That's a phrase I heard in the framework of the Hoffman Process - a methodology for finding out things that are keeping you from being who you really are, and taking action to get them out of the way. But that's not with this post is about.I read recently - it may have been in an ASEE (American Society of Engineering Educators) mailing - that most people have determined whether they will pursue a career in engineering or science by the end of the 8th grade. And the decision hinges on how they feel about math.I've also read recently that the number of young people choosing engineering, science, and technology professions in the US is declining.The ability to do math is a filter for getting into good engineering and science schools. On the surface, that seems reasonable: Math is the language of precision, and its abstractive tools provide access to the reasoning of the ages, as well as the ability to carry it on.And yet...My friend Ron Resch has made major contributions to diverse areas of science...

When David Weinberger spoke at COFES 2005, his topic was "Everything is Miscellaneous." Now his book of that name is out, and it is fascinating. The implications for the engineering software business are worth thinking about.Here's an essay Weinberger wrote for Amazon.com called, "The Flocking of Information":As businesses go miscellaneous, information gets chopped into smaller and smaller pieces. But it also escapes its leash--adding to a pile that can be sorted and arranged by anyone with a Web browser and a Net connection. In fact, information exhibits bird-like "flocking behavior," joining with other information that adds value to it, creating swarms that help customers and, ultimately, the businesses from which the information initially escaped. For example, Wize.com is a customer review site founded in 2005 by entrepreneur Doug Baker. The site provides reviews for everything from computers and MP3 players...

Kudos to SolidWorks for a program full of fascinating speakers of interest to engineers as engineers, as designers, as people. And none of them plugged SolidWorks.

Today's speaker was Dean Kamen, inventor, entrepreneur, and founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Dean's vision: “ …to create a world where science and technology are celebrated….  where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes….”

The purpose of FIRST is to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. Based in Manchester, N.H., it designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math.

FIRST provides two well-known programs, the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for high-school students and FIRST LEGO® League (FLL) for 9 to 14 year-olds. FIRST also offers the Junior FIRST LEGO League (JFLL) for 6- to 9-year-olds and the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), an intermediate robotics competition that offers high-school-aged students the traditional challenge of FRC, but with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit. FIRST also operates a research and development facility called FIRST Place at its headquarters.

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I got this from my friends at NCMS (Tony Haynes) and tis food for thought
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

Take a look at the link above and then consider all of the DoD legacy systems that began life in pre-CAD days but have been enhanced over the years with a multitude of modifications where design data spans the spectrum from 2D drawings on vellum to 3D CAD solid models annotated with PMI information. Is it possible that Photosynth technology can relate all those different types of image data to produce a result that is far richer than anything available today? I think it may well be the “next big thing” in useful application of mixed media data for sustainment.

I sure agree, even though is calls for monster screens and GB of running data. We sure can browse our design and images better than now..

Our family is planning a modest addition to our relatively small house in California. We plan to utilize internal steel beams similar to those uniquely used in the existing house, built in 1995. We believe the steel cage created by these beams adds seismic stability. However, during the recent planning for the addition, we discovered that the building code in our city has changed since 1995. The steel gussets used where multiple beams are joined must now be designed per a newly adopted code with far stricter strength standards than before.We are gratified that the building code now has these stricter requirements, even though the CAD software used to design the original steel gussets in 1995 is identical to the CAD software used now.Because the design of our modest steel cage is no better than the skill and up-to-date code knowledge of the engineer/architect using the CAD software. It has always been thus – CAD software, old or new, is no substitute for the experience and savvy of the person wielding the tool.The...

“Forrester Research is predicting in its “Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds” report that in five years 3-D Internet will be as important as the Web now is to businesses,” according to SandHill.com. The "Getting Work Done in Virtual Worlds" report released by Forrester during the first week of January 2008 concludes that executives should begin investigating and experimenting with virtual worlds soon because of their promise for remote collaboration, training and the ability to build and share 3-D models.The virtual model is especially important for professionals like surgeons, architects, engineers and product designers, who use CAD models or visualization systems to explore or create projects, Forrester said. In virtual meetings, these professionals can import models for discussion and modification, according to the report. "You can release near-final designs to a limited group of external users and solicit feedback before starting fabrication," it said.See http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9056602...

When Don Tapscott's "Wikinomics" came out over a year ago, I was turned off by the title, so I never picked it up. A couple of days ago, I went to hear Tapscott give a breakfast talk at Stanford. It was very worthwhile. (It is co-authored by Tapscott's colleague, Anthony Williams.)

