Akkam’s Razor

From National Wire Services: "Shortly after the 110th Congress initiates it's session, a new committee, chaired to address an uncertain future, will begin hearings.  This committee is specifically chaired with "imagining the future", and engaging industry, government, educators, and the citizenry with using idealized design to create the solutions for the future."

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Sounds great, doesn't it?  Sadly, such a committee does not exist. 

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The Center for Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania has a story near to it's heart, a story told by Professor Emiritus Russell Ackoff, regarding Bell Labs, which during the 1950s had fallen away from being a corporate innovator to an organization literally resting on it's laurels.  A curious exchange occured in 1951, in Ohio.  Ackoff relays the story in his seminal work, Idealized Design:

In every life there are seminal experiences that exert their influence on a great deal of experience that follows. The one that is responsible for this book took place in 1951. I was then a member of the faculty of Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio. (It had not yet merged with Western Reserve University). On a consulting trip to New York I drove down to Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, to see Peter Meyers, a manager whom I'd met when he had come to Case to recruit promising graduate students for the Labs. 

It so happened that on the day of my visit he and other managers had been summoned to an important - but last-minute - conference by the Vice President of Bell Labs. After some hesitation Peter Myers said, "Why don't you come with me?" I pointed out it was a meeting for section heads and I was not even an employee of the labs. He said that no one would know the difference.

We arrived at a typical classroom that held about 40 people and was almost full. The Vice President was not there yet. Nor did he appear on time. This was very unusual. He was a big man, extroverted and voluble. He could not get near someone without punching, pinching, pushing, hugging or pounding them on the back.

About ten minutes after the hour the door to the room squeaked open. All eyes turned to it, and there he was. He was obviously very upset. He was a pasty gray and bent over as he slowly shuffled down the aisle without a word to anyone. He mounted the platform, stood behind the podium, put his elbows on it and held his head in his two hands, looking down. The room was dead silent. Finally, he looked up and in an uncharacteristically meek voice said, "Gentlemen, the telephone system of the United States was destroyed last night." Then he looked down again.

The room broke out in a hubbub of whispered conversations saying that his statement was not true. Many in the room had used a phone that morning. The Vice President looked up and said, "You don't believe the system was destroyed last night, do you? Some of you probably used the phone this morning, didn't you?" Most of the heads in the room shook with assent. The Vice President began to tremble with rage. He shouted, "The telephone system was destroyed last night and you had better believe it. If you don't by noon, you'll be fired."

He then looked down again. What was wrong with the VP everyone was asking each other. But since discretion is the better part of valor where one's boss is involved, the whispers stopped as all waited for further word from him and an explanation of his erratic behavior.

The Vice President looked up and glowered at the group. Then he suddenly straightened up, his normal color seemed to return and he broke out in a great big belly laugh. All those in the room also began to laugh. They did not know why they were laughing but it released the tension that his unusual behavior had created. It began to dawn on all of us that his behavior had been a trick.

He went on to point out that it had been many years since it had last produced any notable innovations.  Multiplexing, the rotary electronic dial, and the coaxial cable were all invented before the turn of the 20th Century, before most of the assembled engineers had been born.

From this point on, he explained, the engineers were to assume that "the system had been destroyed", and that they were to use existing knowledge and technology to design the ideal telephone system for the present.  All of the normal business restraints no longer applied, such as budgetary concerns.  Science fiction or implementations that did not exist, as well as solutions that did not comply with existing regulation and legislations were disallowed.

After this point, from 1962 on, several notable (and still present) innovations were created  - such as the touchtone telephone, satellite communications, a digital voice transmissions system, the modern microphone, and the predecessor to the cellular telephone.

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Grand, sweeping visions of the future (as well as the present) typically come from the Executive Branch, with the lame duck president, freed from the obligation of campaigning for reelection, can focus on creating their legacy.  Again, unfortunately, the last two generations of presidents have had hit or miss agendas. 

The Great Depression begat FDR's "New Deal".  Eisenhower, with memories of the D-Day invasion in his head, created the Interstate Highway System.  JFK, assasinated in his first term, had charged the country with landing a man on the moon by the close of the 1960s.  LBJ initiated "the Great Society", but found his presidency sunk by Vietnam and the loss of Southern support over his stance on Civil Rights.  Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon saw both of their Presidencies bogged down by Scandal, and the Reagan administration similarly saw it's second term derailed by the Iran-Contra hearings.  Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Herbert Walker Bush never accumulated enough political capital to undertake such ambitious agendas. 

And what of George Walker Bush?  The "Great War on Terror" will most likely consume both the remainder of his presidency and his legacy.  His visions of manned missions to the Moon and then Mars, getting Steroids out of Professional Sports, and the Privatization of Social Security all sacrificed at the cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the larger war on terror.

Many of the solutions to the nation's weaknesses and threats are no more than the moving of the political football (or the moving of the goal posts) to best leverage political gain and to appease campaign donors and ideological bases.  Concerns as to best meeting the present needs and establishing governmental structures to endure for the future are secondary at best, if even addressed at all.

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A hypothetical group, such as the House Committee on the Future, most likely would not even have the power to draft and forward legislation to the Congress, and on to the President.  But experience has shown that collaborative brainstorming is often contagious, and the new solutions conjured up may find themselves implemented in new places and new ways, to our collective benefit.