1. To succeed, first understand the area’s history.Whenever you're working with people outside of your area, be it geographical or outside of your area of expertise, you need to be able to relate to where they came from. How do their values differ from yours? What is important to them? Is there something about that location or field that attracts certain type of people, or encourages a particular kind of behaviour (think entrepreneurship, research excellence, etc.)?
2. Spend your time there legally and intelligently.Plan ahead to get the biggest return on your time investment. What
3. Be open to collaboration.Share ideas with your potential partners. Help them develop their ideas and they will help do the same for yours.
I've written before about how operating in stealth mode stifles research projects and exposes scientists to several traps. Collaboration takes effort, but can pay off in spades when you find good partners, especially in high risk, pre-commercial (i.e. basic) research.
4. Steer clear of the myths about Silicon Valley.Not sure I fully agree with this one.
Myths exist about every place and every institution. However, there are bad myths and good myths.
Bad ones will usually serve to drive you to inaction. They're the ones about cutthroat competition, backstabbing, politics, and favoritism.
Good myths, on the contrary, will encourage you to make connections and build on your ideas. The good myths may turn out to be false, but at least they've led you to break that inertia of doing nothing.
5. Recognize that San Francisco is not Silicon Valley.Aron Solomon's point is that they may be a 45 minute car ride away, but they are not the same kind of place. The same is true about the many organizations that may exist in a technology cluster, even if they're within a 45 minute walk.
Universities are different from research institutes, and independent research institutes are different from those associated with hospitals.
