In his own words: author, Robert Price, reflects on why he wrote The Eye for Innovation

"The opportunity to participate not only in the birth of a new company but also in the birth of a new industry is an opportunity all too few people are privileged to experience and savor. Such has been my great good fortune. For some years now, several of my former colleagues at Control Data and I have shared news articles that verified a long held belief: that Control Data not only delivered an incredible array of leading edge products and services, but also that our innovations in corporate policy and human practices were years, even decades, ahead of what has become conventional wisdom in today's most forward looking companies.

These thoughts have been reinforced by more than fifteen years of teaching executive MBA students at Duke University, for these were not run-of-the-mill MBA candidates, but rather gifted management people of much experience in the real world of business.

It is not surprising, therefore, that over time there grew within me a strongly felt desire to use the Control Data story as a means to powerfully demonstrate those management practices and values that will be essential to business and society in the 21st century. There was as well the haunting knowledge that the company's story had never been adequately told and in many regards even had been mis-told in the business media of that time. For me, however, the most powerful motivation to write this book was recognition through my personal on-going involvement in business life that current management theory and practice still had not assimilated the hard won pragmatic lessons we had learned so many years before. The event s of 2001-2002 just reinforced that feeling.

Writing the book had moments of great pleasure and joy, especially in visiting with old colleagues. And, naturally it had moments of pain in the recalling mistakes and misfortunes. But mostly it was a great adventure in learning and of being grateful to all the people who forged the story and made it possible for me to try to capture their achievements."