How to Start an Engineering Company on Your Own and Grow It by Word of Mouth: An Interview with an Engineering Entrepreneur
The following is an interview with Glen Cooper, performed by one of our guest writers, Menno Gazendam. Glen Cooper is currently an engineer turned entrepreneur. He recently released a happiness-and-positivity app via the App Store called HappiJar. The app is designed to help us store our happy moments all in a single place, share them […]
Lessons Learned from Two Days with Engineering Leaders, and Laws on Life’s Outcomes
A few days ago, we put on our annual Institute for Engineering Career Development (IECD) meetup in Austin, Texas. The event consisted of three days of intensive learning sessions from over 15 accomplished speakers, engineering leaders, several social outings, and interesting tours. Of course, I can’t forget to mention the more than 50 motivated engineers […]
Questions and Answers from Engineering Students on Resumes and Interviews
For the past month, I have had the pleasure of speaking about resume writing and interview preparation for engineering students at the College of New Jersey ASME Student Chapter and the University of Memphis STEM club (MemphiSTEM). There was such a great turnout at both events and such great questions that I thought it would […]
How to Avoid Getting Caught Up in Career-Development Details as an Engineer
Here’s a HUGE challenge engineers face in their career development: they get caught up in the details of day-to-day tasks and forget to look at the big picture and how all of their actions affect it. This is totally understandable. Our job as engineers, from a technical standpoint, is to make sure that all of […]
A Good Engineering Leader Can Dance to Any Song
One of my goals this year is to spend an equal amount of time pursuing personal goals as I do professional goals, as in the past it has seemed that 75% or more of my efforts have been focused on my professional life. To that end, my wife and I have decided to take up […]
Engineering Productivity: How and When to Break a Task Up into Smaller Steps
If you read my blog regularly, you know that I often write about efficiency and productivity in the workplace, as I believe lack of these things is the leading cause of engineers working too many hours. I believe that one of the most important aspects of being productive is the ability to focus for a […]
How to Be Fearless in Your Engineering Career
Last week, my seven-year-old daughter was off from school, so my wife and I decided to take her skiing one day. She had never been skiing before, and I was interested to see how she would react to it. Just thinking about it, if you took me somewhere that I had never been before, put […]
Engineers, Everything You Accomplish After Lunch Should be a Bonus
I recently read a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. The book details the daily routines of the most successful authors, screenwriters, and painters of all time. One of the recurring themes for most of the artists in the book was that they did their most productive work before noon. Some of them would […]
Three Steps to Becoming a Partner in an Engineering Firm, Directly from an Engineering Partner
I feel lucky that I have the ability to speak to motivated engineers around the world, and I try to use this blog to share valuable information with other engineers who may find it useful. Recently, one of our Institute for Engineering Career Development (IECD) members shared with me some information that I found extremely […]
It Only Takes One Goal to Change Everything in Your Engineering Career
As we gear up for a wonderful 2014, I wish you the absolute best in achieving the loftiest of goals. While many people talk about goal setting this time of year, there is one thing that must be considered when you go through the goal setting process: the impact a goal will have on your […]