One thing I have learned is that big groups (committees) don't usually come up with good answers.
A small hand-picked group seems to work better. Hand-picked on the basis of skill and, to some extent, on the ability to communicate.
This is certainly true in software development. Pick 3 to 6 of the best, make sure they balance each other's skills (one might be fast and good, another might be slower and good at something else, you don't want 5 people who are good at the exactly same thing). As soon as the group swells to 10 or more, the dynamics change and the project seems to move into another sphere where compromise (and politics) tend to increase the time and reduce the quality of the results.
When companies hire programmers they often seem ignorant of the fact that software design is not the same as programming and quality assurance and bug fixing is not the same as programming. Often they hire a team of programmers and completely neglect to hire a software designer (someone who understands psychology, ergonomics, and the research on how individuals react to color, location, shapes, etc). The same is true of debuggers. I know a lot of programmers and I've worked with a number of them who are brilliant, and they are not all good at debugging. It seems to be a specialized skill and I've only met a couple who were good at it. Most of the "bright lights" want to get on with the next great idea, they don't want to sit there looking for and fixing bugs, but there ARE people who enjoy this and are good at it.
In other words, you have to have a sense of what is needed to solve the problem and pick people who come at it from both ends.
How this relates to the VMS is more difficult. We don't know if it's language, we don't know if it's meaningful. If it is meaningful, we don't know what language it is or what steps are needed to process it into language (or whatever symbology might be involved). If it's not meaningful, or only lightly so, we don't know if the imagery or the text is more revealing. So there are many unknowns. How do you pick a team? Not only is it a multidisciplinary study (which is what makes it so interesting to me), we don't know which skills are going to be most effective in solving it.
It's quite possible that a single individual coming out of left field will find a solution.
A small hand-picked group seems to work better. Hand-picked on the basis of skill and, to some extent, on the ability to communicate.
This is certainly true in software development. Pick 3 to 6 of the best, make sure they balance each other's skills (one might be fast and good, another might be slower and good at something else, you don't want 5 people who are good at the exactly same thing). As soon as the group swells to 10 or more, the dynamics change and the project seems to move into another sphere where compromise (and politics) tend to increase the time and reduce the quality of the results.
When companies hire programmers they often seem ignorant of the fact that software design is not the same as programming and quality assurance and bug fixing is not the same as programming. Often they hire a team of programmers and completely neglect to hire a software designer (someone who understands psychology, ergonomics, and the research on how individuals react to color, location, shapes, etc). The same is true of debuggers. I know a lot of programmers and I've worked with a number of them who are brilliant, and they are not all good at debugging. It seems to be a specialized skill and I've only met a couple who were good at it. Most of the "bright lights" want to get on with the next great idea, they don't want to sit there looking for and fixing bugs, but there ARE people who enjoy this and are good at it.
In other words, you have to have a sense of what is needed to solve the problem and pick people who come at it from both ends.
How this relates to the VMS is more difficult. We don't know if it's language, we don't know if it's meaningful. If it is meaningful, we don't know what language it is or what steps are needed to process it into language (or whatever symbology might be involved). If it's not meaningful, or only lightly so, we don't know if the imagery or the text is more revealing. So there are many unknowns. How do you pick a team? Not only is it a multidisciplinary study (which is what makes it so interesting to me), we don't know which skills are going to be most effective in solving it.
It's quite possible that a single individual coming out of left field will find a solution.