Prototyping

Prototypes are very useful. We use them all the time when developing new products. They let us try out new ideas explore how well a particular technology will work for a specific application.

One danger of a prototype, is that there is the temptation to think that you can then just fix it up to make it into a product. This is a common enough dilema with software. It mostly works so a bit more polish and it will be OK to ship it.  This is definitely a danger zone. Once a prototype has served it’s purpose, put it aside. The design the product from the ground up. And then, if you can use any of the protype design, then do so in a considered way based on the design and architecture you have determined will meet the entire neds of the project. Most prototypes do not have the exception handling and support featured needed to make them into real products that can be tested and maintained.

So I was interested to read about another potential problem with prototypes in the December 2011 edition of the Harvard Business Review in an article titled Early Prototypes Can Hurt A Team’s Creativity.

Innovation Blockage

The problem outlined is that the prototype can limit the thinking about the project. It is way easier to pick and choose features on a defined thing and critique flaws than to create something new. So the early prototype can really set the team back if they let it define the full scope of how to think about the underlying problem being solved.

Prototypes Can Kill Innovation

I have seen the same think happen when a product needs a new model. It is obvious to look at incremental improvements and “Low Hanging Fruit” but sometimes you have to step back and think about the market and the customers and what they really need. Maybe it is time for a clean slate. And maybe there are good reasons why the old technology the product was based on is not the right choice for the next model.

In both cases, the prototype and the existing model act as a frame of reference that limits innovation and creativity.

The hard part of course, is recognising when that is the case and when it is not.

As an example, one project I worked on early in my career involved creating a new international product for a company entering a new market. It was for an existing category and there were 6 incumbents who had been there for a while, in some cases 30 years. The company did something very wise. They sent someone to talk to several opinion leaders and to all the local users of the equipment. The intent was to determine the best way to go about gaining market share. The story told was that none of the existing products met the customer needs really well. Over time they had converged into 2 formats, one for each market segment, and it was a price war as the products had become commodities. But when they were asked what they were trying to do, the customers gave 2 clear stories, one in each market segment. The marketing and product specifications were based on these 2 stories and we designed a single product to meet both market segments. The product entered a crowded international market at a price point 50% above the next most expensive product. The company planed to sell 300 in the first year and ramp up after that. The sold 1500 in the first year and had to move to a larger factory to satisfy the demand.

Leica Autostainer XL

I also got a patent for one of the new technologies developed. The point is that if you meet the actual need, people will pay for that. The issue in this market was that the incumbents had let each others’ offerings define their reponses and not the customers’ need. Another example of stifled innovation until a new player listened and changed the game.

I have never forgotten that lesson.

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  This post is Copyright © 2012  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Professor Goran Roos

Professor Goran Roos

As well as being the Thinker in Residence for South Australia, Professor Goran Roos is considered one of the 20 most significant thinkers of the 21st Century. This morning he was presenting his views on Australian Manufacturing to a combined breakfast meeting of the South East Business Network and SEMMA.

So what did I learn?

Here is the short list on what manufacturing does for an economy:

• R&D is driven by it
• Innovation is primarily manufacturing related
• Value added exports are usually manufactured
• Creates more indirect jobs per direct job than other sectors
• Many service companies have a manufacturing core
• Is the fastest knowledge growth domain
• Is essential for a highly competitive economy

His primary point is that “A healthy manufacturing sector is a must for any advanced economy with ambitions to maintain both economic and social wellbeing“.

Now he has my attention big time. Because this is something I have inherently believed my entrie working life. Australia needs manufacturing.

Manufacturing creates employment

Next  he looked at the contribution of manufacturing to employment and why we have employment issues in Australia. Yes I know the official unemployment figure is low, but that is because many people looking for work are not included in the official figure. So here is how is pans out for employment:

• For each manufacturing job, there are 2.5 other jobs created around it
• In Australia where there are 1 million jobs in manufacturing, that means there are 3.5 million jobs in total associated with manufacturing
• For each working person, there is a dependent person relying on them for income. These can be relatives, children, spouse etc.
• So in total there are 7 million people in Australia dependent on manufacturing

Now lets look at mining:

• For each mining job, there is another job created around it
• In Australia where there are 200 thousand jobs in mining, that means there are 400 thousand jobs in total associated with mining
• For each working person, there is a dependent person relying on them for income. These can be relatives, children, spouse etc.
• So in total there are 400 thousand people in Australia dependent on mining

So the current government policies and industry practices of reducing manufacturing and increasing mining for direct export are actually economic suicide.

