Disruptive Tendencies

Open Letter to Today's Business School Grad

Kids today have it tough. Sure, they’ve all got laptops, iPhones and have grown up never having used a payphone or wearing a watch, but as Thomas Friedman has pointed out, their world is now flat. Competition for jobs is now global. “Take on the world” now has a literal meaning and an urgency unknown to previous generations.

But having been involved, as an alumnus, with Acadia University administration and Manning School of Business faculty, I have found reason to be optimistic. One of the most gratifying aspects of my involvement has been the opportunity to engage with both students and faculty, and see firsthand how they are adapting to, and taking on this new world.

I’ve been asked by several new grads, for real world, practical advice. So, as a guy with some miles under the tires and some scars, I offer up these thoughts on what it takes to be successful out of the gate.

In no particular order:

Be a sponge – absorb everything that you can – at work, in industry, follow thought leaders, etc.;

Resist the temptation to prove how much you know – people will notice you by your effort and competence, you don’t have to point out how great you are;

Work hard and play hard – but “play hard” is different from university where it meant hitting the pub every night. Whether it’s playing Ultimate, softball or mountain biking, get to know your team members outside of the office;

Volunteer for assignments - “old timers” generally hate working trade shows, but I would try to go to as many as possible. Help with booth set-up/teardown, work the booth, take in the keynotes...It’s a great way to be as current as possible, to build a professional network and to begin to formulate your own opinions about your space;

Be opinionated and passionate, but don’t always feel like you have to “win”...Sometimes it’s about trying to make lemonade from lemons.

Make your boss look good;

Watch the nickels and dimes – you’re spending someone else’s money (investors, shareholders), treat it as your own. Offer to double up at trade shows, as rooms are often the biggest expense;

Be aligned with a profit center, not a cost center – tie yourself to revenue, where you can be measured...When times are tough, cutbacks come first from cost centers, and no matter how “valuable” you think your contributions are, if they can’t be measured and tracked against revenue, you’ll be hard pressed to justify your existence at some point;

Participate in outside meetings – partners, customers, press/analysts...Observe, take notes...But mind the hierarchy;

Remember, that your career is lifelong. I was going to say it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but actually it’s more like a series of wind sprints...You run fast, pause to catch your breath, and then run fast again and again;

Create your own “story” - how did you become passionate about your field, end up at...?

Meet the VCs – tell them your “story”...

And most importantly, remember, “Success has many fathers…” Success truly requires a team that rows in the same direction. Be willing to acknowledge and share the credit for your successes, because whether you believe it or not, you would not have succeeded but for the contributions of others;

Lastly, many forget that the second half of the expression is “...but Failure is an orphan”. Sometimes, you need to own mistakes and/or failures. Resist pointing the finger.

 

Now go take on the world, because you have to!

That’s my .02! What’s yours?

Martin Suter

 

All His Bags Are Packed, He’s Ready to Go

After a long, hot summer, today is the day that we pack our son Roark’s bags for his departure to college. Tomorrow, he and I will fly up together and begin the settling in process for him at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia, Canada.

At 18, and after 7 years in Florida, Roark is ready to leave “home”. He’s looking forward to seasons again, as well as taking his first steps towards independence. Despite having told ourselves that “empty nesting” is a phase to which we are looking forward, it is becoming clear just how large a void Roark’s departure will leave behind.

There is so much that I want to tell him between now and Sunday, when I pull out of Wolfville and leave him behind. First and foremost are the feelings of intense love and profound pride in the young man that he has become. But more than that, I would like to mind-meld and share with him all that I’ve learned in my 47 years so that he is somehow protected against the harsh reality that can be life. A parent’s instinct is “To Preserve and Protect”, but there comes a time when that is no longer possible to do so directly. This is that time. I had hoped that helping Roark “launch” would feel empowering, but as I sit here on the cusp of his departure, I feel helpless at my inability to watch over him and remain his protector.

We raise our kids the best we can, giving them the tools that they need to be independent. Since Roark was an infant, the one tool that we have focused on, in anticipation of this day, is the ability to make the right decisions. “Ask yourself – is this the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?”, has been a Suter mantra since the earliest days. There were no “rules” at our house, because there is no rulebook that anticipates every situation. It is the ability to differentiate between right and wrong choices that we hope to have instilled in both our kids, so that when we aren’t there to preserve and protect, they remember to ask themselves that question. If they do that, they’ll do the right thing.

