Upcoming acquisition events to join!
A couple upcoming events to be aware of, hope to see you there! Acquisition Next: Artificial Intelligence Symposium May 5, 8:30pm – 2:30pm ET In […]
innovation
Event: Securing the MRAP
My colleague James Hasik recently published his newest book, Securing the MRAP: Lessons Learned in Marketing and Military Procurement. In this episode of the Acquisition […]
Great Power Competition with Richard Danzig
Richard Danzig joined me on a joint episode of the Acquisition Talk and China Talk podcasts to discuss US-China relations and military innovation. Richard is […]
Throw out the linear model of innovation for tinkering at the frontiers
One of the posts I wrote was a case study of the transistor. The transistor was invested at Bell Labs in the semiconductor research group. […]
How much oomph is left in rapid acquisition reform?
We’ve seen this pendulum swing drastically over the last few decades. In the middle of the 20th Century we saw thousands of companies iteratively delivering […]
Armen Alchian’s radical proposal for military R&D — will we ever take heed?
When analyzed together, they confirmed the hypotheses that Armen Alchian had first made in 1953 about the dangers of applying systems analysis to weapons acquisition […]
How to maintain innovation in a large-scale enterprise
An organization like the cavalry in 1935 is an interesting example. You had a bureaucracy that used the horse to do the job. That was […]
Palmer Luckey talks defense industry and China
I think the West has created something incredible. We’ve had a period of unprecedented peace and unprecedented human rights. It’s not perfect, but it’s better […]
Podcast: Don Vandergriff on dropping Taylorism and adopting mission command
I was pleased to have Don Vandergriff on the Acquistion Talk podcast. Don is a prolific educator of military training and strategy, and he has […]
The Defense Department was never intended to innovate?
Innovation leaders often cite Eastman-Kodak as an example of an enterprise that was too dim-witted to see the writing on the wall and so fell from its […]
What worked in Germany’s WWII Air Force?
Here is Admiral Rickover providing insight into innovative organizations: Admiral RICKOVER. This group is responsible for the design, the development, and the construction and operation […]
50 years of state-planned technology
Mr. Chairman, I believe we are in a de facto situation of nationalized high technology industry. All that is left is to formalize the arrangement. […]
Public vs. private innovation
I like to break down innovation into experimentation, evaluation, and evolution. I think that government has a disadvantage at all three.
The innovator’s dilemma of weapon systems
Let’s say the Government has awarded R&D work to a contractor. During the course of the contract, the engineering team spontaneously generates new insight. The […]
How does equality of dignity stimulate innovation?
What I mean by bourgeois equality is equality before the law, that’s essential, but it’s not sufficient, because exactly as you say, you need equality […]