by Gary L. Tooker, Vice Chairman & CEO, Motorola,
1997 Honorary Chair, National Engineers Week
Whether you're riding in a car or an airplane, or cruising the Internet, you're surrounded by engineering.
Mechanical and electrical engineers create the systems that make vehicles work. Chemical engineers develop the fuel and materials. Civil engineers design the highways and airports. Software and computer engineers get you on the Information Highway. At home, at school, at work or on vacation, engineers build the products and systems that make life better.
As we look to the future, we see the role of engineers becoming more exciting than ever. The biggest changes are coming in the emerging economies of the world - in places like Asia, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. These regions are investing billions of dollars in the kind of infrastructure that will bring them very quickly into the 21st Century. Engineers are the agents of this change.
What does it take to be an engineer? Most people would say that it takes a solid education in math and science. That's important, but it's only part of the answer. Engineers need to work in teams that solve problems. They need to know what their customers want, and they must anticipate what their customers will need in the future. This takes a wide range of talent - the ability to communicate, to understand human problems, and to discover creative solutions. The word "engineer" is related to "ingenious."
That's what makes engineering such an exciting career. It is not a lonely profession. It is a constant process of solving problems that require inputs from a diversity of sources. How much you know isn't as important as your ability to keep learning. In a corporation, an engineer is an integral part of a process that includes product design, manufacturing, finance and marketing. It can involve law, public policy and human behavior in a diversity of cultures. Success is measured in the ability to build relationships as well as the mastery of technology.
The nations that lead the world in the decades to come will be those that encourage creative people to become engineers. Girls and boys will discover the excitement of science at a very early age. And above all, they will continue to learn throughout their careers, so that their skills will never become obsolete.
Today, we have technology platforms that promise to transform the world by improving the quality of life for people in emerging economies. At the same time, we know we will face some unexpected consequences of development. Our ability to conserve natural resources and ecosystems will be tested.
Challenges such as this will not go away. Engineers
face them every day. They explore the universe, from the outermost
reaches of space to sub-atomic particles. And they discover solutions
that make the world a little better every day. Engineering is
an exciting and rewarding career, and we need to do everything
possible to encourage it.
by Cheryl Reimold, IEEE Professional Communications Society, reprinted from PCS Newsletter
Good visuals can strengthen your presentation tremendously - but unfortunately, they're rare. Here are their four key attributes: few, big, simple, and (occasionally) memorable.
How many visuals per minute? People often ask me how many visuals they should use per minute of speech. I think they hope I will say expansively, "As many as you like!" Instead, I tell them the opposite: "Use no more than you really need." The key is this: Use a visual only if it has a clear purpose.
Now, there are only a few legitimate purposes:
The last purpose is the least legitimate - yet in many presentations, it seems to be the reason for most of the visuals. Imagine writing every word of your presentation on transparencies and just reading the speech off the screen. Well, the more overheads you use as prompts, the closer you get to this absurd extreme!
Just decide exactly how you will use each visual. If it doesn't serve a legitimate purpose, throw it out. Sometimes, that leaves just two or three visuals. That's fine. Many presentations can be improved dramatically by omitting half of the visuals. For one thing, cutting them out encourages you to talk to the people rather than hide behind your visuals.
Of course, some of your visuals may be objects such as product samples. Such demonstration objects can be very effective. If possible, avoid passing them out while you speak, though, as this always creates some distraction.
Usually, the visual should be bigger than you think. Make typed text at least 18 point; anything smaller is difficult to read from the back of the room. This means you can't fit more than 16 double-spaced lines on a transparency (portrait mode).
However, that allowance shrinks further, because you shouldn't use the bottom third of the transparency at all. The reason is that the overhead projector tends to block this portion for some listeners. (You can avoid this problem my always using transparencies sideways, or in "landscape orientation.")
If you are an accountant or controller, please suppress the urge to photocopy that 12-column computer printout! Are you really going to read all the invisible numbers in all 12 columns to your audience? Perhaps you need just a list of the 12 column headings and then the numbers for one or two interesting or representative examples.
Making the type big usually forces you to use short phrases rather than full sentences. That's as it should be. You don't want to turn your presentation into a speed-reading exercise or insult your audience by parroting verbatim what's on the screen!
As much as possible, avoid competing with your visuals for the audience's attention. Anything that takes them away for more than three to four seconds constitutes destructive competition. Therefore it's crucial that you make all charts simple and immediately understandable.
This means cutting out all clutter (unnecessary grids, numbers, and details). Include only what you need to make your point. In most cases, it also means you should replace tables with other types of charts, such as bar or line charts. These charts are more quickly absorbed, because they show relationships visually. Use tables only when you're talking about simple numbers rather than trends or relationships - say, when giving a cost breakdown.
One of the hardest things for the audience is "cross-referencing," or having to go back and forth over certain sections of your visual. A legend asks them to do just that.
The smarter approach is to label things directly. Even though it may be a little extra work for you, you'll be rewarded by better audience attention.
Earlier, I said that you should make some of your
visuals memorable. Next time, I'll expand on that advice.
In the last months of the 104th Congress, over a half-dozen bills to deregulate the electric utility industry and introduce retail competition were introduced. Observers expect bills previously introduced by Schaefer and House Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-Texas) will be reintroduced in the 105th Congress. The Schaefer bill (H.R. 3790) would give all the states until December 2000 to implement retail competition. Delay's bill (HR 4297, 9-28-96) moves the deadline to Jan. 1, 1998.
IEEE-USA's Technology Policy Council will address energy deregulation and related technical issues in its Technology Policy Symposium, tentatively scheduled for spring 1997.
On Dec. 12, IEEE-USA and its Engineering Employment Benefits Committee hosted a Forum on Pension Portability to allow pension policy-makers and persons from interested national organizations to discuss impediments to the portability of benefits and identify ways to promote appropriate improvements in the 105th Congress.
Proposed technical standards for digital televisions from the Broadcasters Caucus, the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association, and the Computer Industry Coalition on Advanced Television Service: www.fcc.gov.
"Possible Health Effects of Exposure to Residential
Electric and Magnetic Fields," by National Research Council
and its Board of Radiation Effects found no convincing evidence
that electromagnetic fields play a role in the development of
cancer, reproductive and developmental abnormalities, or learning
and behavioral problems: www.nap.edu/ readingroom/enter2.cgi?NI000121.html.
Recognizing our Section members for their long-time
commitment to the profession on the anniversary of their joining
IEEE.
20 yrs
You have 10 sets of 10 coins each. Each of the coins weighs 10 grams, except for the coins in one set, which weigh 9 grams each. All 100 coins look alike. How can you identify the set of 9-gram coins with only one weight measurement?
Answer to last month's Brainbuster:
The velocity of waves approaching the beach theoretically approaches infinity as the angle approaches zero. How can this be? How could the crests move faster than the speed of light?
The wave crests are just a moving pattern, not moving water. A pattern, like the dark spots that run along the line of incandescent lights on an advertising sign, can move at any speed. But real things, like water, radio waves, and surfers, are limited to the speed of light.