With Every Solution There's a Problem
By Dale Dougherty
Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood....And the sons of Ham, Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan....And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. (Genesis 10:1-10, bible.gospelcom.net)
Berners-Lee built an architecture to rise above the flood of information. And Mosaic begat Netscape. This was just the beginning of all kinds of problems we didn't even know about five years ago.
If you create something, you also create problems. New solutions beget new problems. The Tower of Babel can be traced back to Noah and any problem with your Web site can be linked to Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen.
A colleague who used to be head of research and development at a high-tech company took a job managing computer support services at a natural history museum. In his new place of work, users who experienced computer problems tended to walk away from them -- they gave up. In his previous job, he worked with developers, and finding a glitch, bug, or snafu was practically cause for celebration. Like the Maytag repairman, for these folks a problem meant having something new and important to do.
It's a rule of life in the computing industry: Every problem is a golden opportunity. You really look for tough, interesting problems that can lead to a start-up dedicated to solutions.
This problem arrived via email: "If you want a prime example of a real żbug,' try this sometime (actually PLEASE don't unless you have a full backup!)..
