Becoming a Thought Leader
I recently attended a fascinating event held at a marketing company, specializing in PR and marketing for startup companies in the cleantech space. Now I recognize the necessity of marketing (as separate from sales), and I understand how much of it (nearly all of it?) is done online these days. But my goodness, I could spend my entire working time on the computer doing marketing, if I followed all the “best practices” as outlined! Hmm, I guess that’s why even small companies find value in a dedicated marketing person… 🙂 One of the audience asked a very thoughtful question: “Many times startup companies are operating in ‘stealth’ mode, to avoid showing their hand before their product is ready. But how then to build a marketing buzz or excitement, or establish yourself in the market, while dealing with that kind of restriction?” The answer I found quite relevant – it has…
Useful Things I Have Learned That Engineering School Never Taught Me
I had this post written already, but think it’s an appropriate response to recent articles from GEARS and from Miss MSE about which humanities classes I thought should have been part of my education. I’ve been out of school for several years now and along the way I’ve picked up a few things that made me say “Why didn’t they teach that to me before!?!?” Now, brace yourself, fellow engineers, because I’m not talking about some arcane science or deep mathematical insight. I’m talking about the general disciplines that fall into the field I think of as the Liberal Arts. Of course, when I was student, I rolled my eyes and thought that Liberal Arts meant things like studying Art History of the Early to Late Middle Renaissance, and wondered how it would get me a job. Now, I see the Liberal Arts as a set of “soft” skills that…
Engineers: Not just for engineering
There have been several posts on EB about how recruiting students into STEM is just a Ponzi scheme. Â However, I finally came upon an article that provided a potential outlet for all those engineers who can’t find a job in engineering. Management! Â (I can see you hooting and hollering already.) According to research conducted by Identified and Harvard Business School, engineers and other STEM-type people are quickly taking up many of the top spots in most businesses. Â Specifically, Identified found that nearly 3/4 of CEOs in all industries have advanced engineering degrees. Â The Harvard Business School study determined that part of the reason that engineers are often at the higher levels of companies is that those companies are seeking people with more specializations. I can see a couple down sides to this: most engineers I know aren’t necessarily interested in getting an advanced degree, nor are they interested in…
How to Succeed at Your Engineering Internship
It’s the off season for hiring interns but it’s probably the right season to start thinking about your future internship for this summer or the next if you are an engineering student. Dressing appropriately is only part of the battle (and I love the tie from Sandra Lara via creative commons). Many of the suggestions might apply to many other industries as well. So I apologize if they’re a bit generic but as I’ve worked with a couple crops of interns so far I thought I’d offer some ideas from my perspective. Treat everyone with respect. Some interns save their kissing up for the bosses and senior folks only. But that’s real obvious to the other employees. And yes it can seem kind of insincere to be kissing up to everyone all at once. But really people will expect it from you and not hold it against you as long…
The Business Bag
One of the things that I’ve been doing lately now that I’m at SnowU is carrying papers back and forth between work and home. I was using a small (and pretty rough looking) Dell laptop bag from about 5 years ago. Because that only held the laptop and a few minor things, it was a pain to travel with and I could not take many papers with me. As a present for the holidays, DrWife decided to get me a new work bag, which is fantastic. Now, it wasn’t a complete surprise because I helped her pick it out because features, looks, and functionality are depend on the individual using it. Some of the things that I may like may be things that other people don’t like (and vice versa). I wanted my work bag to meet at least three functional requirements (and a fourth, if you count looks). 1)…
Background Check
The preparation I do for a meeting depends on the meeting. If it’s a recurring weekly thing where I’m supposed to have made progress – well, then I show the progress I’ve made. If it’s an update meeting, I just go and listen to whatever the current status of whatever the project is. If it’s a meeting with another engineer, I go with no preparation, and then we work on whatever problem we’re solving. But I’ve learned about a new category of meeting, now that I’ve started dipping my toes in the business world. It’s the “reaching out” meeting – or the “touching base” meeting – or the “finding overlapping interests” or “maybe we can collaborate” meeting. Basically these are meetings that are the first contact between you and the other person. Sometimes you want something out of the other person, sometimes they want something out of you, and the…
Engineer to the Rescue
It’s 20 minutes until when you’d normally leave your office and your boss rushes in. There’s something wrong in manufacturing. Or maybe there’s some particular analysis that needs to be done for the customer or some report that he needs for his boss. Of course, you’re the only one that can help. Does this sound familiar to you? If so you’re probably trying to figure out what to do about it. Allison Green over at Ask a Manager recently answered a question from a reader that covered this very topic. In fact, they are an electrical engineer. They wonder what you do when you’ve become the go to person and are maybe under appreciated as well. Click the link to go over to the Ask a Manager blog, read Allison’s response, and check out the readers’ discussion.  Here’s a snippet of what the original writer is talking about: I feel under-appreciated for…
Weekend Journal — The MBA Playbook
As an engineer, it’s common to hear moaning about the way that a manager or supervisor is making decisions. Hell, there are entire cartoons dedicated to the constant struggle between management and engineering (and many other departments and engineering). But oftentimes the complaints heard are generic and can be attributed more to human nature and the struggle against any type of management or direction, as opposed to poor engineering direction. While I still contribute my fair share of griping and moaning, there is only one type of behavior that truly upsets me: The MBA Playbook. I have referred to the MBA Playbook in many different contexts before. On my radio show, in my long dormant blog and I believe even on Engineer Blogs before. The basic idea is that there is a book handed out to all the students on the first day of class at most business schools. They study…
Requirements & Relativity
What if every person’s perception of time was arbitrary and completely different? What if what seemed like months to you felt like days to someone else? I’m not talking about psychology here, I’m talking about this week’s theme: deadlines. The academics here at Engineer Blogs already weighed in with things that are familiar to their world; Miss Outlier talked about long term deadlines, GEARS talked about procrastination, and Cherish talked about the difficulty of getting started. Paul Clarke gives some tips about dealing with deadlines and whether to approach them as the tortoise or as the hare. Unlike academics most of my deadlines are much more short term. Sometimes you get two days to pull off a major design and drawing change and sometimes you get two hours to put together part of a report an executive is going to see. My issues with due dates are often that different…
The Hare and the Tortoise – Deadlines
The story of the Hare and the Tortoise needs little introduction, but I think fits well with this week’s theme of deadlines in the work place. We all know the moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the day. How do you become the Tortoise and not the Hare? We each work in very different ways, so I’m not saying that everything here is right for everyone.  However, it’s right for me, and I hope you will be able to take a few tips and adapt them to your working day. In fact, the way I operate now would not have worked at some of my past jobs.  Therefore, each of us has to develop our own special way of making deadlines. First, I want to consider what this deadline is. Without detail of the project or whatever it is it’s difficult to say. However, deadlines come…