Wiley | 2006-09-12 | ISBN: 0470007230 | 224 pages | PDF | 1,5 MB
“Informative, provocative, and practical…developing the skills outlined in The Entrepreneurial Engineer is a necessity for a productive engineering career.”
-”Raymond L. Price, William H. Severns Professor of Human Behavior Director, Illinois Leadership(r) Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“I believe that The Entrepreneurial Engineer has the potential to change the landscape of what engineers learn and do.”
-”John R. Koza, former CEO and chairman, Scientific Games Inc. and Consulting Professor, Stanford University
“Dr. Goldberg provides the road map for engineers of the future to stay at the front of the wave by learning to think more like entrepreneurs. . . Consider this book your survival handbook for the rest of your life.”
-From the Foreword by Tim Schigel, Director Blue Chip Venture Company
Entrepreneurial times call for The Entrepreneurial Engineer
In an age when technology and business are merging as never before, today’s engineers need skills matched with the times. Today, career success as an engineer is determined as much by an ability to communicate with coworkers, sell ideas, and manage time as by talent at manipulating a Laplace transform, coding a Java(r) object, or analyzing a statically indeterminate structure.
This book covers those nontechnical skills needed by today’s entrepreneurial engineers who mix strong technical know-how, business and organizational prowess, and an alert eye for opportunity. Author David Goldberg unlocks the keys to ten core competencies at the heart of what entrepreneurial engineers need to master to be effective in a fast-moving world of deals, teams, startups, and innovating corporations. You’ll discover how to:
Feel the essence-and the joys-of engineering
Examine personal motivation and set goals
Master time management and organization
Write fast and well under pressure
Prepare and deliver effective presentations
Understand and practice good human relations
Act ethically in matters large, small, and engineering
Assess technology opportunities
Understand teams, leadership, culture, and the organization of organizations
Contents
Foreword xiii
Preface xv
1 Entrepreneurial Engineer: Ready for the 21st Century 1
1.1 21st-Century Engineers Moving at Internet Time 1
1.2 Engineering Education, Common Sense, and the Real World 2
1.3 Ten Competencies for the Entrepreneurial Engineer 3
1.4 Three Principles 6
1.5 Three Cautions 7
Exercises 8
2 The Joy of Engineering 10
2.1 A Joyous Confession 10
2.2 Engineering as Liberal Education, Launchpad, and Lifelong Love 11
2.2.1 Who Is Getting a “Liberal Arts” Education Today? 11
2.2.2 Engineering as Launchpad 13
2.2.3 Ten Ways to Love Engineering 13
2.3 The Fundamental Tug-of-War 16
2.4 Science and Its Little Secret 16
2.5 Engineers: First Masters of Modern Enterprise 18
2.6 Economy of Intellection: Separating Science from Engineering 19
2.6.1 Modeling Plane 20
2.6.2 Spectrum of Models 21
2.7 Four Tensions Facing the Entrepreneurial Engineer 22
Summary 23
Exercises 24
3 Money, Work, and You 26
3.1 Money, Moola, the Big Bucks 26
3.2 Roads to Wealth: Four Dinner Table Platitudes 26
3.3 Hidden Lesson 1: Engagement 28
3.3.1 Why Engagement Matters 28
3.3.2 Matching your Vocational Impedance 29
3.4 Hidden Lesson 2: Courage 30
3.4.1 Locus of Control: Internal versus External 30
3.4.2 Exploring Courage 31
3.5 Tactical Lessons of Handling Money 32
3.5.1 Spending and Earning Styles 32
3.5.2 Spending–Earning Impedance 33
3.5.3 Investing, Saving, and Thrift 33
3.6 Get a Life 35
3.7 Plotting your Course: Values, Mission, and Goals 36
3.7.1 Creating a Personal Values Statement 36
3.7.2 Writing a Personal Mission Statement 38
3.7.3 Setting Goals 39
Summary 40
Exercises 41
4 Getting Organized and Finding Time 43
4.1 Time and Its Lack 43
4.2 Effective Ways to Waste Time 43
4.3 Seven Keys to Time Management 45
4.3.1 A Place for Everything 46
4.3.2 Work for Mr. To Do 48
4.3.3 Sam Knows: Just Do It 50
4.3.4 A Trash Can Is a Person’s Best Friend 50
4.3.5 Tuning Your Reading 50
4.3.6 Managing Interruptions 52
4.3.7 Getting Help 53
Summary 54
Exercises 54
5 Write for Your Life 55
