This episode is a little different from our regular episodes with our regular cast. It is a short essay on Vannevar Bush, an essay about the origins of the fundamental ideas that guide how the U. S. Government deals with scientific research and scientific institutions. It is designed to give you a little deeper understanding … Continue reading 16311: Essay Friday – Vannevar Bush & U. S. Science Policy →

The podcast moves to our Washington offices in order to explore technology policy and how the Federal government can possibly be considered agile & innovative. Evelyn packs the office. Rohit adjusts the systems, Anna but Maddie is told that she has to stay home and go to school. All of this while we start to … Continue reading 16310: Bicoastal Innovation →

Rohit explains why and how you should listen to “How We Manage Stuff.” “It you feel smarter,” he says, “And it also makes you feel at home.” This is a quick summery before we start the next series. The hosts are out of the office. Anna the Intern is at PANIC, the Professional Assistants, Networkers, … Continue reading 16305: It Makes You Feel Smarter →

A Binge episode for the end of April. Three combined podcasts. The first talks about context, how we think about development questions and whether our office manager has offended the host. The second: Position, Status & Function. The three elements of human organization. The last is a discussion of open source development and how open … Continue reading 16275: A Binge for My Baby and a Binge for the Road →

Time for a Binge. Need something as background for your workout? Or as something to fill a long commute? We have three pieces pulled together in this podcast, all hosted by Evelyn, our Business Manager. We begin with a visit to the Consumer Technology Show in Las Vegas. Drones were big then. Little did we … Continue reading 16265: Evelyn Hosts a Binge →

Skill or Habit? What belongs to the first category and what belongs to the second? And how can technology better promote skill? That is the primary question of this week’s podcast and we take a long time to answer it. Our trip takes us through the writings of Adam Smith, an app that can calculate … Continue reading Disrupting the Schumpethon →

Skill or Habit? What belongs to the first category and what belongs to the second? And how can technology better promote skill? That is the primary question of this week’s podcast and we take a long time to answer it. Our trip takes us through the writings of Adam Smith, an app that can calculate … Continue reading 16260: Disrupting the Schumpethon →

What kinds of qualities do you want on your team? We start discussing skills and the qualities of our personnel with guest George Dyson while our intern and our IT guy go in search of John Von Neumann’s early computer. Dyson identifies some useful lessons from Julian Bigelow, who served as the engineer on von … Continue reading 16250: Getting the Right People →

Observing Technology and Technological Organizations. And while you’re at it, how do you explain a boating accident to your boss, who thought that you were going to meet George Dyson? [16240]

We now live in the age of Big Data and believe that numbers hold the answers to all our problems.  But in dealing with technology, it is useful to return to first principles and start by asking what assumptions underly our data and whether or not those assumptions are true. [16230] Our guest this week … Continue reading 16230: Scientific Observation with George Dyson →