The service industry is even worse for indirect job creation though it does employ more people than mining ever will:

• For each service industry job, there is  0.5 jobs created around it
• The ABS statistics for 2010 show roughly 3 million people working in service industries in total including the 0.5 jobs created
• For each working person, there is a dependent person relying on them for income. These can be relatives, children, spouse etc.
• So in total there are 6 million people in Australia dependent on service industry jobs

What this means is that manufacturing is actually the most critical sector in Australia in terms of job creation and future prosperity.

 So lose manufacturing, and you lose a huge number of jobs.

The USA has shed 5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, primarily to offshoring manufacturing to lower cost economies. These jobs were replaced by low paying personal service jobs. The net result is record levels of unemployment and a trade deficit in every manufacturing category.

He also spoke of the hidden categories, particularly in industrial products, that lead to high export incomes and have been strength of many European Manufacturers. The following diagram shows the  attributes that make these products possible. Note that 4 are to do with knowledge, and 4 to do with strucutre and relationship. This implies you need both.

Invisible Middle Market

Economic Growth and Competitiveness

Economic growth is a measure of how well you have been doing up to now. It is a meaure of the past performance. It applies to yesterday.

Competitiveness is a measure of how well you will keep doing. It is a measure of likely performance. It applies to tomorrow.

So it is more important for the future to be positioned to be competitive, than it is to have had past economic growth. Ideally you will have both.

Some examples of countries that are highly ranked for competitiveness and also economic growth are:

• China
• Singapore
• Switzerland
• Sweden
• Finland

That was a surprise.  Australia ranks at number 15 for competitiveness and growth according to this analysis. The red line is the frontier of highest competitiveness. Australia is a long way from it.

Future Economic Success

Innovation

Goran Roos also had an interesting take on innovation and this fits in nicely with the view of Edward De Bono on Creating Value. He defines 2 types of innovation that are required to addess Australia’s lack of competitiveness:

• Innovate to create value
• Innovate to retain value

Based on this, offshoring is a really bad idea. It is only done to reduce overheads for cost based activities. For value based activities where we retain the value anhd the income from that value in Australia, we should be onshoring!

Knowledge

Manufacturing is the fastest knowledge growth domain. This is an interesting claim and one that had a case put for it to demonstrate the validity. Here is the case:

• Manufacturing generates 15 times the knowledge that mining does per unit of economic activity
• Manufacturing generates 3 times the knowledge that service industries do per unit of economic activity

Professor Goran Roos also pointed out that knowledge is like a race. If you slow down for a bit, then you can’t catch up if the other runners keep going full steam ahead.

Onshoring

It now makes sense that mining for export is not that great an option. Take something of huge potential value, and give it away at the lowest point you can in the value chain.

Onshoring means we pull value creating back in Australia so we get paid for it. And making stuff, and providing the service industries to support that should be our primary strategy for the future.

The other point Professor Goran Roos made is that Australia is not a scale based economy. We don’t have a large local market by world standards and so we should focus on product categories which do not require scale. Or in my language: lower volume, higher value add products. This is also know as Niche Electronics Manufacture.

Thinker in Residence

His speech on the future of South Australian manufacturing is also worth watching and listening too. Here it is:

 All graphics are Copyright (C) Goran Roos 2011.

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  This post is Copyright © 2011  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Edward de Bono

I was invited to the VECCI Business Leaders Luncheon for an interview with Edward de Bono. It was a conventional interview followed by a brief question and answer session with questions from those attending. He spoke about a number of topics but the one that caught my attention was on the Creation Of Value. It was a question from one of those attending that sparked this off. The question was about how we can be more innovative in developing our businesses.

