I have always believed that my dream job would be to work in a think tank. As a corollary, if I were rich, I would want to bankroll a think tank, recruit some of the brilliant people I know with diverse talents, and be the project manager, doing what I believe I do best: fix things. While I was driving up to Tulsa yesterday (I do my best thinking on long drives, for many reasons), I started wondering why I needed to wait until I had money to start working on the think tank. Sure, I wouldn't be able to pay anyone salaries, including myself; I wouldn't be able to actually implement most or any of the proposed solutions; I wouldn't have resources for face-to-face meetings or any helpful tools. Maybe no one would pay any attention to what we develop, but is it possible to start working towards solutions now, without money? It seemed to me that it is possible and I should start now, while I have some free time.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Starting My Think Tank
To that end, I've started coming up with a list of what I need to do to get things rolling. The first couple of steps are to get a discussion forum running and to try to recruit some people to help in the whole thinking business. Then I/we will need to start developing standard procedures for selecting problems to be discussed and how to address a problem once it has been selected. After that, it will just be a matter of discussion, research, thinking, more discussion, arguing, more thinking and research, more discussion, and hopefully coming to some sort of consensus. Maybe nothing will come of it, but it shouldn't hurt to try, and maybe it will do some good.
So now I'm off to send an email or two about getting a discussion board up, then start drafting some invitation emails for people I think might be interested.
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3 comments:
What you need, first and foremost, is a purpose. To find those that will best suit you, you'd need specialists in the field you want to study. Simply grabing up the smart people you know won't do any good if what you're working on is in one field and your friends are in another.
That being said, I'm smart and always up for some thinking.
I agree with that one dude. Think tanks (like life) are best when there is a guiding telos.
Since I have some free-time (working effectively in a part-time job), I can help in some capacity, even in editing. I've been published, ya know.
Project management, though, isn't really anything to do with projects themselves. It's all the administrative shit that goes along with projects. I don't really see you being happy as a project manager. Hire a project manager and be the project facilitator or something...
I'd volunteer since I do so much project management, but I actually hate it so I'd rather not have to do it for others' projects :)
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