IS IT TRUE? January 5, 2012 “Kodak on the Brink”
IS IT TRUE that the Wall Street Journal headline “Kodak on the Brink†describes the once revered Eastman Kodak Company that much of the wealth of Rochester, NY was built upon as being near to bankruptcy and taking the action of liquidating its patent portfolio?…that a century of building things and the last remaining value is the intellectual property upon which the manufacturing dynasty was built yet collapsed when the inventing stopped?…that this writer was a young R& D engineer at Silicon Valley’s Verbatim Corporation when Verbatim was bought out by Kodak in 1985 and vividly remembers two experiences with the first six months under Kodak?…that during that six month period nearly every member of the R & D and Product Development staff of the former Verbatim left Kodak for reasons that lead to yesterday’s article?
IS IT TRUE that the first instance was in an orientation meeting with a Sr. VP of Something who was sent out via private jet to integrate our R & D team into the Kodak way?…that Verbatim was a very forward thinking company in which all employees had stock options, flex time, a sabbatical every 7 years, massages, free lunches, etc?…that it was sort of like Google is today as a place to work goes?…that all of that came to an end when Kodak took over and that we were actually told by Mr. Sr. VP of Something who travelled by private jet that “if you stick with us for 30 years you will retire with a gold watchâ€?…that this writer just happened to have been given a gold watch for a recent 27th birthday?…that the watch was offered to Mr. Sr. VP of Something that travelled by private jet as an advance against the accomplishments that he was sure to make in the waning years of his career?…that this went over like a turd in the punchbowl but that it did become a story told over and over as Kodak began its 25 year decline into “the Brinkâ€?
IS IT TRUE that the other vivid memory came a couple of weeks later at a special meeting to review a rather novel patent disclosure that was written by this writer?…that during a particularly difficult incident during the debugging process of the focusing device for an erasable compact disk that the focusing mechanism focused on the substrate as opposed to the magneto-optic layer (where the bits are stored)?…that this guy was struck with the idea that if there were multiple focal planes in a disk each with a magneto optic layer that one could store the equivalent of many disks of information on a multilayer single disk?…that this guy wrote it all up in a patent disclosure only to be told by the Kodak tribunal that the idea was so far into the future that they did not want to pursue it at that time?…that 22 years later a multilayer CD Rom was successfully tested by the IBM corporation and published extensively as the next breakthrough in data storage?
IS IT TRUE that somewhere in the vault of Intellectual Property that will someday surely be auctioned off to pay the financial obligations of the Eastman Kodak Company is a two page description and 3 pages of drawings that predate the IBM work by 22 years, are signed an witnessed by the Kodak tribunal who decided not to pursue the invention, and bear the inventors name as this writer, Mr. Joe Wallace?…that there is a box in the attic with copies of that patent disclosure too?…that the real tragedy of this story is that a once great American company grew so large and fat that it put more emphasis on Sr. VP’s of Something and private jets than it did on innovation?…that Kodak essentially paid lots of money for Verbatim and proceeded to run off the only real source of value which was the talent of the people working there?…that this story has played itself out many times at Kodak and other formerly great businesses that forgot that it was innovation and ambition that lead to their successes in the first place?…that unfortunately many of these stories are rooted in the Midwest that just today was profiled for continuing to lose population?…that it is not just population that is migrating to the coasts, it is the very part of the population that has the potential to make profound positive differences?…that this is just a continuation of the brain drain?
Kodak on the Brink on the following Link:
This is another perspective on the collapse of this once great brand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYXGY4wB-0
The conceit of these people has no bounds…
Precious.
LOL….good one Dr John, the thing Kodak missed is every phone on the planet now has better ability to take and send images of a higher quality than most any camera they ever produced.
Another once giant that has lost their path and can’t be far behind Kodak.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2012/01/polaroid-having-largely-given-up.ars
JMHO
The writer of the above article, is “draining” away as I type. He will find fertile ground in California, where honesty, fresh ideas and talent are not feared. We have enjoyed his presence and influence, but, cream really does rise to the top.
Thank You and Best Wishes, Mr Joe Wallace. …
Amen Bubbageek.
It has been a pleasure to know you, Joe. I feel we have all lost a friend.
Be well. Be happy. Be productive. Be thankful. Be peaceful. And most of all grow to your considerable potential. I have no doubt you will do all those and more.
I + 2 the above statements and wish Joe Wallace the best of luck in California (but not too much luck as we still need him back here).
Joe’s been the leader we have desperately needed here to get things rolling and the accomplishments he is leaving us will continue to reap benefits for us for years to come.
Everything I have accomplished in the past two years here I attribute to Joe Wallace. Thanks Joe!
Thanks Jordan. I am staying in your favorite inspirational city of Oklahoma City tonight and they have really done some great things just like you said. Keep up the visioning.
That is awesome Joe. You’ll see the power of MAPS firsthand.
I don’t know how long you’re there but definitely check out three sites…
1. The OKC Bombing site at 5th,6th, Robinson, & Harvey. But don’t believe what they tell you in the museum, that was definitely a gov’t inside job (see the video: A Noble Lie)
2. Go to the Bricktown Canal which is east of downtown off what is I-40 (soon to be moved)
3. Go to the original Ford Center
Those three sites will show you why we need to build our 01 plan here.
Good luck and have a same trip the rest of the way out!
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