This has got to be one of the most insulting presentations towards Engineering I have ever seen. And directly from someone (Meredith Perry CEO of UBEAM) who depends on engineers to get her product to market. I understand the point that great ideas can come from anybody and with the proper support those ideas can become reality. But to go on stage and claim that engineers are two dimensional (will it work or won't it work) just shows the lack of understanding this person has for engineering. Engineers figure out why something won't work and then figure out how to redesign it to make it work. Sometimes we fail and many times we succeed. With hard work and perseverence.
Yes, I am an engineer and proud to say I have designed some of the products that are in many of the cars on the road today. I've helped others get their ideas to market, many times for free just to help out a friend or someone I thought just needed that extra experience my engineering background could offer.
You don't have to blame the engineers for your failure to innovate. I've told many people I didn't think their idea was a good one or practical, mainly because I knew how much money or time or effort it would take just to get a prototype to work. I was trying to save them the pain and expense that can come from the long hours of trying to get something to work. Some people pushed on and found I was right, some proved me wrong with clever work-arounds. But none of them blamed me. In fact they thanked me for offering them helpful advice. If my advice as an engineer stopped them from pursuing it then they didn't believe in it themselves or didn't really have the desire to do it. But don't blame the engineer for that.
The presenter mentions that she discovered all the initial information for her idea in two days on Google. Where does she think all that Google info came from? My guess is that much of it came from engineers who were willing to share their knowledge online for free.
And despite her apparent hatred for how engineers can be so unhelpful, just look at what her website is looking for:
You don't have to blame the engineers for your failure to innovate. I've told many people I didn't think their idea was a good one or practical, mainly because I knew how much money or time or effort it would take just to get a prototype to work. I was trying to save them the pain and expense that can come from the long hours of trying to get something to work. Some people pushed on and found I was right, some proved me wrong with clever work-arounds. But none of them blamed me. In fact they thanked me for offering them helpful advice. If my advice as an engineer stopped them from pursuing it then they didn't believe in it themselves or didn't really have the desire to do it. But don't blame the engineer for that.
The presenter mentions that she discovered all the initial information for her idea in two days on Google. Where does she think all that Google info came from? My guess is that much of it came from engineers who were willing to share their knowledge online for free.
And despite her apparent hatred for how engineers can be so unhelpful, just look at what her website is looking for:
I wonder if they show this video during the interview process?
So if you ever get a boat load of venture funding for your idea, don't go on TED and bash some of the key people you need to make that idea a reality. It's not what I would call great PR.
So if you ever get a boat load of venture funding for your idea, don't go on TED and bash some of the key people you need to make that idea a reality. It's not what I would call great PR.
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