commbasics

A few weeks ago I sat down with engineers over coffee and different times and talked with them about the issue of searching for information on the internet. I discovered that, universally, they were frustrated by the process but didn't really know what could be done.  What they said ties into things I've heard about engineers and how they process information and explains a lot. They start with a question about a particular topic, so they type in a search term.  The term brings up hundreds of links, most of which are press releases or contributed articles trying to get them to buy a particular product and only tangentially addressing their question. They click on link after link; inputting new search terms and finding more links, until they finally find enough information to get started.  "It's time consuming and, more often than not, counter productive," one state emphatically.  It is also they only option they have. The traditional media do...

The announcement of Steve Jobs taking another medical leave is an unfortunate but timely bit of news to put this series wrap up in perspective.  Jobs has established Apple as the leading consumer electronics company in the world.  For all intents and purposes, what Apple does drives the rest of the industry. Apple did not introduce the media player, it just made one that most people could use.  Apple did not introduce music sharing, it just made it legally acceptable.   Apple did not introduce the smart phone, it just made the smart phone practical for the mass market.  Apple did not introduce the tablet computer, it just reintroduced it when the public actually wanted one.  Jobs was at the center of all these decisions.  Important to note: Jobs is not an engineer.  He has some technical experience but he has stated the college course that was most responsible for the creation of the Mac was a calligraphy class he audited at Reed College,...

Today I sat down with Brian fuller, newly returned to EE Times, and did a quick video interview on social media.  But this time I was to one under the gaze of the leery interviewer.  EE times is moving in a new direction that I think is the future of at least B2B journalism and Brian's one of the thought leaders taking them there.  It was kinda fun having him ask me my opinion for a change.

I finished, John Cooley's latest reports about an hour ago and have been cogitating on his comments on engineers and Twitter (EE Times reported June 21 that 85 percent of semi design engineers don't like it). John said: "I thought this article was interesting because it also pointed to the  key reason WHY I don't like Twitter    -- my work requires long periods of uninterrupted concentration or I'll mess up what I'm doing." My initial reaction to this point was, "That's valid.  After all you need to learn how to be disciplined enough to know when to and not to pay attention to the conversation, and when to respond, before you can find value in social media." But then he said: "With Twitter you get endlessly pelted every few minutes with random, mostly useless tweets and retweets. "Running IE8 on my netbook is way too sloooow. Chrome is much fasssssster." "Go Red Sox!" "Getting on the plan...