I will miss him more than he knows.

That’s my .02…

Martin Suter

 

IP Licensing for the Technology Entrepreneur

Intellectual Property licensing is a complex subject with many moving parts. Unfortunately, it is rarely covered in modern business school curricula. The net result is that managers, C-level execs and Board members seldom approach IP licensing strategically, either in terms of monetisation or in the connection between license terms, and their potential impact on valuation and exit opportunities.

This set of slides attempts to simplify many of these issues for the business strategist - Board members, C-level execs, and senior managers. I have used subsets of this presentation to groups of Executive MBA students, corporate counsel and IP professionals and generally use them as a launching pad for a broader discussion. (To discuss speaking opportunities, please contact martin.suter at iplicensing.net).

These slides draw on my experience, as I have been fortunate to have been mentored by some very capable attorneys over the years (such as Cliff Chillemi, in-house counsel at MeshNetworks, and Jill Riola, Co-Chair, IP Group at Carlton Fields), and worked with top IAM strategists (people like John Cronin from ipCapital Group and Paul Germeraad from Intellectual Assets, Inc.). I have also sat across the table from many very capable negotiators representing companies like Dow Chemical, Microsoft and Motorola and had to justify IP licensing recommendations to VC investors across North America.

 

Feel free to share and comment.

That's my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

Immigration Policy as Scientific Impedance (Redux)

Yesterday, I wrote about how two out of three Americans, awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine this year, were immigrants to this country. Well today, as I perused the Times again, I came across an article on this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics recipients. It turns out that two out of three of the Physics winners are also immigrants. Dr. Kao was born in Shanghai and Dr. Boyle in Canada.

Imagine a scenario today, where a Chinese or Canadian engineer had a job opportunity in the US. Chances are that their prospective employer would attempt to sponsor them for an H1B visa, an employer-sponsored visa for positions requiring advanced degrees. But there is a limited number of these every year, and typically the H1B pool is vastly oversubscribed. So maybe today’s Dr. Kao or Dr. Boyle can’t even enter the country to work.

Or perhaps they get lucky, and get that coveted H1B. Despite the fact that neither their spouse nor their children are able to work under their H4 status, they decide to emigrate anyway. The 6 year clock starts ticking, and unless they get a Green Card during this period, they’ll have to move elsewhere at the end of this period – earlier if they lose their position with their employer sponsor.

Once again, they’re amongst the lucky ones, whose employer agrees to the expense and administrative overhead and begins the employer-sponsored Green Card process. Before the application is actually submitted, the company needs to submit a job description, with a minimum set of qualifications required to do the job, and have this approved by the Department of Labor. Once signed off by this Department, the position needs to be posted internally and advertised externally for a period of 30 days, during which time the employer is required to accept applications for the job.

If, during this phase, an American applies, who meets the minimum level of qualifications, the potential applicant is deemed to be taking a job away from an American and cannot apply for his/her Green Card, meaning that once his H1B 6 year clock runs down, he/she must leave the country.

It’s very easy to imagine tomorrow’s potential Nobel Prize winners being put through this process today. Does anybody believe that employment is zero-sum? That there is a finite number of positions available? Or is it more enlightened to acknowledge that scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are creators of jobs, and that their desire to immigrate to America should be embraced and encouraged.

There’s way too much friction in the system today. Brains abhor friction, and in a flat world, can just as easily be located elsewhere. When the Nobel Prize winners in 2040 are all in China, Russia, India or Korea, it will be too late for America, and it need only to look back a few decades and bemoan its own immigration policies.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

 

Immigration Policy as Scientific Impedance

A headline in today’s New York Times proudly proclaimed, “Three Americans Share Nobel for Work in Cell Biology”. The three winners discovered telomeres, thus solving a longstanding puzzle involving the ends of chromosomes. Apparently the implications of their work extends to cell division in both cancer and aging, which I must say, I’m very pleased about.

The article goes on to describe how two of the recipients were women, and how rare an event this is, with only eight women having won the Nobel Prize for Medicine previously. “Fantastic”, I thought, as science needs more women role models for young women today.

