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Guest David E. Goldberg talks with us about shifting expectations for engineers, and reveals the crucial skills needed by tomorrow’s engineering professionals.

• Listening and questioning are important skills for today’s engineer, but these subjects are rarely addressed in the engineering curriculum.
• Our guest is David E. Goldberg, who is the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and the CEO of ThreeJoy Associates.
• Dave obtained an amateur radio license as a teenager, allowing him to communicate around the world via a Model 15 teletype machine.
• A day spent shadowing a city engineer led Dave to enroll in civil engineering.
• Despite his background in civil engineering, our guest wrote one of the leading references about genetic algorithms. His interest in artificial intelligence was sparked by the book, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
• In 2010, Dr. Goldberg resigned his tenure at UICU, and undertook training as a leadership coach at Georgetown University.
• Dave’s efforts with engineering reform started with iFoundry at UIUC. This project was influenced by the National Academy of Engineering report, The Engineer of 2020. Another influential report was Engineering for a Changing World, authored by James J. Duderstadt of the University of Michigan.
• Making changes to the engineering curriculum is difficult, as it induces a log-rolling problem among the faculty.
• In the late 1800’s, leading electrical engineers enjoyed a “rock star” status. This included luminaries such as Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla.
• It has been argued that technology and innovation are dominated by market-driven value judgments, rather than technical knowledge. This leads to engineering being a socially captive profession.
• The rise and fall of engineers as business leaders may have resulted as a conflict between bureaucratic loyalty and professional independence, as outlined in The Revolt of the Engineers, a book by Edwin Layton.
• Dave discusses the myth that science won World War II. Manufacturing engineers helped US factories and shipyards crank out planes, ships, and other war materiel, equaling the contributions of physicists.
• After the war, “physics envy” caused changes in the engineering curriculum, as advised by the Grinter Report, issued in 1955.
• While the pre-WWII engineering curriculum covered math and science at a fundamental level, the number of “hands-on” classes (drafting, shop, design, etc.) were far more prevalent than they are today.
• Looking forward, innovation seems to be a crucial skill for engineers, as suggested by the following books:
  • Thomas L. Friedman: The World is Flat
  • Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind
  • Richard Florida: The Rise of the Creative Class
• When it comes to deciding whether software engineers are really “engineers,” Michael Davis of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) points to the lack of a accredited engineering degree as a reason for disqualifying programmers from claiming “engineering” status. Our guest makes no such distinction.
• Engineers need to move from being category “enhancers” to being category “creators.” Dr. Goldberg claims the primary difference between these functions is emotional, and not technical.
• Whereas engineers of the past needed to be obedient in enhancing marketplace offerings, tomorrow’s engineers must be courageous in “unleashing” their creative talents to invent novel products and services.
• Dave believes that engineering faculty must shift from an attitude of “I know” to “I trust” to successfully foster valiant young engineers.
• In his consulting work with ThreeJoy Associates, our guest works to transform the organizational, cultural, and emotional norms of institutions committed to engineering education.
• Big Beacon is a “social movement of the willing” formed to share best practices in reforming educational institutions. The project’s Twitter handle is @BigBeacon, and it has a Facebook page, as well.
• Slated for release in early 2014, Dave and co-author Mark Somerville are working on a new book, titled “A Whole New Engineer: A Surprising Emotional Journey.”
• Programs such as First Robotics and Project Lead the Way are having success in encouraging students to pursue engineering degrees.
• Unfortunately, students entering the engineering program are subjected to an math-science death march. Alternative rites of passage may be available for aspiring engineers.
• Coaching and collaborative skills may be useful for engineers who have completed a traditional engineering education. Google offers its employees a course on mindfullness.
• Dave can be reached by email as “deg” at “threejoy.com.” His Twitter handle is @deg511. He can be found on Facebook as deg511.

Thanks to Wikipedia Commons for the photograph of Nikola Tesla. Podcast theme music provided by Paul Stevenson