Edward de Bono

His answer, as usual, showed an amazing depth of perception. Here is how I remember it.

The western world, and particularly due to the influence of The Church, has done an excellent job of teaching people how to think about finding the truth. But what we have not done is to teach people how to think about Creating Value.

That is a pretty hefty thought and I would have attended the luncheon just for that challenging insight alone. But he followed with this.

So when something happens, and particularly when a problem or setback occurs, instead of asking “How do we go forward from here” or “What does forward look like from here”, we get stuck on who is to blame and who did right or wrong instead of focussing on how we Create Value or move forward from here.

Double header. Now I am really challenged and encouraged at the same time. My business mentor, Dr Marc Dussault, is on about the same thing; Creating Value. So now I have 3 things to think about:

• “How do I create value”?
• “What value do I want to create”?
• “How do we go forward from here”?

 I am going to be giving that a lot of thought as we prepare for 2012. I encourage you to do the same.

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  This post is Copyright © 2011  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd

Today I was at Casey Radio, a community radio station catering to the south eastern suburban area of Melbourne, being interviewed for the Casey Business Hour which runs live to air on Fridays from 2pm to 3pm on 3SER 97.7FM. It was the first time I had been to the station so it was an interesting experience. With me were David Wilkinson and Tom Zsolt from the City of Casey Economic Development Department and Michelle Anderson from VECCI with radio announcer, Jamie.

Here are some pictures from the show:

The guest panel: Ray Keefe, Michelle Anderson and Tom Zsolt

David Wilkinson, head of City of Casey Economic Development Department

Radio announcer extraordinaire, Jamie

Ray Keefe at the microphone

The podcast is an interview which covered the history of Successful Endeavours, our move from a home based business to commercial premises, what we have done to grow our Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development business, how winning Casey Business of the Year has changed us and opportunities for Australian Electronics Manufacturers in the current economic climate.

Click on the image on the left to download or listen to the Casey Radio Interview with Ray Keefe

Michelle Anderson from VECCI (Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry) was also interviewed and explained VECCI’s history as well as the benefits and services they offer to members and some of the programs they have initiated. Their tag line is “Invigorating Business” and I like what I heard. If you are a business in Victoria then you should check them out.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Last night was the Casey Business Awards gala dinner where the Casey Business Awards were given out for 2010.  We are very pleased to have been awarded the Casey Business of the Year for 2010.  It was a great night and Casey Mayor, Cr Lorraine Wreford presented the award to Ray and Junette Keefe of Successful Endeavours.

Successful Endeavours were also joint winners of the Business and Professional Services award for 2010.

And we were finalists in the Manufacturer of the Year category which was won by Jain and Janice Lal at Australian Solar Manufacturing. They make high grade 200W solar panels in Hallam, as good as you can get anywhere in the world, and really deserved their win.  Well done Jain and Janice.

Casey Business Awards 2010

Above is a shot of the Casey Business Award Certificates and also the trophies we received on the night.

And here we are with Casey Mayor, Cr Lorraine Wreford, with the Casey Business of the Year award certificate and trophy.

Ray and Junette Keefe of Successful Endeavours with Casey Mayor Cr Lorraine Wreford - Casey Business Of The Year

Here we are with the joint winners of the Business and Professional Services award, Better Dental Care and a representative of Monash University who sponsored this award category.

Casey Business and Professional Services award

And here is a picture of the 3 award certificates together.

Successful Endeavours Casey Business Awards 2010

And the Casey Weekly (formerly Berwick & District Journal) on 7 September 2010 ran a 2 page special on the Casey Business Awards and this is an except from that covering our win as Casey Business of the Year 2010.

Successful Endeavours - Casey Business of the Year 2010

Below are media releases  and official City of Casey web pages related to Successful Endeavours’ win as Casey Business of the Year and also as joint winners of the Business and Professional Services award.

