If highly developed economies are to escape economic collapse, they must better utilize bureaucratic innovation. Narrow-minded innovation review committees tend to favor entrepreneurs, while giving short shrift even to fully and properly completed bureaucratic innovation applications. The enormity of the cost to the economy is of magnitude that makes it difficult to be stated properly and fully even with extensive staff effort that has been devoted to the task. Think of whales. Before the development of modern industrial economies powered by the extraction, processing, and distribution of petrochemicals that now present the specter of resource depletion not to mention global warming and the heating of the atmosphere due to human activity in all its wastefulness, whale oil burned brightly. With the advent of electricity, opportunities for innovation were overlooked:
Imagine a whale oil convention a hundred years ago where the speakers about electricity only came from within the ranks of the whale oil industry. One session is dedicated to new innovations in oil lamp manufacturing where the oil is lit by a spark of electricity. Another looks at the benefits of listening to the radio while resting with the soft light and therapeutic fragrances of scented oil lamps. Still another examines innovations on the future use of electricity in steamship navigation equipment.
No one got these important ideas. These innovations were lost to posterity. Women and children suffered. Don’t let that happen again. Bureaucrats vastly outnumber entrepreneurs. We must embrace bureaucratic innovation.
In other bureaucratic issues this month, Stephen Wolfram has clearly articulated a fundamental law of bureaucracy: “people don’t want answers, they want reports.” WolframAlpha is gaining the ability to generate reports — reams and reams of charts, graphs, and tables — automatically. WolfamAlpha technology will radically increase bureaucratic report-generating productivity. However, the most important part of a report is its cover sheet. If WolframAlpha could also generate attractive and appropriate cover sheets, every bureaucrat could have a fresh, impressive-looking stack of custom reports on her or his desk.
A veteran of countless bureaucratic battles recently shared some wisdom. If you’re in a bureaucratic battle and you find yourself in a hole, dig deeper. Deeper holes offer more protection. So as bad as the situation may get, never give up. Keep digging.
The Early Times, covering the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, reports:
Bilal Ahmad of Lalbazar is working as head assistant in Department of Higher Education at Civil Secretariat. In early 1990s, he got his sister-in-law No:1, namely Kousar Jan, appointed as Laboratory Assistant in Government Degree College Baramulla.
Later, on 01-05-2001, Bilal Ahmad managed to engage his sister-in-law No:2, namely Shubeena Tabasum, engaged on College Local Fund at Government College for Women M A Road Srinagar. In the list published on 19-02-2012, she stands appointed as Library Bearer at Serial No: 7. According to the college staff, she had revealed to her colleagues about her selection and had relinquished her charge in December 2011 when the final appointment list was being finalized.
Someone should prepare a full report, with cover sheet.
That’s all for this month’s Carnival of Bureaucrats. Enjoy previous bureaucratic carnivals here. Nominations of posts to be considered for inclusion in next month’s carnival should be submitted using Form 376: Application for Bureaucratic Recognition.