Mission Statement

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Mission Statement

To enable expanded research and development and deployment of innovations to make fundamental improvements in the quality of communication among people and machines.

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Notes: Often drafting a mission statement is an exercise in drafting glorious grandiose phrases that then are completely ignored. Such mission statements aren't even worth the time it takes to draft them. In fact, a mission statement that is not drafted with the care required to make it a constant living guideline should be ignored!

A good mission statement should be one which clearly states the purpose of the organization. It should affirm goals and principles that last forever, not just current objectives. A good mission statement is used constantly to determine the overall direction and to provide focus. What is purposely left out is just as important as what is included. With careful drafting, choice of individual words can be very significant, not because they sound good but because the choice of a particular word can have significance in the actual living mission.

For example:

"To enable" rather than "To perform" reflects that fact that the ICISLT project is not limited to performing speech and language R&D directly. It expects to accomplish much more by helping others and through the help of others. This viewpoint is reflected in the emphasis on developing a large set of courses. The purpose of these course is not to generate revenue. Rather it is to expand the pool of talented individuals trained to be able to conduct research and development of speech and language technology and its applications.

The goal is "expanded" research and development, not merely continuation of current levels.

Both research AND development are required. Research is required to advance the technology to the required levels, but it will have no value unless there is development into products and applications.

The goal requires fundamental improvements in the technology. Although speech and language technology has been steadily improving for many years, it is a core belief of the ICISLT program that the desired quality can only be achieved if radical departures from currently methodology are also explored.

The goal is improved quality of communication. Improvements in technologies such as speech recognition, speech synthesis and translation are means to this end, but are not the goal itself.

The phrase "communication among people and machines" is specifically chosen to indicate that the goal is better communication between people and well as better communication between people and machines. It also includes the goal of using machines to help people communicate.

Among the things that are left out are business goals. Although the ICISLT technology ideas are accompanied by related radical business ideas such as Extreme Entrepreneurship and Bootstrap Capital, business goals are not part of the core mission of ICISLT itself. Instead the business goals enter indirectly, as mechanisms to enable and expand. These goals are met by helping others meet business goals, including start-up companies created for the purpose of furthering the mission of ICISLT.