On The Fly

In this episode, the Grid’s Future Might Lie with 'Outsiders.' In a previous episode of On the Fly, I posed a thought experiment: If the grid went down forever, what part of my work would still matter? That question sparked more conversation than I expected. One comment, in particular, made me stop and reread it twice: “Are you in touch with and talking with those in your own company about the question you are asking? It is your business, yes?” It’s a fair question. And the short answer is: Yes. These conversations happen—often, seriously, and with no shortage of charts and careful language. But the longer answer is this: The question itself was never meant to stay inside the building. When Expertise Becomes a Blind Spot. There’s a concept called functional fixedness . It’s what happens when experience—valuable, hard-earned experience—quietly limits what we imagine is possible.  When you work inside a system long enough, you get very good at improving it. You know which knobs...