Its that moment of "How Brilliant! How come nobody ever thought of that before" that seperates what I call Innovation verse Step-wise refinement --both having value in our engineering world the Dante N Bini demonstrates through his approaches of building systems.

Are mentorships and Internships all they're cracked up to be. Being a mentor is a great trust and can have lasting impacts upon your young protégé's career for life.

Is the engineering profession a victum of its own success, delivering on promises with great regularity were other professions don't?

I was going through my files the other day for a much needed annual clean-up and found some old materials during my "Skunk Work days" for others to enjoy.

During the past several months I’ve been hopping around different organizations looking at how they are operating in the product creation sense; large corporations, small businesses, and all sorts of companies in between.  It’s a sad story; we’ve become a corporate society run by spreadsheets and email.  I don’t want to slam Microsoft for this, they're in the same boat wandering around the ocean of innovation hoping to find a gem to latch onto.  Neither has IBM after downsizing again and webifying its processes been able to kick start serious innovation there either.  So what is it that makes innovation so hard in businesses? 

 

Are there no really new innovative ideas out there?  I doubt it. There are plenty of things going on if we care to notice.  Do we not have the right people on board?  Maybe. Maybe not.  Maybe the maverick you hired isn’t in the right role or hasn’t a supportive organization around him or her to truly be the catalyst for innovation you’d hoped for.  Is it a funding issue? ...

The signs that the engineering profession, like medicine, is in flux are all around.  As Engineering S/W becomes more "intelligent" design democratization become more possible and probable. Does this spell the end of engineering as a profession, a transition to a new model of work, or potentially a redefinition of engineering?

 

A long time ago Engineering was considered a highly qualified and respected profession. The profession and the disciplines under that profession (civil, mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Hydraulic, etc.) were, like medical professions, considered both a calling into a community of practice as well a requiring their own codes of honor.  A new engineering candidate was not simply tutored in the academic of the profession s/he was apprenticed and grown through experience into a master craftsman.

 

I use the work craftsman deliberately in that too many engineering projects now are no longer works of a craftsman engineer, they are becoming more spreadsheet optimizations...