Larry Page: Science's "Serious Marketing Problem"

SAN FRANCISCO--Scientists and engineers can change the world, but first they need to get over their "serious marketing problem," according to Larry Page, the founding CEO of the Internet giant Google.

Page called scientists "great citizens," but he stressed that they need to become more engaged in politics, business and the media if they are to "basically improve our lot in life by doing really great things."

"It's not that hard to do this," he encouraged the audience during his Friday plenary address at the AAAS Annual Meeting. "We need to have the right attitude about it and we need to think that business and entrepreneurship...are going to be good for this and are important parts of science."

Science can and probably will solve some of our most pressing problems in novel ways, Page said toward the end of his wide-ranging talk. Transportation? Why not take to the air, instead of building new roads?, Page asked. Artificial intelligence? The brute force of computational power, rather than sophisticated reasoning programs, may soon be the critical breakthrough, he speculated. The energy crisis? Solar, wind and photovoltaic technologies could provide clean energy, but only if further research makes them more cost-effective, Page said.

But harnessing the full potential of science and technology will require a better "sell" of science's possibilities to policymakers, business leaders and the public, Page cautioned. "Science has a serious marketing problem, I'm really sure of that. And virtually none of the marketers in the world work for science."

Part of the problem lies in the lack of scientists in political leadership, he said. "There are few scientists and engineers in the world...and fewer that are really in charge of their countries," Page noted, showing a slide of Indian president and rocket scientist Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam. "It's amazing how few people in positions of power have some sort of technical or scientific background."

Much of the time, Page said, science is watered down and robbed of its critical details by the time it moves through the layers of bureaucracy up to people in leadership positions. "I don't think it's generally a good thing, since it's the part where all the economic growth is coming from, and all the changes in people's lives," he said.

"I think you really want to have people in power who understand things," he added, garnering his biggest applause of the night.

He also encouraged scientists to make their findings more freely available, saying that "most of the work you guys have done is not represented" in Web searches because of publishing restrictions.

Page threw out a few more ideas to raise science's profile, such as tying tenure and grant money to the media impact of research and having universities oversee science education in primary schools, which he admitted was a "radical proposal." He also praised programs such as AAAS's Science and Technology Fellowships and Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowships as ways to increase scientists' involvement with Congress and the media.

Page, who has been Google's president for products since 2001, started the company with co-founder and fellow Stanford University computer science graduate student Sergey Brin in 1998. Among his many honors, Page is a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow, a member of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) of the University of Michigan College of Engineering, trustee on the board of the X Prize, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

He was something of a rock star to this audience of scientists, journalists and members of the public, who snapped photos and pursued him for autographs after his talk. Dressed casually in jeans, a gray t-shirt and blazer, the billionaire recalled reading an autobiography of the inventor Nicola Tesla when he was 12 years old, dismayed that Tesla ended his life with his accomplishments still obscure to most of the world.

"I thought, I don't want to be like Tesla, I want to have an easy time connecting stuff to the world," Page said.

Page said he is taking most of his vacations in the developing world these days, and encouraged his audience to do some similar exploring. Technology in the form of cell phones, medicines and clean water for these countries could go a long way toward solving the United States' own "marketing problem," he noted. "I think we should spend a lot more on making friends."

Becky Ham

17 February 2007