The US NIH recently changed the grant format, among other things adding a new section titled “Innovation.” Many of us have wondered: how can we convey innovation if we’re using standard techniques and methods? Morgan has some ideas on this, illustrated with an iPad and a razor.

A colleague recently said to me, “Graduate education is fundamentally a fact-based activity.” I respond to that somewhat misguided view in the latest video. In my view, a graduate education (particularly PhD) is a skills based endeavor, not a fact based one.

I was recently speaking to an entrepeneurial fellow, and he made a comment that stuck in my mind: “people like you and I are unemployable.”

It didn’t take me long to realize that he was right.

He was referring, overall, to the entrepeneur personality.

The “problem” with entrepreneurs is that they can’t just accept the way things are – they have to go around always trying to make things “better”.

That’s great if you’re starting a new business, or running a certain kind of science lab.

It’s not so great if you find yourself embedded in a stiff bureaucracy that is reticent to any kind of change.

The reference to being unemployable is that people like he – and myself – would drive most traditional managers/bosses crazy. Because we can’t leave well enough alone. We can’t let tradition stand. We can’t do something just because someone told us to do it – we have to understand “why” we are doing it – and then try to improve upon it.

It’s a sad statement about the stultification of most jobs.

Maybe that’s why I know of so many people who are giving up regular jobs to venture out on their own in business or consulting. It seems that more than just a few people realize that they can no longer stifle themselves enough to be “employable”.

One of my long-term goals is to figure out how to do science without having to do the bureaucracy. You may think it is wishful thinking, but I have a plan (kind of like the Cylons).

Maybe I’ll start an interdisciplinary research institute that is strucutred to be size and bureaucracy limited. Wouldn’t that be nice?

consulting, and

For many years I wandered through my career, jumping on various opportunities as they came along, but without a real “direction” for where I was going.

I was fortunate in that I made some good choices – getting into bioinformatics early on, and then getting into proteomics early on – before the fields became popular. But, despite the outward success this has brought to me, I’ve often struggled with, “who am I?”

For years the “who am I?” question was subsumed by goals, the latest being “getting tenure.”

But here’s the thing I realized once I had achieved that goal: I was doing it, because it was the thing to do. Not because it fit into some kind of “grand plan” for my life.

I’m glad to have done that, but after doing it, I felt a noticeable void: what next?

Tenure is a huge goal for many people, and a lot of those I’ve spoken to after they got tenure felt that it was anti-climactic.

I would go one step beyond that – it is a “life crisis” inducing event if you’ve been focused on it too much.

That’s why it is so important to have a picture of your ultimate life and goals in mind – hopefully before going for tenure (or going for the faculty job, or the postdoc job, or graduate school – or, anything!)

Because then, when you achieve one goal, you can move onto the next goal that fits into your grand plan – rather than just finding yourself having completed this big thing, and wondering, “what next?”

In my own case of assessing “what next?” and “who do I really want to be?” I’ve figured out a few things:
1. I enjoy writing – I have a whole slew of books to write, and I’ve been reenergized in getting my first book done so that I can move onto the next one. The first book is titled “The Golden Ticket in Science: Funding and Recognition Through The Power of Marketing”. Keep your eye out, or sign up for my mailing list if you want early access (that’s the big subscribe box on the upper left).

2. I enjoy helping people become better at what they do. While I used to think that I enjoyed programming computers, I’ve realized the challenge of “programming” people for success is both bigger and more rewarding for me.

That’s why I’m doing this whole blog thing (and my grant writing course http://tinyurl.com/3a8uhzq
, and future courses to yet be named). To help you be more proactive in your own life, and achieve your goals. Yeah – it sounds rah rah (like a cheerleader), but sometimes cheerleading is necessary.

Besides, I want more happy, proactive scientists out there solving the important problems in our world – and less unhappy, reactive scientists who struggle with things.

So go out and be proactive. Define who you want to be when you grow up. And then start moving towards it!