The City of Casey Business Media Release Successful Endeavours named Casey Business of the Year

The City of Casey official Casey Business Awards page

The Greater Dandenong Weekly 30 August 2010 Company Wired For Top Award

The Casey Weekly Cranbourne 30 August 2010 Wired for success

The Casey Weekly Berwick 31 August 2010 Wired to win the big prize

The Cranbourne News 2 September 2010 Business Backed

AMTIL News feature AMTIL Member ‘Successful Endeavours’ wins 2010 Casey Business of the Year

And we thank our clients and suppliers for being the excellent businesses they are.  This would not have been possible without you.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright  © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Squash Lessons for Engineering

The picture in today’s post comes courtesy of Dr Marc Dussault, The Exponential Growth Strategist. At his recent Exponential Business Building Bootcamp, he demonstrated how a Squash Racquet gets broken from repeated use.

Broken Squash Racquet

So what does this have to do with Engineering? Glad you asked.

First, I have to explain the demonstration. Marc showed that it takes a very large amount of force to break the Squash Racquet.  He really applied himself to the destructive task and it took a few minutes of escalating Squash Racquet abuse before it finally succumbed and broke.  Some of us in the front of the room could tell just how much it required to break the Squash Racquet. However the Squash Racket already had a crack, so Marc knew where to apply the force in order to break it.  The picture above is the final outcome.  Without the crack being obvious, it would have been almost impossible to have broken the Squash Racquet using just randomly applied force.

Marc then explained that way the Squash Racquet became cracked in the first place, was by it being consistently scraped along the wall as he retrieved the ball from shots along the wall.  Marc is an outstanding competitive squash player and currently ranks  as World # 18! So he knows his stuff when it comes to squash.  You can read more about this at his Mindset Of A Champion blog.

So if you know what to look for, you can monitor the thinning of the racquet and get an idea of when and where it might fail.  If you don’t know what to look for, then the failure will be unexpected.

Software Testing and Software Engineering

A lot of Software Testing can suffer from the same problem.  If you already know where the weakness will be and how to spot it, then finding a bug is easy.  You can set up the scenario, monitor for the symptom and confirm the failure.  Or, if you have enough resources you can go the brute force approach and just break it through the persistent use of randomly directed and escalated force of testing.  However very products are simple enough and very few companies are large enough to have that level of resource and to solve the problem this way.  So for the rest of us, the other 99.995%, a more intelligent approach is needed.

Since you don’t know where and when it will fail, it is best to remove failure causes from the beginning. This is where Software Engineering come is. Software Engineering is not just coding.  Coding is the production end of the Software Engineering process.  Software Engineering is about designing the system so you have defined the components so they are each fully testable in their own right. Then you can apply processes like Unit Testing to ensure they are fully functional as stand alone pieces of software. You can then perform Integration Testing to ensure that software added to the system correctly handles both the Execution Flow, also known as Control Flow, and Data Flow required including error and Exception Handling. The result is that you build up a fully working and correctly executing system quickly and with great confidence. It isn’t a magic bullet but it is close to it.

As was famously quipped by Edsger Dijkstra, “If Debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in”.

So if you put less bugs in, you have less debugging to do. And that saves time and removes future time bombs.  Because the chance that you find them all is zero percent. And you can’t create a system that is 100% testable by brute force means. So you have to go about it smarter.  It will save time, money and improve the business outcome now and into the future.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Software Testing

I recently met with an Australian Software Development company, PepperStack, and we got onto the subject of Software Testing. As someone who began their career as an Electronics Hardware Engineer, one of the things I learnt was that you have to test thoroughly to be sure everything is working as it should be. With Electronics, if you make a mistake with an Engineering Calculation you can easily destroy things. This is sometimes referred to as “letting the smoke out”. So it was good to meet with others who believe in the same level of rigorous software unit, module and system testing that we do.

