I was spending my time on a consulting engagement this week at a major Software Development corporation.  Part of what I was asked to do was craft a white paper outlining the Executive's vision for his group.  After several weeks of discussion I had a fairly good understanding of what he wanted to say.  Basically in his motivational speeches he'll bring up the construction industry as a metaphor for a well run engineering environment.  He'll point out various attributes of how these firms deal with clients and build fairly close to what the client desires the first time out and with some level of predictability.

I then flash back to my days at Rockwell, IBM and with my mentor John Zachman and I think what has changed in the industry to make engineering slightly more glamorous than accounting (apologies to my accountant) and cooking a star profession now.  I think it may be the star syndrome in our culture.  We go crazy building stars up to a point then we bring them down.  In the 50s, 60s and 70s engineering was cool, we were going after big dreams.  Putting a man on the moon, building the tallest building, new aircraft, submarines.  You name it we were building on a grand scale.

After the moon shot, no real giant scale projects happened anymore.  Nothing glamorous, no real challenges.  Nothing that inspired the public and children to want to be and admire an engineer.  Or maybe it’s just that we just don't hype our accomplishments as much as other professions.  A new eating establishment opens up, weeks of hype prior to and after occur.  A new S/W product comes out months of PR and Advertising ensue, even if it flops as a product.  So I wonder, is engineering a victim of its own success.  Are we too predictable in delivering function, high quality within sound economics that it’s just expected?