Ruth J. Simmons Quotes

When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive.

In true open source development, there's lots of visibility all the way through the development process.

I think the way IBM has embraced the open source philosophy has been quite astonishing, but gratifying. I hope they'll do very well with it.

The companies that make meaningful contributions while also listening to the voices of others are the ones that will genuinely engage their community, who will then go to work for them.

Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

In open source, you really have to be near the watershed to have an impact on the source code. Customers want to be near the key contributors to the code, not a level removed.

Open source can propagate to fill all the nooks and crannies that people want it to fill.

A local company has more accountability.

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted. Then, once a policy is determined, you call on them to help you sell it.

Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way.

People can get involved in wonderfully creative ways that have nothing to do with you, but spark off things you begin with.

Architects cannot teach nature anything.

You need to be able to SHARE IDEAS, INSPIRE and MOTIVATE

Collective problems must be solved by all of us, collectively, and no one finds inner peace who avoids doing his or her share in the solving of collective problems.

Creativity is not a solitary movement. That is its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, senses it, knows it, it's fed. That is why beholding someone else's creative word, images, idea, fills us up, and inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act has the potential to feed a continent. One creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone.

I'm certainly not an expert and I imagine I'll spend my life figuring it out. What I do know, is that you can't take it all on yourself: find amazing people to collaborate with, build a team, and support other people doing the same. When you share your goals and ambitions with other people and they share with you, you exist in an energizing cycle of always creating new things with people that believe in you.

Newton said, "If I have seen further than others, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants." These days we stand on each other's feet!

It is the satisfaction of doing it for yourself and motivating others to work with you in bringing it about. It is about the fun, innovation, creativity with the rewards being far greater than purely financial.

I think when people are jumping on top of each other's ideas, it elevates it a lot more than me going into the studio and working on something all by myself for a while.

Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they've got. It's a killer.

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this, you need all the ideas you can get.

Win-win is a belief in the Third Alternative. It's not your way or my way; it's a better way, a higher way.

Companies don't have ideas; only people do. And what motivates people are the bonds and loyalty and trust they develop between each other. What matters is the mortar, not just the bricks.

The capacity to innovate - the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life - and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge.

If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.