Transitioning from a full-time, paid position to consulting, part-time or teaching takes longer than you think it should. I spent my entire career trying to do things my employers could not take away from me. When it was time to transition from a FT position to a combination of smaller efforts it was time-consuming, hectic, …
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Is MATLAB worth it?
I am all in with MATLAB. I have my own license and toolboxes that I use for consulting and teaching. I do constantly check out the free alternatives but always stick with MATLAB. MATLAB does have a premium price but it works together, works with my acoustic data collection system, and now with my wifi …
Best resources on a project upfront
Project management can be a thankless job. You have all the responsibility and little direct control of resources. Like many things in life, sometimes what you do early in a challenge can make a big difference on how things turn out later. Building on the sayings that you cannot fix design problems in manufacturing and …
Bad Data
I have a PhD friend who is a patent agent working for law firms. He mentioned he spends a lot of time telling applicants their data is bad. Data validation, especially hard to get even once data, is incredibly important. Doing noise investigation work in extreme environments I had a primary digital recording system, a …
Using LinkedIn
When candidates come to interview with me, they have checked me out in LinkedIn and have done a google search. It is surprising that when I talk with someone new, especially a senior-level accomplished person, I discover that they have no LinkedIn page and practically no digital footprint that google can uncover. It is easy …
Evaluation Research
Sometimes you want to know if a new process or technology insertion is not only effective, but how effective with recommendations for positive change. Statistics, now matter how powerful, may be only part of the answer. Borrowing from the social sciences, evaluation research is a methodology to measure improvements.
Online Learning
It is here to stay, just like the internet and color photography. This modality is not a panacea. There are numerous examples of really good ones and not so good ones. The latter usually quickly put together and deployed to make a quick buck. The good ones today might have started out not so good, …
An Engineer’s Blog
Never say you have seen or heard it all.
specialtyengineering.org 