Then the article took a slight turn – it seems that two out of three recipients are immigrants. Dr. Blackburn came to the US in the ‘70’s, because it was “notably attractive as a place to do science, but goes on to suggest that “while America is still a magnet for foreign scientists, one shouldn’t take that for granted.”

Having previously blogged about the implications of an unenlightened immigration policy (“US Immigration Policy & Global Competitiveness”), I read on with interest.

Indeed, the point that was made by Dr. Szostak was that the world was now much more competitive in science, and that “we have to work a little harder to attract people from around the world and make sure they want to stay here.”

But as noted by Dr. Cech, former president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, onerous visa requirements are benefitting European countries especially, as “Even now, there is an implication when foreign scientists apply for visas that they should be distrusted, denied several times, and should have to hire lawyers and jump through a lot of hoops.”

Brains, like bits, abhor friction. It doesn’t matter whether the electrical impulses are synapses firing or semiconductors crunching data, electricity travels the path of least resistance. If US immigration policy makes it too onerous for today’s brilliant young minds to move to the US, these future scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and yes, even Nobel Prize winners, will no longer be able to proudly call themselves “American”.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

Reflections on "Working"

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”, is a question we ask our children. Why do we use the verb “to be”, as if their job is what they are, not what it is that they do.

Or is our job what we are?

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to watch the Trinity Prep high school musical theater class perform “WORKING”, a musical adaptation from the book by Studs Terkel. Watching a group of exceptionally talented students, with a private school education and the future in front of them, play mill workers and firefighters, check-out girls and waitresses, UPS drivers and Wall Street executives was a jarring juxtaposition.

Janine Papin, the head of the theater department and director, summed up the rationale for the selection as follows:

“Each semester, Patrick (Nugent, Musical Director) and I attempt to find a show that meets the needs of the students enrolled. In the case of WORKING, each of the 13 students has his/her time in the spotlight and as part of the ensemble. As they step in and out of different people’s shoes, it shows them a side of life that they have yet to, or may never experience. I believe that exposure to the different sides of life and various socio-economic groups will help these students see things differently. We have all been told that we can’t really understand anyone until we have walked in their shoes. I hope that this show deepens both the actors’ and the audience’s understanding of the human condition.”

She knows her students, and is always striving to teach them, not simply about “acting”, but to make them better citizens of the world. Her students know this, or at least sense it, and are incredibly responsive and loyal. Parents of students also get this, and are profoundly grateful for her commitment to her students. Every one of them is a better person for having worked with Janine and Patrick.

As a father watching the show, one of the scenes was particularly poignant. Mike (sung by Jamie Pittle), a father, speaks to his own son as well as to his relationship with his own father.

“Boy you never stop to think, how fast the years run now they’ve taken you…I remember when you were three and a half, your ma and me would sit there…planning for our kid. I was your hero then. I could do no wrong. As far as you was concerned, I was the best of men…You hadn’t learned, how little time it takes and that Daddies make mistakes.”

“Seems to me that lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my Dad…Lots of funny things come back, I thought I’d forgot, and now they make me sad…He was my hero then. He couldn’t do no wrong, as far as I was concerned, he was the wisest, and the strongest, and the best of men…I hadn’t learned…that Daddies make mistakes.”

Mike then went on to describe his rationale for working, and his dreams for his son:

“…my kid is my imprint, you know what I mean? This is why I work…You know what I want? I want my kid to tell me that he’s not going to be like me…I’m sure the first caveman who went over the hill to see what was on the other side, didn’t go just out of curiosity. He went there because he wanted to get his son out of that cave.”

I would wager that I wasn’t the only man in the theater for whom this song hit close to home.

The kids on stage are being groomed for success. They come from privileged backgrounds, and are candidates for America’s finest schools. Notwithstanding their background, these kids are no strangers to hard work. Academic rigor is de rigueur and scholarships from the best schools are likely. You don’t get to be as talented as these kids by accident. They have had to work at it, and I have a profound respect for their talents. There is nothing to which these kids aren’t able to aspire, but a little wisdom imparted along the way can only help.

 “If I could’ve done, what I could’ve done, I could’ve done big things…With leeway to go far as I could go, I would’ve gone places – to the front of the line, the top of the tier, a long way from here…”

Perhaps as a result of this class, these kids (and the audience) will think differently about the maid, the grocery store clerk, the truck driver, the immigrant laborer, the firefighter, and the mason. If this happens, mission accomplished.

