I know Steve rather well... Paul, why don't you and I chat on the phone sometime next week, and we can plot what I might talk to him about. Grady Booch IBM Fellow    Voice:    (303) 986-2405    Mobile:  (303) 898-7091    Fax:        (303) 987-2141    Video:    (303) 795-6587/6626    GPS:      39.620/-105.076    Notes:    Grady Booch/Boulder/IBM    E-mail:   gbooch@us.ibm.com <table width=100%> <tr valign=top> <td width=40%>Paul McJones <paul@mcjones.org> Sent by: scc_active-bounces@computerhistory.org 11/18/05 09:54 AM <td width=59%> <table width=100%> <tr> <td> <div align=right>To</div> <td valign=top>SCC active <scc_active@computerhistory.org> <tr> <td> <div align=right>cc</div> <td valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=right>Subject</div> <td valign=top>[SCC_Active_Members] Steve Mills on software pioneers</table> <table> <tr valign=top> <td> <td></table> </table> <tt>In the attached editorial (which appeared in this morning's San Jose Mercury News), Steve Mills of IBM says, "We need to find creative ways to transfer technical knowledge and skills of retiring workers to a new generation, while at the same time, inspiring young people to pursue careers in math, science and engineering. Failure to do so could have serious economic ramifications for our nation, California and Santa Clara County." He then gives several examples of  ways to "capture the experience of the baby boomers and encourage them to pass along their experience in classrooms to help meet the shortage of teachers accredited in math and science." It occurs to me that an additional way to address Mills' concern is to recruit the IBM corporation and current/former baby boomer IBM employees to participate with us in collecting and preserving historic software, and then in figuring out how to create exhibits and teaching materials for schools based on that software. As a baby boomer who became involved with computers in high school, I felt a visceral excitement that has led to intellectual stimulation continuing to the present. Folks in the SCC may think of me as fixated on dusty decks, but in my "day job" I'm working in an area of software (image processing using GPUs) that is new to me and still in its infancy. I have the sense that many of my peers in college in the late 60s and at work in the 70s felt the same kind of excitement and intellectual stimulation, but I rarely encounter this among young software engineers today. Perhaps as computers have permeated society, familiarity has insulated younger people from the "shock" I experienced. In any case, I think promoting software collection/preservation by baby boomers could provide an excellent way to first reawaken the excitement in them and then convey both historical knowledge and excitement to a new generation of software engineers and computer scientists. Does anyone on the SCC know Steve Mills and think he would be interested in discussing this with us? Paul McJones ----- http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13200172.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Posted on Fri, Nov. 18, 2005                   ** ** Our challenge: Find talent to replace software pioneers ** *By Steve Mills* ** The ``space race'' of the 1960s between the United States and the Soviet Union demonstrated that successful execution of a technology strategy can benefit a nation politically. In 1961, when President Kennedy pledged to put an American on the moon by the end of the decade, schools, parents and students responded with a regimen of math and science courses designed to help the nation accomplish that goal. As we mark the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, it's important to remember the profound effect his challenge had on education. Those students were part of the baby boomer generation of 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 -- the largest segment of the U.S. population. We continue to benefit from that generation's emphasis on scientific achievement and the new industries they created. In Santa Clara County, the information technology industry took root, transforming apricot and almond groves into the labs, research institutions and headquarters of some of the world's leading corporations. However, in the current best-seller, ``The World is Flat,'' Tom Friedman observes, ``the generation of scientists and engineers who were motivated to go into science by the threat of Sputnik in 1957 and the inspiration of JFK are reaching their retirement age and are not being replaced.'' Nowhere is that trend more apparent than in the software industry, where California is the clear leader in software engineering and development -- employing 132,200 people statewide, or 18 percent of the nation's total. Santa Clara County has the highest concentration of software engineers and developers in the nation, with more than 32,500 workers. Beginning Jan. 1, the baby boomers will start turning 60. Many of the early software pioneers are quickly reaching retirement age, yet their skills remain in high demand. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Standards says software development and engineering are among the Top 10 fastest-growing occupations through 2012. According to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, the nationwide percentage of incoming college freshmen who want to major in computer sciences declined by more than 60 percent from 2000 to 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than peak levels in the early 1980s. The proportion of freshmen women who showed interest in computer sciences as a major has fallen to levels unseen since the early 1970s. We need to find creative ways to transfer technical knowledge and skills of retiring workers to a new generation, while at the same time, inspiring young people to pursue careers in math, science and engineering. Failure to do so could have serious economic ramifications for our nation, California and Santa Clara County. While we still have time, it's appropriate to think about ways to meet the challenge. We need to capture the experience of the baby boomers and encourage them to pass along their experience in classrooms to help meet the shortage of teachers accredited in math and science. We need to take steps at an early age to ensure that all students, including girls, minorities and youngsters with disabilities, have accessibility to math and science courses in middle school years, which will enable them to take the college and post-graduate courses to pursue technical careers. Sometimes that involves unusual methods of teaching. Based upon the popularity of ``CSI,'' a TV program about forensic scientists, IBM has offered forensic science activities as part of its math and science camps for pre-teen girls around the world, such as a camp held in June in San Jose. The girls learned how to solve a ``mystery'' using scientific methods and, more importantly, realize the integral part that technical knowledge plays in our daily lives. Computers, video games and iPods, among other devices, give today's students a familiarity with technology not possible by earlier generations. We need to channel the enthusiasm of early adopters of the latest video games into a transferable technical skill they will pursue for the rest of their lives. Santa Clara County has been at the forefront of technical innovation for the past 50 years. As the pioneers of the IT industry begin to retire, we need to ensure there's a pipeline of new talent waiting to take their places for the Silicon Valley workforce of the next 50 years and beyond. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ /*STEVE MILLS* is senior vice president and group executive of IBM's Software Group, the second largest software business in the world. He led IBM's Silicon Valley Lab in the early 1990s. He wrote this article for the Mercury News./ _______________________________________________ SCC_active mailing list SCC_active@computerhistory.org http://mail.computerhistory.org/mailman/listinfo/scc_active </tt>