Maybe you've heard of Randy Pausch's last lecture--delivered when he knew he was terminally ill. It has become an internet phenomenon and best-selling book, and he died knowing that the money from that will take good care of his family. Here, from an interview conducted before he became ill, is one of his observations, about people who greet new ideas with negativity:
“I'm constantly finding myself in situations where
people are saying, well, it's never been done that way before, and I say, well,
that's fine, and I guess that's an instructive piece of knowledge to share with
me, but why are you saying that as if it's some sort of design constraint? You
know, you said you wanted to accomplish something. And I suggested, well, why
don't you do thus-and-such. And then you said, but it's never been done that
way before! But I say that's not relevant to whether or not this is a good
solution. Of course if you told me it had been done and it failed, that would
be really useful data, all right.”
