More importantly, in one form or another they all point to the program’s structure as a research funder rather than an infrastructure builder as the root cause. I concur. The realities of life in the http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov are omnipresent, but the NSDL community has a strong shared vision of improving STEM education, and I firmly believe that the same people could have created a spectacular success.

The barrier, according to the reflections, has been a systemically caused inability to follow a unified strategy with clear goals and outcomes. Maybe that is true, but it could equally be a very different systemic problem. In the world of software and entrepreneurs, the mantra is: “fail quickly,” or “fail early and fail often.” This is not overly compatible with competitive grant-based funding. No one ever continues to receive grants for reporting that they dropped $150K in six months on something that turned out to be a very bad idea, yet that has to happen to uncover the one, simple, compelling value proposition that can turn a garage into a Google. Of course, you also have to recognize the good ideas and run with them as fast as you can.

Permit me, then, to pose a question. Can the NSDL, with the hand that it has been dealt and the culture that it has evolved, learn to “fail quickly” and if so, how?

Looking forward to responses.