Opening up

Problem

Blog posts that actually make it here:

• 2006: 5
• 2007: 5
• 2008: 2

Bad.

Solution

Previously, none. A big part of the problem is the industry I work in (or so I thought until today, but more about that below). As part of a major system integrator, working in an oliogopolistic industry and on research related to what is considered one of its important foundations, [SENTENCE TOO CONVOLUTED - TRY AGAIN]

Ok, we're trying to see how can can further increase the bandwidth over existing copper, and this is important because, you know, the copper is already there, giving it a huge advantage in capex compared to new fiber deployments. Moverover, its a competitive market, so we have a tendency to be paranoid about what we are doing.

Another aspect is the research angle, where as part of Bell Labs, we have an automatic impulse to publish at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals (a kind of long blog post where you get the comments first, and then the permission to post; sometimes a flame war happens, but noone ever sees it).

So I tend to think "ah, something interesting to blog about", but then think twice and it just ends up in the drafts section or as an internal note or idea for part of a paper.

But

I today attended a talk given by Constantin Gonzales, at Sun, talking about the approach they have been taking towards the entire two dot oh thing, which incidentally appears to be important for us as well.

Their approach, other than the extreme focus on open source and open APIs, is to have an immense transparency towards the market, in the form of an immensely active mass of bloggers including their CEO.

And

They apparently have no qualms about

1. IPR
2. Legal issues
3. Mixed Marketing Messages
4. Competitors getting an insight on the stuff you're working on

which quite frankly surprised me. So I asked and it turns out, they have rules. They appear to be rather common sense but after some review don't really help (me), especially on points 3. and 4. My feeling is just that today, the basic assumption at Sun's, "you are encouraged to tell the world about your work", does not hold true here at ALcatel-Lucent.

But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see and I promise I'll be good, Ben.

Update: Our CEO, as well.