Why does it matter? Part 1: Big Picture

So maybe you already knew you were leading in at least a small way. Maybe you didn’t. But why should it matter either way, and why it is so important for scientists, engineers, and all the folks who make the technology we use everyday?

Let me start with a confession about a trait you may have already noticed: I tend to sermonize (a trait I share with John Bogle, which ain’t bad company). It’s not my most unattractive trait (think beach vacation), but it’s not pretty either. So I’ll try and tone this down as much as I can, but I actually do believe this is important.

There are two reasons leadership matters for us. Let’s start with the Big One.

Technology has driven the tremendous increase in the standard of living that much of the world has experienced over the past two centuries. The changes we have been through are phenomenal, and many of the specific changes were so fundamental that we can no longer imagine how we got along without them: electricity, automobiles, instantaneous person-to-person communications, the personal computer, and so on. Go back a little further, and count the arch, plumbing, and even the chair.

We are in a period of tremendous technological growth. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization it took world inventors 18 years to file the first 250,000 patents following the ratification of the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 1978. Over the next four years, from 1996 to 2000, that number doubled to 500,000 ideas registered. The number has just recently doubled again, reaching 1,000,000 ideas, in the four-year period between 2000 and 2004. The technologists of the world—and especially those just beginning their careers in computer science, engineering, and the physical sciences—are the stewards for these ideas. They (you!) will use these new concepts and technologies to keep the global engine of change moving ever faster, and will also control the way in which these ideas are brought into the world. These leaders will lead us into the future, and the way we get there will shape what that future looks like and whether we end up with a world of abundance or one of scarcity.

My goal for this whole project is to help create a generation of “enlightened” technology leaders. New engineers, scientists, and technology professionals—a group I refer to collectively as technologists—control the keys to the forces that will shape the world for the next several generations. If we can help each other do our jobs better, if we can recognize our own potential for shaping the future and realize that potential by developing our own leadership abilities, then we collectively will create a better future for us and those that come along after us.