Robert B. Mellor

Scientists tend to want to do something special, to contribute to "progress" and generally be "otherworldly", more concerned with micropipettes, netbeans, Vernier callipers and Markov chains, than commerce. This dichotomy was the subject of my book "Management for Scientists" which I wrote because firstly the management of scientists is quite different from the management of e.g. a factory or production line and secondly because scientists are probably not trained in management economics or business concepts either, we care more about improving the lot of fellow humans .

It started some years ago I was "persuaded" at the IT University of Copenhagen to prototype a course called "IT & Entrepreneurship". I am a dedicated follower of "enlightenment" and intelligent human approaches and thus I wanted throughout to stress the advantage gained by making better Value Chains, in stark contrast to some popular TV series that have not much to do with reality. That was the basis of my book "Entrepreneurship for Everyone".

The management of knowledge workers – scientists – is a particular issue; as scientists we automatically think we belong to the new "sunrise industries" and over-performing giants like Apple and Google spring to mind. As a late-life newly-turned econometrician I simply had to investigate this: This is what my book "Knowledge Management and Information Systems" is about, it explains for the first time how SMEs develop. Our research has shown that to achieve that you need to have employees at least as smart as the managers and that the managers have to trust their employees and merge with them. That is a tall order; but if that is not the case, then a multi-level hierarchy will inevitably spring up, which may perform well in the short-term, but will not reach the superlative peaks of performance that others can achieve. This means that in building our organizations, just as much as in our science, we must always respect others and strive for excellence.

So please remember that the wealth of any nation rests on its science base. To develop this, the qualities of intelligent understanding, openness, co-operation and honesty are paramount. This is the way to peace, prosperity and positive human values, a place where we all want to be!

Have a fulfilling New Year. Regards. RM.