Unfortunately, the PE Recommendations document does lend itself to some old criticisms as it carries over weaknesses of CoLab’s prior efforts to fix NASA. The suggestions only treat symptoms of an Agency wide disease, but they do not not offer a systemic cure. There needs to be cogent, material, and real offerings on how to change the minds and behaviors of NASA’s workforce from the top down. Instead of being told how to fix some of yesterday’s problems, NASA employees should be nurtured so the ideas of Participatory Exploration and Collaboration develop organically across the Agency.

Many have repeatedly claimed that it is NASA’s ‘mindset’ that is the underlying problem. Indeed, there are many individual and institutional problems throughout NASA that make PE programs difficult to initiate or mature. That said, this mindset is based on old assumptions and good intentions by very bright people given the best data available at the time. In recent times, there have been several presentations that detail the advantages of collaborative and participatory technologies, but the validity of these messages have been completely lost in the irrelevant static of inter-generational bickering. There is no compelling argument that NASA’s problems have anything to do with the age distribution of its workforce. Fortunately the authors of these PE recommendations have smartly broadcast solutions to familiar, solvable problems, but need to continue to tune the message on improving the Agency as a whole.

I believe that NASA’s mindset problems are not as difficult to change as many may frustratingly believe. NASA as an agency is complacent because NASA’s leaders, thinkers, and doers–regardless of their generation–are mostly ignorant of the alternatives. The solution to ignorance is literally education.

In August 2008, I invited myself to work with NASA CoLab during the IPP Quarterly meetings at Ames Research Center. Representing external commercial and academic NASA partners through my company, Exploration Solutions, I came to critique Colab and suggest new ways to advance their mission that I fundamentally believed in. Those conversations framed with my prior experiences helped me identify the single most important thing that could help FIX the problems that NASA CoLab experienced: institute an agency-wide Workforce Development program for the development, management and usage of Participatory Exploration and collaboration tools.

The NASA CoLab team, coupled with the profitable and connected innovators in Silicon Valley, were (are) ideally suited to develop the appropriate curricula for what I would call a Participatory Exploration Workforce Development program. With the various pressures NASA faces, such as Shuttle cancellation and other budget related changes, the demand for employee (re)training programs are clear at each Center. External state government and non-government partners (Space Grant Consortia, Space Florida, California Space Authority, etc) have local interest and money to invest in such tax-base assurance programs. Workforce Development programs are materially understood in industry and government alike, and provide comparable metrics that can establish the success and value of the education in real dollars. Moreover, successful metrics builds legitimacy, silences detractors, and helps ensure recurrent funding.

Specifically, I proposed creating education initiative through the already established SATERN training system. It would serve two purposes:

• Provide legal and operational understanding of collaborative and participatory exploration related activities and technologies.
• Facilitate a community of trained employees that would foster & guide the development of Participatory Exploration activities and tools.

Many IPP managers were very receptive to this idea at the time. With an appropriate presentation, such a program could have landed a level of additional seed money if not from NASA HQ, then from external partners. Ames Research Center and Kennedy Space Center could have been two immediate test beds of such a program. Sadly my spoken and written suggestions were ahead of their time: NASA CoLab, having to juggle disparate and unclear priorities, was in essence paralyzed by their limited resources.

However, the nature and progress of the Presidential Transition team has renewed my hope that NASA can still be fixed as things move forward. I can think of no better place to post these ideas but here at OpenNASA.com, and I am hopeful to receive much feedback on your ideas specific to the value and implementation of a SATERN based workforce development/employee education program. To sweeten the deal, on Monday of next week, my company will be submitting a more detailed brief of my SATERN proposal to Change.gov. With that document I intend to reference this post and your comments. I’m looking forward to reading and passing along what you have to say.