Learning by almost any technical method can result in extensive and suddenly improved models, and the new best can be used productively, but in a real-world setting where data are still being collected one should never assume the current “best” is a universal best.

Design by almost any method can result in innovative and creative solutions, and the best choice of the moment can be used productively, but in a real-world setting where customers and applications are diverse, one should never assume the current “best” is a universal best.

Software development methodologies, old– or new-fashioned, can produce useful and “complete” applications that provide business and personal value in a given context, but in a real-world setting where customer needs are subject to externalities and innovations percolate through the supply chain, one should never assume a particular program is a universal solution.

Publishing (driving printing or some other production method) is necessary for the dissemination of new results and creative efforts, but in a real-world setting where history is unfolding and science, literature and the arts are ramifying all over, one should never assume that a particular draft, version, edition or volume is a universal success or failure.

And so on.

Maybe what I mean is: Expand, Reuse, Recycle… and Keep Moving.

I wonder if you could just invite people according to a similar approach, though. Maybe start by inviting the friends and colleagues of one person who are least likely to know each other, then trying to identify the least-likely among their friends, and so on.

And you’ve put your finger on a real long-term tension in a lot of the engineering I do: “Learning” is never done; “design” is never done; “search” is never done; “optimization” is never done; ‘programming” is never done; “writing” is never done; “publishing” is never done; “marketing” is never done.

Community building, too. Getting something obvious done is too often used as an excuse.

Better to create a self-maintaining process that persists and adapts, than to try to provide a “solution”. At least that’s my general tendency.

I would question whether the yellow pages is the right random sort; that skews towards categories where that flavor of advertising either works, or it has worked in the past and the proprietor is on auto-pilot renewing it.

You describe an organizational effort that looks like a chamber of commerce, or a Rotary, or some similar kind of structure. what you miss in a college town are the hidden pockets of work-at-home telecommute trailing spouses, who will never show up in your yellow pages yet do world-class work in some field not advertised in the yellow pages.

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You describe the essential tension between the get-things-done closure version of network building, where you all meet and greet and get to know each other and hunker down and build something; vs. the find-things-out brokerage version of network building, where everyone knows someone else but not everyone else and there’s always someone new at the table and nothing obvious ever gets accomplished.