialization that
Speaker 1: is you know, it's it's unprecedented really, and medicine is
Speaker 1: just one example. Obviously, there are other fields that require
Speaker 1: this sort of multiple, multiple discipline approach, Like I mentioned nanotechnology,
Speaker 1: that's a big one. So nanotechnology, you have computer scientists,
Speaker 1: you have engineers, you have biologists, you have physicists, you
Speaker 1: have chemists, you have lots of different disciplines that are
Speaker 1: interested in trying to develop this field of nanotechnology for
Speaker 1: multiple applications, not just for you know, the medical approach. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that would be a big one. Again, fighting cancer, we've
Speaker 1: talked about using nanotechnology to do that, using some sort
Speaker 1: of nanodelivery system to deliver chemotherapy drugs to specific cells
Speaker 1: so that you can minimize any sort of side effects
Speaker 1: that the patient would suffer. But in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you might wind up having a human biologist working together
Speaker 1: with a material scientist working together with a laser specialist
Speaker 1: working together with and so on and so forth. Exactly
Speaker 1: a lot of different fields would go into that kind research. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you were to depend upon one discipline to just
Speaker 1: take over that, then the the progress of that field
Speaker 1: would crawl. But by leveraging the expertise of multiple disciplines
Speaker 1: and sharing that research across the disciplines. Not only do
Speaker 1: you progress the industry of nanotechnology forward, but you learn
Speaker 1: so much along the way. You know, we've always said
Speaker 1: on this show, even when you failed, you still learn. Well.
Speaker 1: In this case, you're talking about multiple disciplines researching stuff
Speaker 1: to find out how to make it possible, and learning
Speaker 1: a lot along the way that can benefit the industry
Speaker 1: and other industries in ways that we did not foresee
Speaker 1: when we embarked upon that research. Absolutely, um I I
Speaker 1: know that we just kind of tried to conversationally transition
Speaker 1: away from the field of medicine. But in the field
Speaker 1: of medicine, it's there's been really interesting developments like when um,
Speaker 1: when AIDS in the nineteen eighties became a very serious,
Speaker 1: very huge concern. I mean, we didn't we didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. We It wasn't even until four that
Speaker 1: we discovered the human human immune deficiency virus, and by
Speaker 1: seven a c T had been approved for use by
Speaker 1: the f d A. This was three years. This was
Speaker 1: an incredible leap in uh in drug development and research.
Speaker 1: Before then, it would have been pretty impossible to to
Speaker 1: have seen a clinical trial of a new drug set
Speaker 1: up against a placebo, in a in a in a
Speaker 1: direct ratio or um or of a new drug set
Speaker 1: up against any any previous UH treatment therapy. It's you know,
Speaker 1: people came together because they realized that this was bigger
Speaker 1: than the specific monetary advancement of any given company and
Speaker 1: um and that example has been translated out. I mean,
Speaker 1: big pharma companies are realizing that by trying to separate
Speaker 1: out all of their research and development teams they are
Speaker 1: they're wasting money and time, and that overall people can
Speaker 1: really benefit, they can benefit from coming together like that.
Speaker 1: There's a a group of like the ten biggest pharma
Speaker 1: companies basically in the world right now are are going
Speaker 1: in on a not for profit organization called Trance seller
Speaker 1: a Biopharma, which is is trying to standardize the field
Speaker 1: of clinical research and that could lead to amazing advancements. Sure,
Speaker 1: and we we've also talked before about the artificial intelligence movement,
Speaker 1: this idea of developing artificially intelligent UH constructs, whether robots
Speaker 1: or computers or combination whatever. UH that actually that field
Speaker 1: also involves multiple disciplines. You would think computer science obviously
Speaker 1: would be one, but neuroscience is certainly one that has
Speaker 1: looked into artificial intelligence, and I think it's really important too,
Speaker 1: because I think there's some futurists out there who have
Speaker 1: this concept that artificial intelligence in the in the sense
Speaker 1: of having a a machine that is, and I don't
Speaker 1: know how you would specifically define this, but as intelligent
Speaker 1: as a person, so that they think like a person,
Speaker 1: I think is the way that they usually try and
Speaker 1: frame this. That a computer would think in the same
Speaker 1: way that you and I would think that that will
Speaker 1: be We're right right on the cusp of it, you know,
Speaker 1: ten to twenty years away because because of the rate
Speaker 1: of the of development as far as computer power goes.
