Let’s be practical

Ok, I’m done philosophizing about the origin of ideas. Paul Graham has done that plenty, and much better. I’m currently fleshing out exactly what the Summer of Ideas should look like, from a practical perspective.

My primary goal is to learn about new fields and industries, while identifying problems and possible solutions.

I struggled for a while wondering what the smart way to accomplish this is. Certainly there are things to be learned from books, the Internet, and people in those industries. I don’t want to be totally ignorant when I call up an expert on the phone: that’s a waste of their time. How can I learn the basics of a complex industry very efficiently? How can a person be expected to really self-analyze via a phone call or, god forbid, an email thread? What is the best way to hear about bottlenecks or problems with a person’s job, when the person in question doesn’t see them as such?

I’ve determined that there’s no substitute for visiting a physical space where that industry lives. To learn about construction, I should visit a construction site. To learn about the airline industry, I should visit the real innards of an airport – not the polished exterior presented to you, the passenger. To learn about biomedical research, I should visit one of the many labs around MIT or biotech companies in the Boston area.

As a student and young person, showing interest can get me further than most people would believe. Everybody loves taking pride in their work. Today, I’m emailing at least 50 people: MIT alumni and researchers, company founders, skilled laborers, and employees of myriad industries, and I’ll be asking to tour their workplace for a day.

I love the idea of this experiential learning, because (if nothing else) it clearly differentiates this strategy from what would be possible for a person with a 9-5 job. At these various workplaces, there will be an abundance of things I know nothing about: perfect kindling for questions. On the phone, my ability to ask discerning questions would be limited by my initial knowledge and the few things I learn during the course of the conversation. This strategy eliminates that limitation.

Before I dive headfirst into an industry, I have to narrow my focus to an appropriate level. Clearly “biomedical research” is too broad a field to be useful. Before emailing anyone, I should do some basic research on the main diseases or conditions being researched (cancer, Alzheimer’s), trends (like the explosion of immunotherapy), or current technology (what devices, sensors, and systems currently exist, and where they fail). This requires a good deal of independent research, which can involve book learning or speaking to an expert.

Right now, the industries I plan to research are biotech research, Bitcoin, agriculture, the airline industry, healthcare (clinical medicine), construction, and military tech. Some of these are traditionally unsexy fields with little recent tech-driven innovation (construction, agriculture). Some are currently huge in the tech world, and have the potential to make a splash with very wide ripples (Bitcoin). Others offer potentially huge contracts and revenue, even for tech that is marginally better then the current state-of-the-art (military tech). There are undoubtedly low-hanging ideas to be uncovered in every industry I could name, but these seem especially ripe.

This is a rough outline for how I hope to see under the covers of major industries that nearly everyone takes for granted.