Relevant academic research and Ph.D.'s

Subject: Relevant academic research and Ph.D.'s
From: "Focus on 3 things: Quality, Quality, Quality" <raven -at- USABLE -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 10:00:22 EST

Okay, Techwirlers, I feel the need to emote.

First, not all Ph.D.'s are academics, I've noticed in the notes
going back and forth that there seems to be an assumption that
Ph.D.=academic. There are indeed a number of Ph.D.'s who are in
industry and who are probably not regarded as "ivory tower types." I
would like to consider myself one of them. :) I know a few others here at
Digital, and a number at IBM (Candace Soderston, Roger Grice, and
others). There are also a number of Freelancer/contractors like Joann
Hackos and Jonathan Price. (OK, Roger Grice retired and is now a
consultant so he belongs in the latter category...)

And Ed Costello remarks that academic research frequently
lacks any relevance to corporate problems. I'll agree that sometimes
it does lack that relevance--nobody said everythng in academe had to
apply directly to the corporate world-- but in other cases, studies
that ARE directly relevant [er... my dissertation comes to mind...]
are not perceived by companies to BE relevant because they address the
"soft stuff" like communication patterns between technical writers and
engineers [er.. just to name one example...]. What is needed is more
partnership between industry and academe to mutually explore issues.

The "reusable" issue that Ed mentions is tough to study in an
experimental setting--it needs to be studied and tested in a real
setting--which means that companies like IBM and Digital should be
more amenable to inviting academics to conduct research at their
sites.

I feel better now,
Mary Beth Raven
Digital Equipment Corporation
Nashua, NH
Raven -at- usable -dot- enet -dot- dec -dot- com


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