The beauty of engineering.
“Engineering is the closest thing to magic that exists in the world.” – Elon Musk
Ingenuity #
In an insightful blog post, Pat Sweet, President of The Engineering & Leadership Project puts across a very persuasive argument for the help engineering ingenuity has given us to create the reality we now have.
And that by and large, our reality is a beautiful one.
Pat cites five reasons why:
- People have been brought together. Through the power of today’s communication technology and transit systems, the whole world is available to us.
- The world is generally a safer place, particularly for travel.
- Lifelong learning is there for the taking. Online resources are easily accessible through online learning platforms
- We are kept healthier for longer – Medical research is highly dependent on tools developed by engineers. The same can be said for clinical medicine.
- Engineering excellence has ensured our homes have power, water, and other utilities.
Taking these advances for granted #
Yet it is so easy to take these things for granted. To my way of thinking, this is wrong.
Ideas: we can act upon our ideas straightaway, wherever we are in the world.
Communication: we can contact someone straightaway, wherever we are in the world.
Education: we can learn new things straightaway, wherever we are in the world.
Engineering is indeed, a beautiful thing.
And if we make the very best use of the tools engineers have given us, our activities too can be made more beautiful.
A downside to modern life is it’s more difficult to switch off. The upside to modern life is we can use the “always on” modern tools to get ahead whenever we wish.
As a society, is it right that we always consume the content, thoughts and opinions of others?
Probably not.
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx
Our choices #
More than ever before, we can explore more widely and produce our own content, shape our thoughts and form our own opinions.
Content, thoughts and opinions that are our personal assets or assets of our businesses.
Lead generation as an engineering discipline? There’s a thought. There’s certainly plenty of process, a discipline admired by engineers. I just need to keep cranking the (well-engineered) handle on creativity.
Engineers around the world, I salute you.
Thank you for reading.
