courtesy: David Yanko of Virtual Saskatchewan

This blog is about “finding better ways to pour coffee.”  At the risk of sounding like a bureaucratically-generated cliche, it’s a little like a more focused “think outside the box,” which I hate.  Allow me to explain what I mean, starting with a quick story.

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Industrial Interface co-founder, Chris Powell, presented to the local San Diego SAMPE chapter. In his presentation he discussed a variety of things that Engineers don’t normally encounter. Read the rest of this entry »

Working with others is easy for some, difficult for others.  Engineers, in particular, often have a difficult time communicating clearly.  For many firms, the end goal (a finished product) isn’t finished until many, many engineers get their hands on the design.  Naturally, in the corporate world, this mandates that teams of technical gurus are created under the glorious umbrella of hierarchical chain of command. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientific American has created a ridiculously interesting infographic on sustainable energy sources.  The article outlines a plan to get the world off of fossil fuels in 20 years.  That’s 100% clean, sustainable energy by 2030.  Although not feasible for a number of economic and political reasons, it is still damn interesting to see how the authors (Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi) plan this out.  Give it a good read, there are a few surprises in there, particularly re: wind vs. solar.

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10. Time Management and Planning
This is only #10 because I think lots of professions train us to be effective time managers.

9. Being Logical
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard two people arguing about something and thought, “That doesn’t make any sense.  Actually, neither one of them make any sense.”  Lawyers run into this thought constantly as well.

8. Puzzles and Strategic Games
Everything we do at work all day is a puzzle of some sort.  Critical thinking to solve complex technical problems is what makes us engineers.

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10. The Phone (see our post “10 Reasons Engineers Hate the Phone“)

9. Multiple Office Sites – As if things weren’t complicated enough, I have to try to communicate and solve complex issues over the phone and through NetMeeting, WebEx, and VNC?  Maybe if I am especially lucky, I’ll get to travel back and forth for months at a time!

8. Executive speak – Nothing quite like a load of BS from the VP about how great everything is going.  Or worse… when it’s quiet, you know it’s REALLY bad.

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Every CFO would answer the question with, “When it costs less.”  Period.  End of story.  Unfortunately, when dealing with high-tech design, this is blatantly untrue.  There is a plethora of bad technical decisions awaiting every company, from untested software to unproven IP, going cheap (and thus forcing change upon your engineers) isn’t always the best way to go.

As with any real design, balance is the key.  Change is necessary.  If semiconductor designers stayed with the same software they used in the 80’s, our laptops would still be as powerful as handheld calculators.  The goal of the company should be to balance the benefits of change (improved profit margins, more advanced technology), with the associated risks (my recent post: Why Engineers Resist Change & How To Change Their Minds).  Engineers need to embrace change under the following circumstances.

1) “Be a little selfish.”

Engineers should embrace change if it provides an immediate opportunity to increase their own personal skill sets.   This applies to learning new software, new programming languages, new management techniques, and of course new design methods.

It’s true that some companies will force this upon the engineer during times of high stress, causing the engineer to burn up a lot of personal time in the process.  I would argue that it’s probably still worth it.  Bottom line, if it’s something that can be put on your resume and the company is paying for the training, you should do it.

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