Jam up!

I'm a big fan of analogies because they can help with out of the box thinking.  The only way we move our profession forward is by experimenting with new practices with the understanding that not every experiment will work very well.  And....looking for analogies and parallels in other industries can be a great way to find out-of-the-box solutions for problems you are facing!

A family member was recently telling me a story about a summer job he had back in the 1960's at a fiberglass plant.  They made the rolls of fiberglass used for home insulation.  His description of the production process just sounded like a house of horrors.

The process starts with glass, which is melted and spun into long delicate fibers which are eventually formed into that 2-3 inch thick "mat" of insulation that we're all familiar with.  This glass mat is just a continuously produced product....you can't "turn it off" because you're working with molten glass.  He described it as coming down the "line" as a 60-70 foot wide carpet of fiberglass.  At one place, this continually advancing ocean of fiberglass is mated with the paper backing....the paper (with glue on it) is just kinda merged together with the fiberglass and then they move on together.  Eventually the fiberglass with paper was gathered onto a roll (like carpet or wrapping paper).  Since the fiberglass is coming all the time, there is a HUGE blade that chops off the fiberglass to complete one roll.  That roll is quickly hurried away and the men would quickly get the loose end of the advancing fiberglass started on the NEXT roll.

Sounds pretty slick, right?

Well....the problem was with the chopping blade.  Eventually it would get gummed up with glue from the paper backing and when that happened, the severed ends of the continuous carpet of fiberglass would stick to the blade when it went back up to the roof.  You can imagine what happens next.  Suddenly the fiberglass is not going onto the rolls and being taken away.  It's just backed up at the blade.  But, the onslaught of fiberglass keeps coming and within minutes it will create a MOUNTAIN of fiberglass that reaches the ceiling of the plant.  Holy shit!  What a mess!  Remember....there is no easy way to turn off a molten glass machine unless you want the glass to solidify inside your machinery.

This was a semi-routine problem and when it happened and alarm would sound with everyone yelling, "JAM UP!  JAM UP!" and the men (they were all men...this was the early 60's) would come rushing and just start shoveling the fiberglass off to the sides while other men cleaned the blade.  Eventually they'd get the line going again, all the waste fiberglass probably went into a landfill somewhere and life went on.

Lessons for university technology licensing!

The reason the fiberglass plant makes such a mess is that the production of fiberglass doesn't stop.....ever.  Everything works fine as long as the downstream end of the line is putting the fiberglass onto rolls and taking it away.  As soon at there is a downstream problem you have a HELL of a mess.

That is exactly like university technology licensing.  The faculty keep producing.  Science keeps happening.  The invention disclosures keep coming in.  It's just an onslaught of innovation!  And....it continues regardless.  It reminds me of the 1985 movie "The Terminator" which had the quote (referring to the murderous android): "Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

So, what screw ups make a university technology commercialization office like the fiberglass plant?  Well....what happens if you have a turnover in staff?  What if you overburden your staff so that they lose downstream effectiveness?  What if you just allow moral to dip among your licensing staff by allowing the faculty to beat them up politically?  What if the economy burps and suddenly no one wants early stage innovation?  What if you shift focus onto time-consuming start-up companies?

ALL of these things cause fewer technologies to exit the end of the production line.  And because the level of innovation continues unabated, the TCO will very quickly look like the fiberglass plant.  Someone really should yell, "JAM UP!" because that's what happens.

The OTHER big lesson I think we should take from the fiberglass plant analogy is that a TCO cannot function properly while it is JAMMED UP!  You can't just ignore the JAM UP and expect that it'll go away and you must find some way to clear the jam as half-solutions are unlikely to work well.

The only two options I really see to clear a JAM UP situation are:

• Put everything on sale! - This might rumple some feathers among administration or faculty who want large financial return, but the laws of supply and demand DO apply.  Make the technologies cheap enough and broadcast that things are "on sale" and industry might take enough of this stuff off your hands and allow the JAM UP to clear.
• Throw some technologies away! - Again....not a popular decision.  But one way to clear the JAM UP is to get rid of some of that blob of fiberglass/technology.  Some of it might be easy: Just close the file on some mediocre technologies.  We all have technologies that we nurse along simply because we don't want to finally tell a faculty member "no".  But that creates an environment for a JAM UP.  Perhaps you have quasi-promising technologies that you could release back to the faculty?

The ultimate lesson is that you probably need to do something fast!  Each month that passes, the JAM UP gets worse and the TCO will function more slowly because you get more inventions all the time.  

Or....you could do the thing that worked in the Terminator and try to kill it with a combination of pipe bombs and industrial presses.

- Dean Stell