Speaker 1: But neurologists have often pointed out that it's not just
Speaker 1: a question of computer power, that making a machine that
Speaker 1: is powerful enough to mimic what a human can do
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the real barrier there. It requires a
Speaker 1: deeper understanding of how our brains work before we can
Speaker 1: make a machine that can mimic brains work. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: by trying to make that machine, I think we might
Speaker 1: learn things about how our brain works we didn't know before. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've already seen scientists set up and work with neuroscientists
Speaker 1: to computer scientists neuroscientists working together to build virtual models
Speaker 1: of neuron neurons and neural pathways, so you know, essentially
Speaker 1: a model of like on a very tiny scale of
Speaker 1: a human brain to see how things like memories form
Speaker 1: and how uh these pathways activate during with certain stimuli.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind that the computer virtual models are absolutely
Speaker 1: tiny compared to the average human brain, and the time
Speaker 1: scale is much longer, so you have to really scale
Speaker 1: things in a in a wacky way to see how
Speaker 1: it works. But it shows progress toward that. And so
Speaker 1: again it's a multidiscipline kind of field where if we
Speaker 1: really want to push the industry forward, if we want
Speaker 1: to push that whole area of study forward, it's going
Speaker 1: to require more than just computer scientists sitting down and
Speaker 1: writing some new code. So uh. In in the video
Speaker 1: episode for this week brand New special episode where I
Speaker 1: did not appear in my nebulous white environment where I
Speaker 1: can control everything with just a wave of my hand
Speaker 1: or a certain thought, it was actually kind of a Hey,
Speaker 1: you've seen the episodes, Joe. I mean if I am
Speaker 1: in that environment, I can make stuff happen. Did you
Speaker 1: not see. I made myself fold up like oregamy. Do
Speaker 1: not test me on this. But for this particular episode,
Speaker 1: I shot it here in the office, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: strange and unusual for me. But uh. It also is
Speaker 1: one of the episodes of our second season of Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: which kind of interrupts our first season of Forward Thinking.
Speaker 1: That's okay, because we're good. Yeah, we're a little will
Speaker 1: wibbly wobbly. We were actually broadcasting from the future as
Speaker 1: we speak. But anyway, that in that I had a
Speaker 1: discussion with Chuck Goulash, senior executive engineer with Toyota's Collaborative
Speaker 1: Safety Research Center, and Toyota is a partner of Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: so they were able to put us in touch with them.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing I found about the c s r
Speaker 1: C is that although Toyota was the company that that
Speaker 1: put that into motion, the actual research is open to everyone.
Speaker 1: So it's not like they are having this collaborative effort
Speaker 1: among various institutions and then Toyota is hoarding all the
Speaker 1: information and only only the that company will benefit. Anyone
Speaker 1: can benefit from that information, including all the collaborators. So
Speaker 1: you have medical facilities learning more about the human body
Speaker 1: and trauma and and how to treat it and how
Speaker 1: to prevent it. You have engineers learning how to design
Speaker 1: vehicles in a better way that can be shared across
Speaker 1: an entire industry. You have governments learning what sort of
Speaker 1: industry standards should be put in place for the next
Speaker 1: generation of vehicles that will apply again across the board
Speaker 1: to all vehicles. Um. That I think is the really
Speaker 1: exciting thing about collaboration, This idea that it's not in
Speaker 1: an effort to get ahead of some one else, it's
Speaker 1: in an effort to improve things across an entire swath, industry, industry, customers, whatever. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's it's this idea that through this work we can
Speaker 1: improve conditions. That's what I find really exciting about it.
Speaker 1: So honestly, at that at that stage, you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to me who it was that put it
Speaker 1: into motion. If it means that everyone benefits, would would
Speaker 1: perhaps at some point someone who helped put it into
Speaker 1: motions say I deserve more credit or more money than
Speaker 1: these other people. I don't see how that would happen,
Speaker 1: because you're talking about research information back. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is just research that people are going to use
Speaker 1: to make improvements. So it's not not even in the
Speaker 1: in that industry specifically, but I you know, I just
Speaker 1: feel like that's a potential barrier to to collaboration, this
Speaker 1: concept of ownership of of of a concept. There there
Speaker 1: are some barriers to collaboratetion. I mean, there's there's one
Speaker 1: where you're wondering who's in charge, right, who ultimately is
Speaker 1: in charge? But if you're talking about research where you
Speaker 1: have a specific goal in mind, but knowing that the
Speaker 1: research is going to uncover information that's going to benefit
Speaker 1: in ways that you can't even necessarily foresee when you
Speaker 1: get into it means that even with just that one goal,
Speaker 1: even if that one specific goal benefits a specific party
Speaker 1: more than another, ultimately everyone benefits. So that ends up
Speaker 1: being kind of a non factor in the long run.