Some Engineering Humour

Which reminds me of a joke I once heard:

There are 3 Engineers in a car going for a drive. The first is a Mechanical Engineer, the second an Electronics Engineer and the third is a Software Engineer. Fortunately the Mechanical Engineer is driving because the brakes fail and they are going downhill.  The Mechanical Engineer eventually brings the car safely to a halt and gets out to examine the hydraulic systems.  The Electronics Engineer gets out and checks and body computer, ABS system and the power train CAN bus.  The Software Engineer stays in the car and when queried about it says that they should all just get back in the car and see if it happens again!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Software Engineers. The process of finding and eliminating faults is a very important part of the development cycle and is something that needs up front thinking and not just responding to symptoms.  And the more complex or sophisticated a system is, that harder it is to fully test every possible response to every possible stimuli and after a certain point it becomes impractical to have 100% Test Coverage (every line of code has been executed through all of the possible states).  The reason this is a bigger problem with Software Development is that the flexibility of software means that it is inherently complex and it takes skill and planning to manage that complexity so it is testable.

So here is the issue. More than any other discipline, faults can be experienced by an end user of a product under a situation or scenario you could not have proactively tested against before release.  There are many potential reasons for this including:

• change of hardware or operating system environment
• new standards or protocols
• the sheer number of potential combinations of drivers, peripherals, software and users
• the product being used for a purpose it wasn’t originally designed for
• gamma ray corruption of a memory location – I am getting esoteric now but in some areas like avionics and space this is a big threat

So how do you reduce the likelihood of these problems occurring?

Improving Software Quality

With many new products having Electronics and Embedded Software and the Software Development requiring 80% of the effort, it is important to delivery it as quickly and fault free as you can. The main weapons in your Software Quality arsenal have been known about for a long time but are, in our experience, just not used.  These are:

• Architectural Design – work out how the data and execution flow will happen and how you will manage the constraints
• Functional Decomposition – divide and conquer but with an emphasis on how each module fits into the system and how the interfaces work in detail
• Error handling - who will decide what to do with response codes – again this is data and execution flow and part of the architecture. In many cases exception management is at least 50% of the project.
• Have an Integration Test Plan – some thing that proves the data and execution flow matches the architectural design.  Too often “it builds” seems to be good enough here.
• Unit Test modules – so you remove all the issues before adding them to the integration
• Do the Integration Tests before you try system testing
• Design modules so you can integrate them as shells then add functionality down the track
• Have NVM and configuration data available at the beginning of the project and not as an after thought at the end
• Have a System Test Plan and use it
• Use some of the good practices of Test Driven Development – run the tests every time you change the code
• Have a rationale for what level of Code Coverage you can accept
• Have a rationale for what level of Churn you can accept – Churn is the percentage of the lines of code that have changed in the past time period.  Usually either a week or month depending on the size of the project.
• Use automated software quality tools. For instance we use both PC-Lint and RSM to automated many software quality metrics which saves a lot of time in Code Reviews
• Use Code Reviews, also known as Software Peer Review.  It really does save time.

Next I plan to look at what you can learn about software testing from a Squash Racquet.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Safety in High Voltage Power Distribution

My thanks to Tim Heemskerk of ABB High Voltage Division in Lilydale for this clip.  It shows how dangerous High Voltage power can be in Electric Power Transmission Systems and why ABB take so much care in how they handle High Voltage Switching, Power Factor Correction and Fault Isolation and Reclosers in systems operating at these Elevated Voltages.  Be sure to wait for the slow motion replay at the end.  I think these guys might have seen an episode or two of Myth Busters.

For those who don’t recognise them, the rectangular boxes with terminals sticking out the top are High Voltage capacitors used for Power Factor Correction in Power Distribution systems.  They have been charged to 13.8KV and hold 9675J of energy.  The pull cord is used to close the electrical circuit and the capacitor voltage is applied to the watermelon which conducts the current and the energy released causes it to explode rather spectacularly.  Not what you want happening in a real Power Distribution scenario which is why you want Engineers who know what they are doing working on both the Engineering Design and the implementation of these High Voltage Distribution systems.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

This week I was the recipient of an Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year award.  Last year we were received 2 awards for technical excellence when we won 2 of the 15 EDN Innovation awards handed out in Australia in 2009. 

