Needed: Engineers with Vision

I would love to see the ratio of 60:1 lawyers to engineers reversed in the Senate.

One of the principle reasons we don't see that is that engineers are too smart to sentence themselves to working in the pathological realm of illogic.

one important thing I have found is that most any engineer will not sacrifice security (job) to be innovated......the typical response when questioned.......if it doesnt work, I can lose my job. So true.

p911

P911, you sound so jaded. Retired now, but worked for an engineering group that joined a really large company. We had the freedom to try new ideas, and often would have three small teams working at different ways of solving a particular problem. It was understood that only one solution would go to production, but also that we needed the competing concepts.

We did loose a few visionary types when the Corporate Office tried to institute validation requirements really meant for another discipline, and way overkill for the mechanical devices we were building. Two talented guys left.

Then Sarbanes-Oxley -(sp) arrived as a control device after the ENRON financial disaster. Again some bean counter interpreted the rules to mean that any purchases not going directly into the product were in some way in need of total control.

That meant that if an engineering needed a pair of pliers, he had to run a request all the way to the divisional vice-president. (Up to that point, each engineer had $1,000 signature authority with no questions asked.

We took care of that problem within a month. Every morning we had two engineers standing outside the VPs office asking for a signature on a request for purchase.

But again, we lost two talented engineers to the frustration and absurdity of corporate control.

We survived that and continued to produce high quality work.

Jaded is the new Fubar... Sounds like you should be a bit more jaded.

Yes it could be interpreted as jaded.

Look at my tag line, where these self proclaimed visionary engineers worked actually create work for me, when the company calls me in to salvage a project or at times the company, this visionary engineers are doing their visionary thing some place else.

One so called visionary engineer, there were (3) different company's that called me in where he had worked. On the projects that he worked on seemed very visionary, but since he managed the projects he realized before anybody else its true performance value and left before completion. Most I was able to salvage to where the company was able to be released, there was one company where we were not able to do a contingency plan but was able to assemble a fall-back plan. To this day the owner of that company appreciates what I did for him and how I did it.

As far as quality control or some type of structured environment for true innovative visionary engineers, is like trying to mix water and oil. I would'nt rule it out but, it rarely happens.

We took care of that problem within a month. Every morning we had two engineers standing outside the VPs office asking for a signature on a request for purchase.

Before I went off on my own, I had managed an engineering dept. for my engineers to do their work, I had to do similar things to shield them from internal politics such as that. I hated it......because it was a game. And it consumed what should have been my free personal time.

But some engineers who consider themselves visionaries are not. And its usually those who have to blow their own horn...........because nobody else will do it for them.

p911

I've managed a small engineering department, and put up with the BS from others.. and I think you are spot on in your understanding of dynamics of that. (GA) As far as visionary, it really does have to have a strong dose of reality. If you look at Henry Ford et al, you will find years of practical experience underpinning the vision, and a talent for coordinating the genius of others. (as well as political savvy)

Success is when Opportunity and Preparation meet.

Chris

Henry Ford used (some would say abused) all of his resources........even pinning worker against worker for the sake of higher production.

So Henry Ford left his mark as a good innovative businessman

What people don't understand, to run a business there is little or no room for sincere empathy.

As far as a visionary engineer, the business asks itself, "What can a visionary engineer do for me this quarter?" Thats where a business can get trapped in, to increase the bottom line, in hiring a so called visionary engineer.

When this happens the only advice I can give is "Caveat emptor"

Because the risk is not fully realized until the business, not the visionary engineer, makes the commitment.

Visionary is a word.....nothing more, along with innovation.

p911

The guests can & are tracked by their IP address, by our friendly moderators

The moderators lock out both users & addresses from time to time

We should as a community be able to exclude members or guests, if we can reach some level of consensus among the registered members.

recently a member came to the conclusion that he would prefer not to be part of the community [CR4] any more, with very little moderator intervention

Guests may require a bit of help from moderation

all the deletions are pointless & don't serve any purpose & probably actually encourage bad behavior by members & guests. By Offering a safetynet to wipe away the less than civil behavior by members & guests alike, moderation as nanny...

