Stab-In-The-Dark-Innovation: Plausible?

NOTE/Disclaimer: I only have one side of this story, so if you have any information concerning this issue, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail at pbaffour.wordpress@gmail.com and I will post it for you as an update to this blog. Thanks

I love my high school…It’s LARGELY responsible for the person I am today and I will forever be greatful to everyone involved in making that experience happen. AND because I love my school so much, I just had to write this blog post to help it do better. I look forward to some interesting comments.

I just read a little blog post by a guy who was hired by my high school to teach Linux. You can go here to read it if you’re interested. Anyway, this post kinda got under my skin a little bit and got me thinking: why would they do that? Why would they find a guy from Germany and give him money (a lot, i’m sure), pay for shipping/ freight and housing, to come teach Linux? The only logical conclusion was that he would be providing an invaluable service that merited all the expenses. However, after reading the blog to the end (and still being in touch with my high school), I realize this Linux program bore no fruit! My brother just graduated and doesn’t know the first thing about Linux. Another brother is still there, and hasn’t mentioned Linux to me (I’ll ask him about it).

I am a HUGE fan of innovation and creativity– how couldn’t I be after being a business major at Whittier College and studying under Dr. Jeff Decker ? But I’m can not, with any logic, business or otherwise, support innovation wich isn’t backed by research. And it seems that this is exactly what happened in this case. According to the posting, there was no interest– absolutly NONE– in the Linux initiative, thus leading this guy to resign. Which only means, the executives who hired this guy didn’t do their homework before making that decision– or they made a decision because it sounded “cool”, not because it would actually do something for the students.

See, the thing that gets to me is that they wasted money on this guy (who by the way I think is an amazing person for resigning– he could have stayed on an kept taking the money) without first assessing what exactly they needed Linux for or if there would be some interest in it. At the very least, they could have made Linux a required part of the Computer Science course in SOS if they were going to spend all this money on this Linux guy. If his primary purpose there was to implement a system (as opposed to teach), then they should have instituted mandatory hours during the week, when all staff and students went to learn Linux.

Anyway, my whole rant aside, I know that the people who run SOS HGIC are some of the smartest I ever met (yes, I really believe that), so they must have has some good reason to hire this guy. I’d really like to read some comments from people who have any idea what this thing was all about.

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