The Great Rewrite

Forbes and KPMG have created this wonderful video series on changing innovation is going to affect us all. Yesterday’s science fiction is today’s reality. New materials, new energy sources, new manufacturing methods, new intelligence and new tools for the future.

Companies have to go from one or two people to everyone creating innovations.

Please watch some of the videos. How are you going to adapt, thrive and create your own innovations?

What would you like to change?

http://www.forbes.com/kpmg/the-great-rewrite/#/

The Future is Here (Almost)

This video shows a paralyzed patient using his hands and beginning to get more and more sensation and movement in his body. This is the result of USC Stem Cell research.

This video is 9 minutes long and awesome. Have little to add but a question. If we can do this, what else can we do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtWyyJL9LiU&feature=youtu.be

Credit: Patrick Cox from Mauldin Economics for sharing the video from BioTime’s Announcement of First Stem Cell Spinal Cord Therapy Results.

The Greatest Time to be Living

Been hearing negative statements over and over recently. Gold Bugs and Preppers believe the world is falling apart. Each political party blames the other during election years for everything and anything.

You may hear:

• ·      Times are tough.
• ·      The economy is weakening.
• ·      Jobs are being eliminate or sent to _____
• ·      Society will fail.
• ·      Currencies are going to fall.
• ·      There will be chaos.

 “Pessimism narrows our focus, whereas positive emotions widen our attention and our receptiveness to the new and unexpected.”

– Daniel Goleman

There have always been hard times, new illnesses, conflicts, wars, poverty, and innocent people starving. Even Jesus said, “You will always have the poor”.

The truth is today is the best time to be living and tomorrow will be better:

• ·      More food is grown on less land than ever.
• ·      Medical science is conquering cancer, heart disease, aging, and developing therapies to rebuild our bodies.
• ·      Computers grow faster, smaller and double in memory every year or two.
• ·      Our phones have more computing power than the mainframes I was taught on in college.
• ·      Knowledge has gone from stored on paper to abundantly spread all over the Internet.

 Nothing goes forward in a simple, straight manner. Innovation and progress are marked with false starts, failures, crashes and disasters. But we learn and keep improving daily.

Today and tomorrow will still be inconvenient, difficult, and dangerous. But tomorrow will also be better.

“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.”

– Doris Day

My Job No One Knows

My first job after college was a career I never heard of. Even though my parents are engineers, never learned about Manufacturing Engineers. Am not alone, there are many careers no one knows about or understands.

Design engineers are what everyone thinks of for engineering. The people who can take a idea and create from scratch new products is what people think of engineers. (That and we drive trains and sound the whistle) Truth is even simple products need vastly different skills and talents to be made successfully.

Manufacturing has designers, design engineers, toolmakers, tool designers, industrial engineers, machine designers, planners, production mangers, and the craftsmen who put products together every day. Every small product takes a team of people to accomplish everything you touch or hold.

Manufacturing and tooling engineers are often considered second-class citizens by management. The example that comes to mind is I was in my thirties before I had desk younger than I. Sales had the fancy offices. Production is industrial. And manufacturing engineers plan, coordinate, improve and team to make it happen.

Why do it? I love it. Am fascinated by technology, products and services. The challenge of find the easiest way, the least cost, a faster way, a safer way, and to make your product better is consuming. People need help and you solve problems. You wake up at night with new ideas how.

Nothing happens instantaneously. The first version doesn’t work. The second round can’t be made as designed. The third version needs to be more reliable. And competition means the cost has to go down. There are always problems and challenges that have to be overcome. Innovation, creativity and persistance are key. You work hard to make your team succeed.

Production celebrates shipping new products like teams winning playoffs. Anything great is the result of lots of hard work.

There is a sense of accomplishment and knowing you have done what others could not with new products. New production systems may be invented, tools created specially for your product, people need to be trained, instructions and documents written, and schedules met.

Manufacturing is a great career even if no one understands what you do.

“Make Something Better.” Bill Boeing