9

Oh yeah,

Ed know shyt

Most of the engineers that I know, who are capable of visionary work, are unable, even congenitally unable, to spin the truth and tell the lies that the electorate seems to respond to, despite the inevitable failure to come to fruition during the term.

It would be novel for a candidate to stand up and tell the truth.

i was working for an US based multinational and feel one of the reasons might be with indiscriminate application of tools like SAP,ERP six sigma. that has converted the engineers of to day to a confused lot and cant visualise any more .i suppose unlearning these processes of SAP,Six sigma etc and work normal is the solution

crm

you are my hero. GA.

We experienced the same things, as to my post #11 and #12

p911

Speaking as one of the current "visionaries"- Many engineers have been "taught" to not push for optimum because "good enough" is just that- a way to satisfy customers who have been "trained" to accept less than ideal.

However, as a supplier of innovative systems that work at optimum levels with high levels of reliability and efficiency, once we get a customer- they are ours for life as they find that they do not have to put up with the "shit" that other firms have been passing off as "good engineering".

Regarding the 60:1 ratio- most of the lawyers are very interested in being told what the true FACTS are regarding some issue, not just the popular folk wisdom of the day. WE engineers just have to get involved enough to give those lawyers the RIGHT answers- if they exist or at least tell them what COULD occur if some other action is taken.

Visionaries and their visions are a dime a dozen. The visions are useless without the ability to sell them to "investors" and then turn them into reality with some real value.

There was a time in the last century when the world was enamored of the products of scientists and engineers and what they did for standards of living. With time the projects that rose close enough to the top that they would command public attention became so much more complex that the person who provided the technical leadership through his own work got lost in the list of credits under the manager who ran it all. And the standards of living were taken for granted. That's the case today.

Today's world is too complex to be managed by any system of logic. The communists of the last century for all their visionary idealism found that out the hard way as their one party top down control system devolved into inefficiency and corruption. Engineers face the same reality in their projects. The easy problems have been worked out. All that are left are the incredibly difficult and complex problems. The solutions to these problems place a premium on political talent. All the technical stuff is taken for granted.

Once submerged in one of these vast enterprises an engineer sees no call for or even tolerance of "vision" in the sense we are referring to here. That's reserved for the top echelons. In a huge project performance to requirements is what is expected and rewarded. If anything like vision is expected it is the vision of the best path to meet or exceed performance, schedule or cost "targets".

Another problem is that the general public has become increasingly fearful and conservative. They are terrified at losing their shaky prosperity to forces beyond their control. Fundamental science is rejected as just one fairly boring mantra in a plethora of compelling belief systems. The world is full of charlatons selling miracle technologies to solve problems, be they health, energy, transportation, housing, environmental and on and on. The true ambitious and technically capable visionary is easily lost in the fog of all that. So why bother?

Your run of the mill visionary doesn't stand a chance unless he's psychotic enough to be able to persist in ignorance of the reality that surrounds him. (And it's usually a "him"). The women are too pragmatic to fall into that trap. When they become a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic there is little room for logic in that maelstrom.

Ed Weldon

I think any post with "couple of sandwiches short of a picnic" deserves a GA.

engineers that are visionary are like engineers with potential. It isn't worth sqwat if it's not realized. p911

I have also seen types of visionary engineers

short run and long run.

Short run the ideas have quick paybacks and can easily be accepted and appreciated.

Now the long term on the other hand, these guys are truely ahead of their time and are not easily accepted. Because their ideas are more difficult to be quantified at first.

p911

People seem to be confusing the average engineer who dose all the grunt work with the guys who did have a vision and managed to carry it through to completion.

Maybe 1 in 10,000 have any small capacity toward great things - probably not that many even. The fellow designing a new hydroelectric plant structure or a new gearbox don't have need for great visions.

The guy designing the next generation of aircraft - the 787 or the A380 do.

The guy that P911 was talking about messing up with three local companies was not a visionary - just a useless fellow. When I quit the US based company to work overseas I did so part for money and in part because the company president had zero vision except to do the same thing over and over. ,

To make progress on something totally new and different (not one of the over unity schemes we have discussed the past few days) the lead man has to be not only a great engineer but a great manager and politician.

The guy that P911 was talking about messing up with three local companies was not a visionary - just a useless fellow.

