Thanks for responding Tony, Nicolas and Joseantonio.
I'll grant you I sure got the politics wrong. I'm not worried about the
friendship issues (no love lost between me and management already) but
support for the program from management and colleagues and more generally for
its concept is crucial. So politics is crucial.
The program doesn't crunch numbers and produce results in an idustry
specific way. It serves as an electronic administrative system and
facilitates lab operation and management as one can glean from the term Lab
Information Management System (LIMS). It is industry specific only in that it
is structurally suited to this type of lab.
It will require a great deal of extra work and redesign to make it
marketable. It is almost certainly flawed and/or defficient in some ways
since it is complex and has never actually been used. I have come to the
conclusion that it needs a history of real world use with me in attendance
before it should be marketed. Hopefully I will still manage this. However, I
imagine that implementing and subsequently evolving and improving the program
in a company specific environment will compromise (or nullify) my claim to
it. So I'm undecided what to do here.
The notion that my employer should have so much as a nanogram of claim to it
makes me nauseous. At this point, they have contributed absolutely zip to its
development and concept. The risk I see is that if and when I leave (likely)
and it finds some utility with the new employer, knowing them, they would
throw a wrench into the works. Of course, it was tested and still resides on
the company network since it is designed to be network based. And since they
backup the nework weekly they will have a permanent copy (unless they destroy
it after awhile ???).
Thanks guys for the input and support.
Greg
"tony h" wrote:
Pushing something in an organisation that doesn't like innovators can be
dangerous. In my young(er!) days I was convinced that the economics of
the company's hardware platform was leading to a distinct lack of
competitiveness. I set about trying to influence a change eventually i
(a junior engineer) invited the divisional director over for dinner (4
jumps in the management ladder) and managed to pursuade him. (after
lots and lots of work) a change was made and I found myself friendless
and without support. Everyone was happy with the change but they didn't
want a young upstart around to threaten their existance.
All I am saying here is that you have to get the politics right and
that includes what you want out of life. It is far too easy to win a
battle and lose the war.
As for the IP content. Certainly in the UK it is difficult and costly
to pursue an IP infringement in software. Mostly, especially in small
operations such as yours would be, people just wouldn't bother. The
trick is to look at your defences:
- did you gain the industry knowledge before your currnet employer
- did you gain the logical experience before your current employer and
only apply it to the current industry
- did someone else bring the relevant knowledge to the process.
- rewrite key parts of the software so that it is not the same code,
just does the same thing.
Issues with selling software :
- how much of your time will it take to sell? Don't underestimate this
if it will need to be a budgeted purchase.
- do you need support from anyone else to support the sell?
- what support will the users need?
- is it critical software ie if they use it and it stops working do
they stop working?
- how much training will be required?
- how will you deliver it
- is there a way to make it look less industry specific?
If you are really determined to try and catch the attention of senior
management Try printing up a brochure and posting them to the
managers.
Good luck. You can only die once.
regards
--
tony h
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