Basic Research

There is a great op-ed piece today in the Boston Globe over something I have been writing about for a number of months. This piece written by Robert Weisman is titled Business Intelligence and can be found here: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/10/18/the_building_blocks_of_new_industries_are_missing/.

The article states that we have little basic research in the US as compared to the past and that hampers our abilities to create new industries and new inventions or innovations. While our life science success in Massachusetts has been very good, it has masked this lack of basic research that we used to do in abundance. In a state that relies on innovation and creativity in our economy as much as Massachusetts does, it is critical that we return to our roots, tend our knitting, begin at home or any other worn but true cliché you can come up with.

The articles about Evergreen Solar in the Globe over the past few days detail the problem with picking winners and losers in our economy. I hope that Evergreen does well and becomes a leading company in Massachusetts, but we need to take precious state resources and put them in areas where all businesses can take advantage of them. We need to maximize our resources and let the market decide what is the next technology or invention. If I were king of the Forest, I would have used the stimulus money to launch a new economy rather than bail out the old. I would have called it “Retool America” and we would invest in job training, basic research along with the renewed emphasis on science and math in our schools. I would prepare industrial sites, manage our water and electric systems better and new equipment for our voke-tech schools.

A few years ago, I was in Mexico visiting companies along with other state officials including then Gov. Mike Huckabee from Arkansas. One of our fellow travelers told the companies in Mexico that they believe that Mexico took our jobs in the US after NAFTA was enacted. The companies replied that this wasn’t true and went on to defend their roles. However, they then bemoaned the fact that they were losing jobs and market to companies in China! Last year, I was in China in October to speak at a large tech conference. In meetings with Chinese officials, they told me they were losing jobs to Vietnam and Thailand because labor was cheaper. My point is this: We are never going to be the cheapest labor in the US. However, we can use our strengths in innovation and education to create new good paying jobs in new areas. We need to stay one step ahead of the competition on this and that means basic research to create new businesses.