These people work, and like Mike probably work hard, so that their sons and daughters can have a better life than they’ve had. That’s something to which every one of us can relate, and is worthy of our compassion and respect, no matter the work.

Thank you Janine & Patrick.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

High Octane Intellectualism

Coming off an election where “elite” was an insult, “Joe the Plumber” was a hero, Obama was “too articulate” and Sarah Palin was sold as being capable of assuming the Presidency, I was despondent about how dumbed down America appeared to have become. Part of that comes from living in Florida, a southern swing state, where there’s tremendous gravitational pull for the worst of partisan politics, but it seemed to be more pervasive this cycle than in previous elections.

Then, last week, I travelled to Boston to take a 2-day course on “Technology Negotiation” put on by Harvard, MIT and Tufts. Spending 3 days in Cambridge was like a shot of adrenalin right to the brain, and I realized that there is intelligent life out there!

But not just intelligent, people with big brains thinking big thoughts. There are people who are smarter than Spock everywhere you look.

The program itself was excellent, with a top-notch faculty and about 70 attendees from all over the world. Lawrence E. Susskind, Dr. Hal Movius, and Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld spent the full two days working with us, answering questions and inspiring the group. During lunch on Day 2, several of us began discussing the nature of technology. I brought up a concept that I love by Nicholas Negroponte, who describes the transformation that is occurring as the move from the production of atoms to the production of bits. From “stuff”, to information, content and software. The implications are profound.

As I mentioned Negroponte’s quote, Joel C-G chuckles and says that his brother runs the “MIT Center for Bits and Atoms’ Fab Lab” lab at MIT and starts to describe some of the things they’re working on. Some of the research that is going on reminded me of Ray Kurzweil’s concept of “the singularity”, so I said, “It sounds like the singularity is near”, which is also the title of Kurzweil’s book. Joel chuckled again, and said that he lived two doors down from Ray in Boston.

It was like being brought back to life. I forgot how much I missed intellectual sustenance, and for 48 hours last week, I was able to refill the tank with the highest octane intellectualism that I’ve had the privilege of meeting in a long time.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)

(PS – For anyone interested in learning more about the premise behind “The Singularity is Near”, TED.com has a 20 minute video of Kurzweil speaking about it. Watch it, and then go buy the book!)

All is not rotten in the state of Denmark

With Sarah Palin’s nomination, much that is ugly and contentious about the US today has been brought to center stage. Having gone through the 2004 election in a swing state, I can honestly say that there is nothing more polarizing than grassroots-level politics in this country. Unfortunately, 2008 promises to make 2004 look like a day at the beach.

Following her nomination, the news quickly emerged that Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Others have written about the hypocrisy about elevating her and her mother to heroes for choosing “life”, while these same people tore into Jamie Lynn Spears, despite the fact that she appears to have made the very same mistake and decision, so I won’t go over that ground again. However, rather than avoiding the topic of her pregnancy, this should be front and center in the debate about the failure of the head-in-the-sand approach to sex education and the cost to society of this approach.

There was a line in Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver that struck me at the time and which is worthy of mention. To paraphrase: “We may not agree on a woman’s right to choose, but I’m sure we can agree on the goal of reducing abortions and unwanted teen pregnancies.” His comments demonstrate a respect for an opponent’s view, and a reframing of the issue towards a common goal. The problem is that his opponents also oppose the solution, which is open dialogue and education about things such as contraception. Taking a pragmatic view of sex education rather than attempting to impose one’s own morality would go a long way to achieving both goals articulated by Obama. Although to the Republican base, the horror of sex is too much to bear. Their opposition to a realistic view on teenage sexuality is the cause, teenage pregnancy and abortion is the effect.

An interesting exercise is to take the emotion out of the discussion and simply look at statistics. A recent article in the Times cites a US government report from 2001 that states the US teen birth rate is the highest per capita of any OECD country. Of course, I can hear the Republicans blaming this on the Clinton years leading up to 2000, and kidding themselves that “things have changed” (there’s that Republicans for “change” mantra again), but as we have seen with Bristol Palin, things probably haven’t changed very much.