I didn't say he was useless, he was actually a good engineer, Michigan Tech Grad. but a poor one when pushing the envelop.

He also had a very likeable personality that people failed to see beyond that.

p911

I have many different definitions of useless - that is one.

you really should use standard definitions other then personal, and word them accordingly.

Websters or even dictionary.com helps.

p911

You do as you like and I do as İ like.

What do you think? Maybe we should create a horn section. Let the brass do what its there for.

I've been told I toot a pretty good horn. Wheres the section?

It is usually there were you find it. A horn is a brass instrument is it not?

It is usually there were you find it.

Thats true for all things, but then again, I repeat what I hear.....I'm actually more of a piano man myself.......not a good one, but good enough to hold peoples interest.

Can't you girls guys stop bitchin' for a minute and admire my carefully crafted wit instead?
Gimme a GA and I'll let you get back to your bitching...
Del

firstly i am not the same guest that has been vocal in his views

on the issues of vision and lack of input in politics and the public sphere a few points

our trade does not require us to develop huge networks and political connections as part of your daily business as do lawyers

we dont get the same job flexibility to take time to campaign

if one is an actual visionary etc our ideas are normally not palatable understandable or of interest to the greater public due to the lack of interest in tech and science

one does not get very rich as engineer or if you do your too busy and can buy your politician (several of my previous employers did)

I generally agree with what you are saying, however, it is difficult for most people to accept when someone calls themselves a visionary (not saying you are not), but that I think that for them to agree, that some method of comparison is required.

So what exactly are the requirements to be or acheive the status of Visionary? and how would that be different from a Genius, Master Politician & Salesman, Inventor/Businessman, etc.

Chris

This is funny! A bit childish but still funny.

So how come when someone speaks their opinion and puts their name behind it they are an ass? Yet when someone posts anonymously and rudely its ... Visionary?

Well said!

A visionary (anything) is one who can foresee the future. They are usually active in the financial world, not the engineering world. If an engineer develops what he thinks will make a lot of money in the future and his boss doesn't think so, that's the end of it. The non-visionary boss will have the last say. The visionary engineer has the option of forgetting about it or quitting his job and looking for a visionary company to work for. "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door". How many people have done that? It takes timing, money, opportunity and lots of luck to accomplish that.

I don't want to hear no s--t from guests if they don't have the b--ls to use their name.

So...

1) ability to see clearly into the future.
2) ability to build and accomplish what is foreseen.

anything else?

G'day Chris

Now, I have a question for you. You and I have been communicating for a while now and we have been more than constructive and have achieved quiet a bit in advancing ideas and adding heads to nails so to better the chances of driving them into whatever hard material presents itself. Here my question:

Would you say that I am a visionary or just simply a genius?

The vision comes first and the genius is the one that keeps things on track and collaborates with other heads of state, sorry, I meant states of head. Is this not exactly what the OP is about? Engineers with vision.

Have we not shown and proven to our selves that it is possible to go the extra mile with very limited funds, no head of department or any assistance at all. The time of publication is still along way down the track. What I am saying is, that keeping at it and trying to water tight and secure every possible angle of approach is what we should be after and have done so in the past.

I am sure that if you would have found anything grossly inconceivable or not logic or just plain mad you would have told me. And so would I, when and if the devils advocate needs to put a word in.

Well guys, that is how things are done nowadays out side of any big organization but still inside the huge tool shed (global spec is just one) that is at our disposal. It has to be done this way to allow for free spirited law abiding individuals to advance an idea and keep it secrete and only publish once nothing is there to ad, except maybe the bill from the dreaded patent attorney.

Gosh, I hope that guest is still with us and he can dribble all over me. Like water off a ducks back, or a well waxed car. With such an important thread title for us to reflect upon and then only to come up with such drivel he/she is self disqualifying him/her self from any constructive reflection which this site is and has been very capable of in the past.

So Chris, give it to me, what is your honest opinion?

I think with out our chance meeting here in CR4, I would still be wetting my pants and be scared about any controversial issues or revolutionary thoughts or ideas. Thanks for the help and never mind what your answer will be. Only I can really know. Being the recipient of a vision just makes me do all kinds of stuff one would never otherwise do.

I can hear cannons being loaded, make my day, Ky.