5.1 Engineers, Root Canal, and Writing 55
5.2 Why Many Engineers Don’t Like to Write 55
5.3 Prime Directive of Writing: Just Write 56
5.3.1 Freewriting 57
5.3.2 Directed Writing for the Real World 59
5.4 Getting the Content and Organization Right 64
5.4.1 The Primary Structure of Business Writing: BPR 65
5.4.2 Lists and Amplification: Technical Writer’s Best Friend 66
5.4.3 Sectioning, Titles, and Headings 67
5.4.4 Summaries, Conclusions, and Distinguishing the Difference 67
5.5 Edifying Editing 68
5.6 Improving Your Writing 70
Summary 71
Exercises 72
6 Present, Don’t Speak 74
6.1 Speeches versus Presentations 74
6.2 Why Present? 74
6.3 Preparation Makes the Presentation 76
6.3.1 Audience Analysis 76
6.3.2 Subject Selection 78
6.3.3 Elements of a Presentation 78
6.3.4 Preparation Process 81
6.3.5 Transparency Design and Preparation 82
6.4 Delivery 87
Summary 89
Exercises 90
7 Human Side of Engineering 91
7.1 Human Challenges of Engineering 91
7.2 Through the Eyes of Others 92
7.3 Anatomy of a Disagreement 93
7.4 We are all Salespeople on this Bus 94
7.5 The Role of Questions 96
7.5.1 Questions in Conversation 96
7.5.2 Questions in Conflict Resolution and Negotiation 97
7.5.3 Questions in Sales and Persuasion 97
7.6 Praise 98
7.7 Criticism 100
7.8 Engineering Is Sometimes Having to Say You’re Sorry 101
7.9 Wear a Little Passion 102
Summary 103
Exercises 103
8 Ethics in Matters Small, Large, and Engineering 105
8.1 Is Engineering Ethics Necessarily a Dreadful Bore? 105
8.2 Ethics: Systematic Study of Right and Wrong 106
8.2.1 Golden Rules: Positive and Negative 106
8.2.2 Whence Right and Wrong? 108
8.2.3 An Engineer’s Synthesis of Ethical Theory 114
8.3 From Ethical Theory to Practice 115
8.3.1 Self-Interest 116
8.3.2 Obedience to Authority 116
8.3.3 Conformity to the Group 117
8.3.4 Practice Makes Perfect 118
8.4 From Personal to Engineering Ethics 119
8.4.1 What Is a Profession? 119
8.4.2 A Tale of Two Codes 120
8.4.3 Conflicts of Interest 127
8.4.4 Whistleblowing Is Not a First Resort 129
Summary 130
Exercises 131
9 Pervasive Teamwork 133
9.1 Our Love–Hate Relationship with Teams 133
9.2 Working Together in Groups and Teams 133
9.2.1 Teams versus Groups: What’s the Difference? 134
9.2.2 Team Basics 134
9.2.3 Team Ground Rules and Their Enforcement 135
9.3 Understanding the Difficulties of Teamwork 136
9.3.1 A Little Model of Teamwise Deciding and Doing 137
9.3.2 A Little Model of Teamwise Conflict (and Creativity) 138
9.4 Why Cooperation Isn’t Easy 140
9.5 Meetings, Meetings, and More Meetings 141
9.5.1 Three Little Keys to Meeting Happiness 141
9.5.2 A Day in the Life of a Typical Problem-Solving Meeting 142
9.5.3 What’s Wrong? 142
9.5.4 Structured Brainstorming 144
9.5.5 Putting Structured Brainstorming to Work 149
Summary 149
Exercises 149
10 Organizations and Leadership 151
10.1 Organizations and Leadership Matter 151
10.2 Understanding Human Behavior and Motivation 152
10.2.1 Bounds on Human Nature 152
10.2.2 Unifying Model: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 153
10.2.3 Theory X and Theory Y 154
10.2.4 The Case of the Sluggish Secretary 155
10.3 Human Organizations and Their Leaders 156
10.3.1 From Good to Great 156
10.3.2 The Leadership Challenge 159
10.4 Organizational Culture: The Gods of Management 161
10.5 Why Form or Join Organizations? 164
10.5.1 Optimizing Transactions: A Quantitative Model 168
10.5.2 An Aside on Free Agency 168
Summary 171
Exercises 172
11 Assessing Technology Opportunities 173
11.1 Entrepreneurial Engineers Seek Opportunity 173
11.2 What Is an Opportunity? 174
11.3 Sustainable Competitive Advantage: The Making of a Good Opportunity 176
11.3.1 Four P’s of Competitive Advantage 176
11.3.2 Five Forces of Sustainability 177
11.4 What Is your Niche? 178
11.5 Three Financial Mysteries of Opportunity Assessment 180
11.5.1 Overcoming the Fear of Financials 180
11.5.2 Prices, Margins, and Breaking Even 183
11.5.3 Time Value of Money 184
11.6 Writing the Technology Opportunity Assessment 185
11.6.1 Executive Summary 185
11.6.2 Technology Description 186
11.6.3 Market Analysis 187
11.6.4 Preliminary Financial Analysis 191
11.6.5 Action Plan 192
Summary 196
Exercises 197