Speaker 1: But the other obstacle that you brought up earlier, Lauren,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about this episode beforehand, was the
Speaker 1: idea of getting so many people involved in something. How
Speaker 1: do you keep that, how do you keep that under
Speaker 1: a control so that you are actually making progress and
Speaker 1: you're not having you know, people of getting each other
Speaker 1: way too many biomedical researchers and the biomedical kitchen and
Speaker 1: the laboratory. That's what yeah, And I think I think
Speaker 1: in that case, what we really need is you need
Speaker 1: to have for whatever research facility that you you know
Speaker 1: you've built h that you have a specific focus, that
Speaker 1: you have a specific goal in mind that everyone is
Speaker 1: working toward. And again, knowing that you're going to generate
Speaker 1: information outside of that that will be a benefit in
Speaker 1: some way or another is fine. But to kind of
Speaker 1: have that that that end goal in sight, I think
Speaker 1: helps a lot. And and all obviously, in all of
Speaker 1: these collaborative relationships that we're talking about, you usually have
Speaker 1: some sort of team leader that is in charge, which
Speaker 1: that also helps when you actually do have a hierarchy
Speaker 1: there and it's not just a free for all of
Speaker 1: you know, let's throw a bunch of brilliant people into
Speaker 1: a room together, and surely something amazing is going to
Speaker 1: come out of it. Uh. That amazing thing might end
Speaker 1: up being the scientific version of the Thunderdome, which I
Speaker 1: don't argue would be amazing but not necessarily productive. Eighteen
Speaker 1: scientists enter, one scientist leaves aside for entertainment purposes. I
Speaker 1: bet some I bet some those research scientists could build
Speaker 1: some really interesting weapons. Oh yeah, no, I mean just
Speaker 1: the robot Wars alone would be exciting. But uh no,
Speaker 1: seriously though, that is one of those things that's interesting
Speaker 1: is that I don't know how many well all of
Speaker 1: us here obviously have worked collaboratively. We're doing it right now.
Speaker 1: We're collaborating on a podcast, but we don't have any
Speaker 1: relevant knowledge or now we're not we're not actually contributing
Speaker 1: to society in any meaningful way, so the pressure is off.
Speaker 1: But no, seriously, though, we've all had that experience of
Speaker 1: learning to give and take and collaborate with each other
Speaker 1: in order to have our end goal being producing and
Speaker 1: entertaining and informative podcast. Well, one thing I have learned
Speaker 1: about collaborating with different people is that collaboration itself involves
Speaker 1: a kind of expertise, like that it's a skill that
Speaker 1: can be developed. Sure, And I almost wonder if between
Speaker 1: different scientific disciplines, if, like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: in the future, you see a continuing end of just
Speaker 1: more and more specialization. The more we learn about these disciplines,
Speaker 1: the narrower each expert's focus gets. If collaborative projects will
Speaker 1: need to be controlled by people who sort of specialize
Speaker 1: in scientific collaboration. Collaboration is is kind of a field
Speaker 1: of study certainly, Um, multidisciplinary fields of study are I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're scientific journals for that thing, and um, and
Speaker 1: there is research being done into into case studies of
Speaker 1: collaborative efforts to create create stuff and um. So you know,
Speaker 1: I've seen it mentioned colloquially that that people have an
Speaker 1: interest in being a collaboration scientist. How that's really cool.
Speaker 1: I think what we're going to see is that a
Speaker 1: lot of these projects are going to get their own
Speaker 1: version of Jen Barber, who of course is the relationships
Speaker 1: manager in the documentary series The I T. Crowd. You
Speaker 1: would love it. Yeah, So but anyway, she's a relationship
Speaker 1: manager because she has absolutely no nala jovity whatsoever. But
Speaker 1: she does know how to handle people. So that's how
Speaker 1: she joins the I T team. Um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that, well, that's a comedic example. That's sort of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. Someone who has this ability
Speaker 1: to kind of be like the hub, you know, the
Speaker 1: connector for all these different pieces that can make sure
Speaker 1: that everyone's on task and working towards a similar goal.
Speaker 1: But so Lauren you're sort of saying like this isn't
Speaker 1: even necessarily like a maybe in the future thing. You're
Speaker 1: saying like, right now, this is already reality. The groundwork
Speaker 1: of it does in fact exist. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's going to become an actual facts thing very shortly.
