Inspiration from Steve Jobs

In light of Steve Jobs‘ announcement that he is stepping down as CEO of Apple, the Wall Street Journal put together some of his best quotes. There are two that really resonate with me.

On creativity and design:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”

[Wired, February 1996]

On life and achievement:

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.” [NBC Nightly News, May 2006]

You can find the complete list here: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

New Digital Media Center for LSU

There are times when a particular event becomes a landmark in one’s life. Sometimes, we know when they occur (marriage, birth of a child), and sometimes we only realize their importance years later. Yesterday, was one of those days, and it game me a chance to reflect on my career as a composer, a teacher, and an administrator, all at the same time.

Yesterday, we broke ground on a new building for LSU’s campus, the Louisiana Digital Media Center. The LDMC will be home to CCT (and the AVATAR Initiative) as well as to EA’s North American Testing Center for quality assurance.   This building has been “in the works” for at least 4 years, and represents the efforts of a lot of people at the university, city/parish, state and federal levels. There are too many people to thank directly, but you know who you are. For everyone’s effort, I am extremely grateful.

This building represents a vision for how a university can bridge teaching and research with economic development. It goes far beyond just workforce training for specific industries. It’s an environment where new ideas can bubble up out of casual conversations in the hall or over coffee, ideas that can lead to remarkable innovations that make our lives better.

The LDMC opens a new chapter for the CCT, and in the evolution of our AVATAR Initiative in digital media, fulfilling a vision that my late colleague Michael Daugherty and I shared when we started the Music & Art Digital Studio (MADstudio) back in 1995. I spent a lot of time thinking about Michael, our first projects, our collaborations, and our wild fantasies of how we would have an iconic place on campus that would rival the best digital media research centers in the country.

Yesterday shows that to realize big things, sometimes you need a few wild fantasies to get you on your way. To everyone who joined in on these wild dreams, thank you.

News: SCOTUS Rules Against Stanford

I had tweeted about this earlier, but I wanted to add a few thoughts about this ruling. Basically,  the Supreme Court decided that under the Bayh-Dole act, universities could not universally force its faculty and researchers to cede all rights to any invention they may have developed or derived as a result of federally funded research. This is truly good news for us faculty as it protects our rights as creators under the context of federal patent law, that being “rights in an invention belong to an inventor.”

News: Supremes Rule Against Stanford – Inside Higher Ed.

Universities have long struggled with the relationship between academic research and the commercialization of the resulting research product. The case of Gatorade and the University of Florida is perhaps the starting point for the typical approach many universities now have regarding patentable research.  Generally, the approach is “we (the university) own everything, even if you create something outside of your research.” This ruling changes that, and will force universities to be more pragmatic with their policies. But it will also allow university faculty to have more control over their inventions and to be more entrepreneurial (to the benefit of all).

A great student project

One of my graduate students developed a great installation piece called “Bugs in the System.” It uses sensors, cameras, microphones, an Arduino board, and these really cool electronic bugs (you have to see these!). He did it as part of Jesse Allison’s augmented instruments class last semester. Here’s a link to his online documentation.

Nick Hwang: Bugs in the System