Great piece on an actual issues. I'm absolutely oozing gratitude.
Here's some additional, albeit anecdotal context. My father-in-law is an engineer who took early retirement from Ford after running an R&D department and reporting directly to the chief executives. From his perspective, the structural flaw in American auto manufacturing is the absolute lack of people with technical backgrounds on executive boards. In Japanese and European companies, engineers are well represented at the highest levels. Here, it's all people with business backgrounds, as if specialized knowledge is not required if you have a background in finance or marketing. A candy bar or an automobile, a product is a product. He considers it absolutely irresponsible and the cause of countless lost jobs here in MI.
I am all for the government supporting modernization of the auto industry. I just hope Obama gets people who understand science involved at as many levels as possible.
Not that I totally disagree with you. There definitely needs to be more expertise in the upper echelons of American business. But engineers are notorious for designing things that only engineers find useful.
Yes,... those stupid engineers!
What gives them the idea that people might want IPods, or computers, or cars.... =)
Honestly, the reason Ipods are so intuitive is because an engineer didn't design it (It was Jonathan Paul Ive and industrial designer). And early computers were pretty poorly planned out. Today a mouse is a necessity and makes casual computing quite simple. That didn't happen instantly when personal computing first started.
Honestly, engineer, programmers and the like come up with amazing things. And then people that are closer to artists than scientists make them more useful to the average person.
And early computers were pretty poorly planned out. Today a mouse is a necessity and makes casual computing quite simple. That didn't happen instantly when personal computing first started.
You can thank the engineers at Xerox PARC for that, and engineers-turned-businessmen Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for stealing the idea. :P
In order to have a successful company in a technological area, your leadership must be proficient in both business and the technology domain of the company. One of the reasons GM is failing, Xerox PARC failed, and Microsoft and Apple are on top of the world.
well, it takes all kinds of skill sets to undertake a large project. I seriously doubt that any one person "designed" an IPod...
No doubt you need designers and artists to come up with the design, but the design has to be fabbable (hence you need engineers) and has to be acceptabel to the market (hence you need people who do market surveys) and you need people who can build, and test, and a sales staff....
And then, once your project becomes sufficiently complex, you need "system engineering" to put it all together (this is what Steve Jobs provides). The IPod (and the space shuttle, and the moon program) was all put together with system engineering.
But, if you promise not to go around denigrating engineers, I promise not to go around denigrating industrial designers.
Well, I promise not to go around denigrating industrial designers regardless =)
Having worked for executives in corporate for many years, I always noticed their steering committees and planning sessions never seemed to include the employees that were directly involved in actual day-to-day operations. They left a valuable resource and wealth of knowledge untapped.
The auto companies generally have employee representation on the board because the unions are very strong. Having engineers and technical experts on the board is a separate issue, unfortunately.
wait a minute, that's not gratitude!!