Speaker 1: I mean within the next like three years, not not
Speaker 1: even within ten to twenty. Keep in mind, just like
Speaker 1: maybe maybe five years ago, we didn't even have such
Speaker 1: a thing as like, there was no no such title
Speaker 1: as social media manager, and now there is. Nobody had
Speaker 1: social media Ninja's now, and now we do. I I
Speaker 1: do want to say that I think that one of
Speaker 1: those barriers to collaboration at the moment is the the
Speaker 1: paywall that a lot of academic research is being trapped behind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and have you seen the surveys that have said that
Speaker 1: scientists have often, uh not read nearly as much research
Speaker 1: as they wanted to because there was a paywall in
Speaker 1: front of the journal that they were trying to access.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and I respect the the these
Speaker 1: academic institutions for wanting to make money off of this
Speaker 1: amazing research that they're publishing. I mean, you know, they
Speaker 1: the researchers want to be paid for their publications and
Speaker 1: and that's groovy to only that, but it does cost
Speaker 1: money to actually distribute this stuff. It does absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking as someone who has edited medical papers before,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you really need someone outside of and
Speaker 1: the the academic institution to proof read something and go like,
Speaker 1: you did this math wrong. Your idea is solid, but
Speaker 1: this math is that just went somewhere else, that was nowhere,
Speaker 1: and you know, and that kind of thing is is
Speaker 1: critical to the industry. And I liked getting paid as
Speaker 1: a proof reader in that case, so you know, I
Speaker 1: I believe in money for everybody. But how exactly to
Speaker 1: monetize that kind of thing in the future is I
Speaker 1: don't know how it's going to work, right, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, opening it up for like the advertising model
Speaker 1: is also tricky, right, because then you have the the
Speaker 1: perception of bias even if there is no bias there.
Speaker 1: If you have advertisers showing up against a paper on
Speaker 1: say a drug study, and it's a drug company's ads
Speaker 1: that are showing up on that page, which would be
Speaker 1: the logical logical advertiser for that paper, so you would
Speaker 1: argue that that's a conflict of interesting to unexpected side
Speaker 1: effects in one drug and then a competitor's drug is advertise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another example. So yeah, it's tricky. UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously the paywall situation where scientists are not reading papers
Speaker 1: that they really need to read because it's behind a paywall.
Speaker 1: That is something that we need to but that kind
Speaker 1: of study was really terrifying. Actually, they're they're over in
Speaker 1: the European Union. They've got an Innovative Medicines Initiative that
Speaker 1: started in two thousand eight. Um, there's recommendations for the
Speaker 1: US to start up a counterpart to this, and and
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's groups of both governmental and private
Speaker 1: and public research going into stuff like combating bacterial resistance
Speaker 1: and uh, curing diabetes and autism therapy and chronic pain research.
Speaker 1: You know, big, huge, multi multi disciplinary stuff. And I
Speaker 1: think that that you know, that's great. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I certainly hope you were against collaboration when
Speaker 1: it benefits her, she's all for it. I'm against whatever.
Speaker 1: Jonathan says. That's fair pretty much every anyone who knows
Speaker 1: me long enough that that does tend to happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: Part of this is also an argument that could be
Speaker 1: made that we need to we need we as in
Speaker 1: the United States in this case, need to invest more
Speaker 1: in science in general. And in fact, we've seen the
Speaker 1: opposite happening year over year with budgets issues like that.
Speaker 1: But that's a tough sell, right, It's tough for it's
Speaker 1: tough to sell it to Congress, and it's tough for
Speaker 1: Congress to sell it to constituents. So it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where even though I'm sure you know, the
Speaker 1: three of us and even NOL I'll agree that no
Speaker 1: will just gave me a dirty look. But I'm sure
Speaker 1: we would all agree that. Obviously, again, scientific endeavors have
Speaker 1: the potential to benefit us in ways that we cannot
Speaker 1: even anticipate. I'm sure that many of our listeners agree
Speaker 1: with that as well. But getting a large population for
Speaker 1: holding up an apple and an empty hand and saying,
Speaker 1: and you know, the empty hand represents future apples, which
Speaker 1: is better? It's hard to It's it's the marshmallow experiment,
Speaker 1: but on a grand global cancer scale. Wow, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna eat this marshmallow right now. In fact, because delay
Speaker 1: gratification is something I don't believe in. Uh, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap this up. Guys, if you have anything
Speaker 1: you want to weigh in on as far as collaboration goes,
Speaker 1: maybe you want to get with some of your friends
Speaker 1: and write an email together. That would be fitting. Uh,
Speaker 1: why don't you Why don't you go over to f
Speaker 1: w thinking dot com. That's our website where you're gonna
Speaker 1: find all the podcasts, blogs, the articles, you're gonna find
Speaker 1: the videos, and we have all of our content right there.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with us through that. We
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Speaker 1: what you think. You're part of the conversation. We want
Speaker 1: to hear from you, and we will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really sooner. We're more on this topic and the
Speaker 1: future of technology. Visit forward thinking dot com, brought to
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