Not only does the US have the highest incidence of teenage births (52.1 per 1000), it also has the dubious distinction of having the highest incidence of abortions in women under 20 (30.2 per 1000). So fully 8.23% of American teenage girls end up with unplanned pregnancies before turning twenty. Only Hungary comes anywhere near the US, and it is still only about 60% of the US figures.

Are American girls having a disproportionate amount of sex as compared to other countries? Not at all, in fact they fall somewhere down the list with eighty one percent of American women reporting having sex before their 20^th birthdays.

According to the study, the girls in Denmark are the most prolific sexually – fully 90% of Danes have had sex before they turn 20, as have had 88% of Icelanders, 87% of Brits, and 84% of Norwegians and Finns.

But what happens when you look at the Danish numbers? More girls are having sex, yet the incidence of teenage births is 85% lower than the US. And what about abortions? Half.

It seems reasonable to take a position, as Obama did, that both teen births and abortions are undesirable. So while more Danes are having sex, they are smarter at avoiding the unwanted side effects of their decision. How do you get smarter? Education and acceptance. It’s clear that “abstinence only” is a deluded approach that has been proven to be ineffective.

How else does society pay the price for this evangelical approach to “education”?

According to the CIA World Factbook, the US has an incidence of AIDS that is 300% that of Denmark. Nearly a million people are living with HIV/AIDS in this country, while Denmark has five thousand. Sure it’s population is 1/60 that of the US, but its rate of infection is still 70% lower than the US number. Lastly, over 17,000 people have died in this country from HIV/AIDS, while in Denmark fewer than 100 have done so.

When you add all of this up, the cost to US society is staggering. Teenage mothers (and fathers) are forced to make a terrible decision.  They are then forced to live with that choice for the rest of their lives, one way or another. How many life dreams and aspirations die on the vine, as teens drop out of school to raise their children? What about the burden this places on social programs, not to mention the hit our GDP and tax base take, as these kids aren’t qualified for much beyond McJobs? What about the cost to our healthcare system of treating those with HIV/AIDS for decades, and the loss to the economy (not to mention friends and families) of those that have died prematurely because of ignorance and shame.

For the lack of a condom, a life is lost - the life of a fetus, the teenage mother or the AIDS victim.

So while Bristol Palin’s personal situation is indeed unfortunate, her mother’s decision to step out on the world’s largest stage makes it fair game. Indeed, I am sympathetic to Bristol, but what is disappointing is that her mother and her newfound following are so narrow-minded that they can’t even consider that imposing one’s sexual morality on others is fundamentally flawed. Bristol Palin is not a hero, but she is a victim. She’s a victim of her church’s misguided position on sexuality. She’s a victim of her mother’s views on sex education. She’s a victim of her mother’s decision to run and to put her in the spotlight. Her life will never be the same.

Abstinence only is a dangerously naïve and misguided approach that clearly hasn’t worked nationally, just as it didn’t work in the Palin household. Sex education should be a topic of national discussion with a shared objective as outlined in Denver.

Unfortunately Bristol Palin is the poster child for the failure to engage in this dialogue.

That's my .02!

Martin Suter (martin.suter@iplicensing.net) 

What have you done with your cognitive surplus today?

Recently a colleague of mine and I had a fascinating discussion over drinks one night about a concept that Clay Shirky refers to as “cognitive surplus”. He then sent me a link to a speech Clay gave at the Web 2.0 Conference in April of this year, called “Gin, Television, and Social Surplus” (video).

I love reading something that really makes you think, and Shirky nails it. Effectively he describes the cyclical anaesthetization and awakening of Western society, and suggests that we’re in the middle of that cycle currently. I can’t speak to the historical accuracy of his description of the pre-Industrial Revolution gin carts helping everyone in London to dull their senses, but I can totally relate to his modern day example: the sitcom. He refers to Desperate Housewives as “a cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking…” I love that line!

Obviously, Shirky is a fan of wikis, and uses Wikipedia as a unit of measure for productivity of the collective against which he compares non-productive activity, most notably the watching of television. He estimates that there’s 100 million hours of collective human thought in “all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in.” He doesn’t share his calculations, but he seems like a smart guy, so I’ll take that number at its face.

He then cites statistics on the amount of time spent watching TV per year – 200 billion hours in the US alone, or as he equates it to “two thousand Wikipedia projects a year”. Therein lies his “cognitive surplus”. People sitting on their couches as passive recipients of brain candy, rather than being active producers…Doing nothing as opposed to doing something.

