The biggest criticism I hear is, 'Nicholas, you're not crazy enough -- the lab should be nuttier'," he told a corporate audience on a visit to Dublin-based Media Lab Europe, or MLE,says Nicholas Negroponte in a Wired interview. The problem, it seems to me, is the MIT funding structure, which is largely tied to corporate funding and government contracts. On one hand, this money gives the Media Lab the resources to do some dramatically ambitious work, farther out on the edge that many companies can be today. On the other hand, those very resources tie the Media Lab to issues like ROI and technology transfer. In effect, the Media Lab has become a cheaper version of the now-waning corporate R&D divisions.
So while Negroponte describes the Media Lab as a "demilitarized zone" and "on the lunatic fringe", they're probably not out there as far as they could be, due to limitations in their business model.
Such has become the function of academia in many places--a cheaper version of an R&D Department for many companies. Academics work for peanuts--indeed, almost free, grateful for funds to purchase equipment and hire research assistants. So as corporations limit funding for internal R&D, the funneling of resources to academic sites and think tanks has had the effect of reeling innovation back in, adding heavy tendential force to the need for ROI and time to market. The boundaries and location of the "lunatic fringe" depend on where you're standing and how the weather is on that particular day.
[via Wired News]
Posted by johndan at October 3, 2003 08:03 AM
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