The book was Amazon.com's top-selling business book of 2007. Its subtitle is "How mass collaboration changes everything" - and it is accurate, if not inspiring.

Unfortunately, the book has none of Tapscott's excellent charts and graphics, showing the dramatic changes wrought by mass collaboration; you have to get it from the words. But it is good, readable business prose, full of case studies and meaty stuff.

He based it on a $9 million research project; this is not a rehashed web sweep.

And the book goes on: At www.wikinomics.com, you can participate in creating the "next chapter" and read an excerpt from the book. There is also a blog and a wiki.

Risk management helps get a project done, on budget and on time.

We need to become professional managers. Risk management is a tool that is seldom used in marketing and tool development. Risk, the probability of something happening that impacts your objective, is a chance to make either a gain or a loss. It is measured in terms of likelihood and consequence and, in this business, "holy shit" is an acceptable term.

Don't use an immature process for analysis.

Use the natural habitat of the project.

Teach and train formally and often.

Think risk beginning to end, collect data from beginning to end.

Risk and opportunity go hand in hand.

We tend to treat projects as an art form, but it really is engineering. Comments? Dick Morley

Introduction of Morley, and what innovation does.

As follow up to the December 9, 2007 blog entry in this space, the Labor Department reported January 4, 2008 that only a measly 18,000 net non-farm US jobs were added in December 2007, the fewest since August 2003. At the same time, the nation's overall unemployment rate rose to 5% (from 4.7%), its highest level since November 2005.

US manufacturing continued its ongoing loses, with 31,000 US manufacturing jobs disappearing in December. The health of the manufacturing sector is key to revenue growth in the US CAD/CAM industry.

For the third consecutive month, wages grew slower than the pace of inflation, cutting into the real income of many US workers. But the FED will likely reduce interest rates still further to boost the deteriorating stock market, and ignore its alleged commitment to control inflation.

In the face of the above data, Bush 43 publicly said January 4, 2008 that the “nation’s economy is strong and solid” and he made no mention of the atrocious December jobs report.

Cimatron acquired Gibbs for $5M in cash and $4.5M in stock.  That's about 75% of revenue, or about 7x income. Gibbs and Cimatron have suprisingly little overlap in their customer base.

The combined company has a current market capitalization of about $22M on a combined $30M revenue stream. When compared with most stocks on the Cyon Research Index, this is quite low. But Delcam, a direct compare for Cimatron, has a market capitalization of $45M on sales of about $60M. So the question to ask is: why are pure-play stocks in this sector so poorly valued?

With my work as Executive Direector of the buildingSMART alliance, I come across many interesting events - this, I believe, is something of extreme interest that you may want to participate in. Once it is complete, let's spend some time discussing the impact on the industrey as a whole. 

BIMstorm™ Los Angeles | 31 January 2008 BIMStorm LAX was a simple concept in December 2007, and is becoming a “Woodstock” for the building industry. BIMStorm LAX is a free event that will involve a wide cross section of building industry professionals to design over 30 Los Angeles city blocks encompassing 30 million square feet in real-time.

Forty years ago an event changed the culture of the world. Join us for 24 hours of collaboration, harmony and to change the culture of the industry.



Date 31 January 2008

Visit http://onuma.com/services/LaStorm.php for lots more information and to get involved.

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The National BIM Standard was released recently by the National Institute of Building Sciences. A portion of the announcement follows:

 

WASHINGTON, DC — The National Institute of Building Sciences’ (NIBS), Facility Information Council (FIC) announced today that the Executive Committee for the National Building Information Modeling Standard (NBIMS) project has released the National BIM Standard Version 1 – Part 1: Overview, Principles, and Methodologies for public use. This document, which includes contributions by more than thirty subject-matter experts in the capital facilities industry, incorporates industry comments and now contains new and expanded information about the NBIMS production and use process.

 

This document is a major step forward for the industry as it undergoes its transformation. As companies transform they are amazed that they operated under such primitive conditions for so long. The transformation does require accepting some significantly different ways of doing...

For the past eight years, Cyon Research has been publishing its Cyon Research Stock index, first in Engineering Automation Report (as EAR Index), and then more recently in CADCAMNet.  Each year the index is rebalanced and updated. Now, for the first time, we have made the index accessible to all. You can see the index at cyonresearch.com/stocks.

There are tools here that we have not made public in the past. Please mark the page and check it often as we expect to expand the richness of the data provided as we can.