Where we diverge is probably in our views on profiting from this cognitive surplus. While he doesn’t come out and say it, my guess is that he believes that society as a whole will benefit from contributions made from this cognitive surplus and the collective sharing of knowledge. That’s a little too warm and fuzzy for me. I’d take a slightly different view. If we were to look at this through an economic lens, then tapping into this cognitive surplus could grow our GDP at Chinese-like rates!

There is not a shortage of time, there’s a shortage of intellectual activity.

That’s my .02 (with much inspiration from Mr. Shirky)!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net)

US Immigration Policy & Global Competitiveness

A line from a poem, “The New Colossus”, by the nineteenth-century American poet Emma Lazarus, appears on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. It ends with Liberty herself speaking:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

 

While this may have sufficed as American immigration policy pre-WWI, when a strong back and a desire to work was all that was necessary to build out the nation’s infrastructure, it doesn’t cut it today. And yet, in many ways, these sentiments continue to be reflected by US immigration policy in the 21^st century.

America is slipping by most meaningful, objective measures: Education, healthcare, productivity, GDP per capita, trade deficits, etc. I was at a private lecture, a couple of years ago, at which Gene Kranz (“Failure is Not An Option”) was the guest speaker. He decried the situation in fairly stark terms by saying that there will not be enough US aerospace engineering graduates to backfill the positions vacated by retiring NASA engineers. How are we going to beat the Chinese to the moon or continue to push the boundaries of exploration with a manned mission to Mars if we can’t fully staff NASA?

The US has many different visa classes. The H1B is an employer-sponsored visa specifically for those positions that require advanced degrees. However, the number of H1Bs available each year is a fraction of the demand, meaning that one’s chances of getting a visa are reduced to a lottery. Companies like Google and Microsoft have been vocal in their view that their ability to fully staff in the US is negatively impacted by the inadequate quota levels of available H1B visas and have gone so far as to open substantial R&D offices in Vancouver, as well as in places like India, China & Russia.

While getting an H1B is a milestone for many professionals, it is limited in terms of time (3 year term, 6 years max), and does not allow for spouses or children to work in the US. Nor is it a path to US citizenship – that path is through a Green Card.

There are essentially two ways to get a coveted Green Card – sponsorship by a family member already resident in the US, or sponsorship by an employer. The family sponsored applicants need not have any advanced skills or education – only a desire to reside in the US and a family member capable of sponsoring them. And while we cling to the belief that it is possible to live the American Dream, the reality is that many of these Green Card holders have neither the education nor the skills necessary to help America improve its competitiveness in a frictionless, flat world.

I speak from personal experience when I say that the path to Green Card for educated professionals is not trivial. Many potential Green Card applicants may also be H1B visa holders, at least the lucky few to have gotten one. The perception continues to be propagated that a Green Card applicant can’t be in the country to fill a position that an American is capable of doing. The first step is for the employer to demonstrate to the Department of Labor that no American meets the minimum qualifications laid out for that position. Not that they are more qualified than the prospective immigrant, simply that they meet the minimum qualifications. This is a very low bar to set and as a result, many highly qualified non-US citizens that want to live, raise their families and pay taxes in the US are not able to do so.

The sad fact is that these jobs are being created elsewhere, as the production of “bits” has very different location requirements than does the production of “atoms”. American leadership in technology and its competitive advantage are evaporating, and what’s unfortunate is that many of the people that could help stop this slide, have been lined up at the door, asking politely to get in.  However, too many are turned away and prevented from doing so.

Immigration needs to be managed, but the pool of potential immigrants is a tremendous resource to be tapped. An enlightened immigration policy would be aligned with a clearly defined set of national priorities. Want to improve competitiveness and GDP? Make it easier for educated professionals to live and work in the country. Let their spouses, many of which are also highly educated, work and contribute as well. And most importantly, so doing will allow their children to be educated, work and stay in the US as well. Professionals are net producers and help to grow the national economy and the tax base not takers.

So continue to let in the tired, poor and huddled masses, but make it easier for those of us that are neither tired, nor poor, but who desire to be productive members of the US economy to stay in the country for more than six years.

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

(martin.suter@iplicensing.net