From 1 July 2011 to its official publication last week, it is exactly 7 years.

What I have learned over the course of the 7 years.

First, the difference between having an idea and realizing an idea.

The conceptual competence is in the quality of the idea, but the technical competence is in the quality of the details. Having an idea is an important first step, but it is only a first step. To go from the initial idea to the final product (in academia, this means paper), requires a lot of technical mastery, and more often than not, the idea would have evolved into something quite different from what it was at the beginning. The original goal of FLIPS is to be used as anti-icing surface. That goal is not even in the paper. To quote the words of Steve Jobs:

It’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work. And if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea,” then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows. It never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it.

Second, the interdependent nature of research is a source of humility.

One only needs to look at the long list of coauthors on the paper to realize how much collaboration it took to make it happen. The experience of working with other people is an important learning process, not just in terms of technical knowledge, but also in terms of emotional growth. Being technically independent is an important first step, but being emotionally capable to deal with the demand of the interdependent teamwork is by no means a small feat. Frustration is common, and agreement is rare. Having the humility to realize that the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts and that each person has something to contribute, is the key to avoid intra-team competition and the costly ego battles.

Third, the desire to create quality work is a more powerful motivation than the desire to be the first.

To be first is a good motivation, whether it means to be first chronologically in publishing an idea, or to be first in terms of impact in a research field. But the satisfaction in knowing a piece of work well-done is a more powerful motivation. It takes time to do quality work, and it often runs contrary to the practical wisdom on the law of diminishing returns. At the end of the day, however, the satisfaction associated with quality work lasts because it is based not on the paradigm of competition (which the desire to be the first is), but on the paradigm of contribution. In the long run, quality matters more, always.

PS. Video credit: Harvard SEAS and Wyss Institute. See Wyss official press release.