PS: No PM's please, I am busy.

Hi Ky,

shouldn't you be sleeping?

anyway... I always figured you were the visionary... I'm just along for the ride!...
and usually when I get a vision... it doesn't go so well... (pyramids, etc. )

cheers,

Chris

Honestly I don't have the time. 4 or 5 hours is sufficient anyway. Just catching up on time wasted during my youth really. Lets enjoy the ride Mate and lets stay focused and critical.

Diplomacy is for people who have vested interests, I have pure interest and have ambitions which have not yet found boundaries and when I, we hit a boundary I appreciate it. They give me time to invent ways around them, so far.

Talk soon, Ky.

""Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door". How many people have done that?"

That is exactly how I have done it!

I quit my job, lived month to month, spent all my money, and worked twice as many hours, sometimes to the point of near insanity to make it happen.

"It takes timing, money, opportunity and lots of luck to accomplish that."

Timing, yeah, I can sort of see that. Money, perhaps. Opportunity, we live in the best place on the planet for that.

Luck? No! It takes a vision statement, planning, persistence to work the plan, sacrifice, hard work, and focus. The lottery takes luck.

Oh dear, Ed... that sounds a bit jaded.

but I like it.. sounds absolutely real to me.

sorry to hear all the answer going around like this. to be a visionary need to see pass what you have learned and put what is needed to work. out side what you know but what you see is needed build it save the world.all of you good luck i have been to the both side.

Haha, I am a master visionary and have foreseen the future. And......I WIN! Yay! Don't worry I'll share!

I once worked for Digital Equipment Corp (DEC). Ken Olsen was a genius and a visionary.

To a point.

Vax and PDP machines were a wonder. Even micro-Vax was a great machine as a prototypical stand-alone workstation. Unfortunately, his vision stopped there with a world (at least in engineering) was transitioning to networked Unix workstations and stand alone (soon to be networked beyond sneaker net) PC's.

By the time he realized his arrogance and error DEC was doomed. A lot of us (I was a lowly manufacturing application course developer and trainer) pleaded with him to see the light but he refused, until it was too late. Ultrix and the Rainbow PC were failures; too late with too little.

Vision and genius can have limits. The ego tends to moderate true greatness.

Hooker

I never really knew much about DEC, but there was a large installation in Kanata (Ottawa) and I know it was a huge deal when end came... for the whole electronics industry... there might as well have been church bells tolling the death, for how deeply it impacted that community... I think even as much as Nortel in 2001.

Chris

I see that this subject has been well worked over by members already.

But it's good to see some interest in this topic.

The clip of the article was not very verbose. What visionaries are being referred to? Tesla? Bucky Fuller? Henry Ford?

Those people were visionaries AND engineers. They had found a subject full of new possibilities and they developed it, each in his own way.

The early engineers were the polymaths of their time.

The more important question is: Where are today's visionaries? What are they up against (visionaries always ruffle someone's feathers)? Do they have any ideas that seem worthwhile and workable?

In a way similar to how electronic chips are pushing up against the theoretical top limit of speed, social change via material technologies is running up against the limits marked out for it by innovators of yesteryear. 1984 is well upon us!

It is time to find a new direction for innovation, and it may not be an engineer who blazes this path (though I know a few who have pointed it out). Once agreement mounts that it is a path worth following, I am sure engineers will become active in its implementation.

Part of the problem with innovation is that it is resisted, or more accurately, selectively resisted. Thus you get the visionaries of yesteryear telling us that new material technologies would help us solve our environmental and social problems. We now have many of those technologies. But what about the social and environmental situations they were supposed to help solve? Something was missing from their visions. Or more properly, from the visions of those who took over their technology ideas and developed them.

Concern for environmental and social problems got dropped along the way. They were dropped because there was active resistance to solving these problems in the way that the last generation of visionaries hoped they could be solved. The next generation of visionaries will have to overcome that resistance if they want to see their own visions, and those that came before, fully realized.

If I had concentrated my life on studying and practicing the principals and skills of modern engineering alone, I would not be able to speak to these issues as I have above. The last generation of visionaries did not limit their interests to material technologies. The challenge for the next generation is to pick up that ball and start running with it again.

