Quote:
Originally Posted by miketwalker
There are a handful of wonderful educational robotics programs, each with advantages and disadvantages, like BotBall, Battlebots IQ, BEST, FIRST, Vex, etc. but all with similar goals. I do worry that sometimes these groups unintentionally try to knock each other down when each one appeals to students in different ways with the same goal... to inspire students to become engineers. Lawyers have their place, but if they were used to try to demerit programs striving for the same goals as us then it would be quite a shame.
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Mike hit on the real meat of this entire discussion.
I get concerned when I hear anyone from a student on a rookie team all the way up to a member of the Board Of Directors talking about "competing" with the other programs. Without a doubt, there are those within FIRST, BotBall, VEX, BEST, BBIQ and MATE that are concerned about "being overtaken" by "the other guys." ** This is a horrifically inane and patently foolish viewpoint.
FIRST, BotBall, VEX, BEST, BBIQ and MATE reach a combined total of less than 7% of the high schools in the United States. 93% of the market is currently untapped. The simple reality is that competition between these programs is both counter-productive to their own goals, and totally unnecessary.
If these programs could grow at a combined average rate of 20% per year (as reference, FRC has been growing at a average of about 10% per year in recent years), it will take them at least another 15 years before they even come close to saturating the pool of schools in the U.S., let alone the world. Use a slightly more realistic (but still massively optimistic) sustained long-term growth rate of 15%, and it will be more than 20 years before we reach that point.
So for the next two decades, all these organizations that are publicly stating that they are pursuing the same goal (inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists, and changing the common culture) can do so without ever running into each other. All of these organizations can expend ALL of their resources on the growth of their own programs, and never spend a cent on "competing with the other guys," and they will keep themselves fully occupied well through the 2020's. To fulfill their own corporate visions, every resource they have can be focused on the growth of their programs in the most cost-effective way possible.
Spending resources to go into a school where a "competing" program already exists (and therefore by definition, into a school that already gets the point of using robotics competition program to inspire students) does not accomplish that. It does nothing to increase the total number of schools in the country where these inspirational programs are available, or add to the number of schools that participate in the mission of these programs. Spending those resources to identify and incorporate the schools where the program do not yet exist is the way to reasonably and cost-effectively increase the availability of these programs to students across the country, and move toward fulfilling the vision. The even more cost-effective growth mechanism would be to leverage the existence of the other programs and the similar investments they are making, and utilize their growth as a way to magnify the efforts of this organization. The very best growth model is one where these organizations all work together to their mutual benefit, to accelerate their combined growth rate, and to reduce their own costs of identifying and recruiting school participation (can anyone say "coopetition"?).
To the original topic: is the "coopetition" patent enforceable? I don't know, and honestly I really don't care. I am much more concerned about the message sent if the organization that owns the patent were to ever TRY to enforce it. Because that would be a signal that the organization was expending resources recklessly, and had taken on a different set of values and priorities then those that attracted many of us. That would be a signal that the true meaning of "coopetition" existed solely on paper, and was not something practiced even by the organization that defined it. And that would be a very sad day.*
-dave
* to be clear: I am not saying that FIRST is anywhere near this point. But it is a signal which I will always keep in mind.
[edit] ** and to be fair, I should also note that there are also people in each of these organizations that definitely understand that competition between these programs is counter-productive, and the best thing that they can do is find ways to leverage their efforts and work together toward their common goals. I just wish they had more opportunities to speak up and let a larger portion of the community hear from them. [/edit]
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