bottom line up front (BLUF)

 
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Bottom line up front (BLUF) 


Chiang: Then I began to learn his secret. If he asked you to give a presentation, he had very high expectation. He expected you will tell him the most important thing in your area and this thing is something he didn't know. That's his expectation. You probably have 30 minutes. So you began to in my--as an engineer, I was trained when I give a paper, I began to talk about it, "Here is a problem and this is my experiment. This is my approach."

Fairbairn: Right, yeah.

Chiang: "And this is my data. And this is my interpretation and here is my conclusion."

Fairbairn: Right.

Chiang: If you make a presentation to him in that way, you're in big, big trouble.

<laughter>

Chiang: He totally has no patience for this sort of thing. So, you have to go reverse direction. You tell him, "This is the result." Then he says, "Oh." Then he thinks, "My 30 minutes already paid off." Then he will be very patient to listen to you on the details.

Fairbairn: I see. <laughs>

Chiang: And even very nice to you.

<laughter>

Chiang: And very, very patient. Because his 30 minutes already paid off. He already got what he wanted.

Fairbairn: Right.

Oral History of Shang-Yi Chiang
Interviewed by: Douglas Fairbairn
Recorded March 15, 2022
Mountain View, CA

CHM Reference number: 2022.0040
© 2022 Computer History Museum

CHM Ref: 2022.0040 © 2022 Computer History Museum Page 26 of 49
Oral History of Shang-Yi Chiang

Chiang: But if you start it the other way, he got lost in 5 minutes then the other 25 minutes, you really have a hard time. He will tear you apart. He will blame you. He will criticize all this, and he will tear up your paper and tell you to get out. <laughs>

Fairbairn: So how long did it take you to figure this out?

Chiang: <laughs> Probably about four, five years.

Fairbairn: Four or five years.

<laughter>

Chiang: But I shared with many colleagues.

Fairbairn: Did you then tell other people the secret of how you work with Morris?

Chiang: Yes. Yes, I did.

<laughter>

Oral History of Shang-Yi Chiang
Interviewed by: Douglas Fairbairn
Recorded March 15, 2022
Mountain View, CA

CHM Reference number: 2022.0040
© 2022 Computer History Museum


https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2022/07/102792671-05-01-acc.pdf
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