So I was very pleased to be receiving an award recognising the business side of Successful Endeavours.  The award was presented by Dr Marc Dussault of Exponential Programs and recognises entrepreneurs and business people who have demonstrated excellence deploying exponential strategies in their business by profitably creating exceptional value for their clients in a manner that is both measurable and sustainable. The award received was in the category of Engineering Consultant and was one of only 6 handed out in 2010 and the only one in that category. 

Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 Ray Keefe receives his award from Dr Marc Dussault.

You can read more about the awards at Exponential Programs Entrepreneur of the Year Awards page. 

The main reason for this post is to touch on the most significant aspect of this award for me. I once said that as a Business Owner I made a pretty good Engineer.  The past 18 months has a seen a transition away from that to the point now where I can say that I am an Entrepreneur who is also an Engineer.  Engineering is a Profession and so it isn’t something that suddenly stops being relevant.  Our education and mindset is all based on practical problem solving through the use of technology while balancing performance, risk and cost.  And we apply this skillset and mindset to most aspects of our lives, even when it isn’t the only way to go about it.  So I am very pleased to be making this transition.  Not only is our business better for it but our clients are as well. 

And I also thank our clients for the trust they have placed in us to deliver Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development for their next generation of market leading products, the vast majority of which are still made in Australia at a profit. 

Here is a picture of the Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year award certificate. 

Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year Certificate

 The initial nomination was published on PRWeb at 2010 Exponential Entrepreneur Award Winners Announced. 

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

An Engineering Problem in Disguise

A funny thing happened to me the other day during the Christmas shopping rush at our local shopping centre in Endeavour Hills.  Our daughter had purchased some clothes for her nieces for Christmas and used the self serve checkout. When she got home she discovered she had not had one of the security tags removed so she asked for my help.

OK, I might be an Electronics Hardware and Embedded Software Engineer but I did do a year of Physics and Chemistry at Deakin University before switching to Engineering and I have had a role in the design of Multidisciplinary Systems with Electromechanical Actuators and Variable Frequency Motor Drives including Multi-Axis Robotic Handlers.  So I thought, “How hard can this be?”

The first step was to review the problem and identify the information.  Those familiar with Edward De Bono‘s Six Thinking Hats will recognise this as the White Hat stage.

I had:

• circular plastic sealed tag with an alignment  feature – a hole through it to accept a tapered pin
• a metal pin with a large head inserted into the centre of the plastic disk
• no other visible connection points

So assuming the tag was made at a minimum price, needed to be aligned correctly to be released and could be disconnected without an external power source; I concluded that the release mechanism was probably magnetic.  So I got a magnet and did some experiments and I could hear something click inside the security tag as I moved the external magnet around.  Now I am very confident that it is a Magnetic Latching Mechanism.  But no orientation of a single magnet released the pin.

I got 2 magnets and worked around the unit until the pin released and the problem was solved.

Having released the tag I gave the garment to my daughter to wrap in Christmas paper and put the tag with pin inserted back into it by the front door.  Since we were shopping the next day I thought I would return the tag.  At the very least it would get recycled.

What’s so good about being an Engineer?

At the shops, I went to the help desk and offered them the tag.  They were very confused.  I explained that it had been accidentally left on one of the items we purchased so I took it off and was returning it to them.  The stunned reply was, “You took it off yourself”?  “Yes” I said.  “I’ll have to call security” was the next reply.  So I said, “It’s all right, I’m an Engineer“.  “Oh, that’s fine then” was the reply and I wandered off to collect some final groceries for Christmas dinner.

So apparently there was a connection in the shop assistants mind that made being an Engineer something special.  They may not have know what that connection was.  And that got me wondering about Engineers and what is so special about us.  Here is a bit of a list of my initial thoughts if I ignore specific Engineering Disciplines:

• we create the future by designing and constructing the machines and systems that it requires
• we routinely solve complex problems that others do not know even exist
• we do all of this because we want a better world and are prepared to do our part to achieve it
• we have learned that covering up a symptom is not the same as solving the underlying problem

You might have some thoughts of your own so please leave a comment.

And of course, I hope you had a Merry Christmas in 2009 and that 2010 is a very good year for you all.  Happy New Year!

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.