I'd like to suggest another name. Alvin Toffler (and his wife) I just watched the video, and of course he has written books and given lectures, and as the video poitns out, even advised governments (Korea) about growth strategies. I think he is a visionary, which in this case he calls a futurist. (and thinker and writer)

Isn't part of being a visionary the ability to enable people to do what they do best?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maverick_%28book%29

[yes chris future shock is very enlightening]

Hi Garthh,

thanks the the link. I'll look for that one.

I haven't actually read toffler, but after watching the video, I think I will.

I'd also like to point out that Marshall T Savage, with his book "The Millenial Project: How To Colonize The Galaxy In Eight Easy Steps" is quite visionary, and most importantly, as practical a plan for interstellar colonization as I've ever heard of.

Chris

Future Shock is about the accelerating rate of change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock

&

The Third Wave

Both Chris's and your comment, and several things/stances, above, do illustrate an engineer needs to be "comfortable" and 'aware" of the "creative" sector/forces at play in society, to make a difference.

Engineers are a genre at university that "don't do" Literature, or Fine Arts, or History, or Philosophy, or psychology, or marketing (note small 'p' & 'm'). Thus 'masters' hobble themselves and their produce into that "type cast".

It is interesting on this site the number that do delve into "Literature & Arts".

Also that they tend to be the Ancient ones. Also they are well appreciated. The younger may be envious, but quite 'perplexed' at the absence of such a 'seed' in themselves.

My take is education has become so compartmental (largely by the ambitions of career academics building territories) that the 'rounded exposure' of campus life has ceased to function. A student can attend 5 years and never know what another brand of engineer does, never mind what goes on in "those other single faculty buildings".

The outcome is each graduate: be that Engineer, or Historian, or other, is totally without the tools to form a comprehensive "overview" of societies aspired goals, never mind identifying "appropriate goals". The kind "visionaries" are crowned for enunciating.

The area that best illustrates this "narrowness of vision", over a wide range of "highly qualified genre fixed tunnel thinkers" - it's "climate/energy".

Another is the "world" financial crisis. Another, reaction to Haiti. BP spill.....

IMHO "Vision" is Extinct

Eradicated by "the tunnel kudos machines".

I.e. Total war was declared on the potential gene pool, and they've won John Conner.

Very nihilistic (Schopenhauer's influence? Maybe Kant?)

We will meet one day I you will see and meet the last Mahican and be surprised how well and up and running he is. You are right though the academy is dead and the ivory towers are crumbling, big time. Too many answers and not enough questions.

Greetings, Ky.

well I agree and disagree. I think what is actually happening is that we are not looking in the right spots... again.

In America, in the 60's and 70's and 80's.. there was a phenomena where the cores of the old cities were becoming vacant, and suburban sprawl was taking off. (I forget the term). From one point of view, the cities appeared to be undergoing a form of death, or rot, like an ancient tree, hollow in the inside.

I think that America (and Canada) do have a lot of potential left, but we do tend to have a myopic view, focused on ourselves, and largely ignorant of what is going on in the rest of the world... pacific rim, Australia/New Zealand, Europe, etc... growing at a fantastic rate... different paradigms.

Economically, I think most countries suffer from some form of corruption, but the forms seem to be different, and in some cases, so accepted, that they actually work... but have a built in inefficiency.... it is almost another type of economy.

I don't think we can say it is all dead.. even if it is decreasing in key areas in north america. When people want something badly enough.. they will simply go to it.. and get it.

Chris

We are witnessing an election campaign in Australia at the moment and the intellectual standard of the parties and their arguments, is as low as a snakes ass. Fed with half truths and misinformation and catering for an under educated electorate.

Shocking is all I can say, really disappointing seeing the weak being abused by the people who should know better. All of the "topies" have done their part in higher education and they are still catering for the lowest in the food chain.

Vision?

Lynda tends to watch american politics rather than canadian... and so I get subjected to a fair bit of that...

all I can say is: australian snake-assses must be higher off the ground than over here... because the north american snake-assses are pretty much subterranean here from what I can see.

cheers,

chris

Classic!

You should have seen that "debate" last night. Lower than an earthworms backside. I am ashamed that I am represented by such ................. I fail to find a name.

Intuitive of you to reference her.

She didn't? Did she?