Disposable Engineering lacks passion

     Solomon wrote over 3000 years ago,  "Meaningless, meaningless ... everything is meaningless... a chasing after the wind".   I could not agree more with him today.

 

   "What are you working on these days?"   

   This is a common question when a worker in my company meets another co-worker he hasn't seen in some time in the hallway.  I used to hear other co-workers say with conviction

 "I am working on _____ !"  

   You could hear it in the tone of their voice and they way their face would sometimes light up.  You could tell that it meant something to them.  I know, because I was the same way.    I couldn't wait for the product to launch and start being used in computers or other items in our world.  I could say with pride to my family... "I worked on that chip" and they would revel in that pride as well as they told their friends, "My dad worked on that computer!"

   But now over the course of the last several years something has changed.  To illustrate see the diagram below

 

    Above is how past projects affected our world.  They would sell millions of units and last 2-3 years.   Your contribution, while small would be multiplied by the impact and give you reason to throw your heart and soul into it.  But over time this changed.  Markets were divided up into smaller and smaller units

    Still a substantial amount of impact over time but less in overall volume sold or systems that utilize it. Also, given the designs longevity, you at least felt your work would be used by consumers for a long enough period to be effective in home or business (whatever your market was) it would be appreciated.

    Now today, we have more pressure to develop products faster and faster as consumers are moving to smaller, cheaper systems which they grow tired of quickly and want some new dazzling feature or gimmick which their friend or co-worker now has but they don't.  This leads to the following diagram

     Now maybe you see what I am getting at.   As the market pushes us to develop products faster and faster and into more and more markets each project has a smaller and smaller overall impact to the world.   And there in lies the problem. Engineers don't build new products just because they are told to.  Instead, many do it out of a feeling that they well impact and change the world around them.  That people will use their designs for a long time and do wonderful things with them like them like cure cancer or develop nuclear-fusion. It's like an engineer who worked on the Saturn V rocket that sent us to the moon being asked to work on a hand-held surface-to-air-missle.  Yes it will have some impact (especially on the plane or helicopter its pointed at) but not nearly the same as those watching the rocket leave our earths' gravity and propel 3 men to the moon.  

Disposable Engineering

    Man used to build things that lasted the test of time.  From the Great Pyramids, to the Roman Coliseum and Aqueducts, to the Great Wall of China all were meant to be seen and used for hundreds of years.  But now I believe we are entering the realm of "disposable engineering". In our "throw away world" we have to feed our need for new dazzling features or else we get bored.   We hear people taunt others with phrases like, "You're still using in iPhone4 ?"   "What?  You have to touch your phone to make it work?"   "How can you see anything on that tiny screen?"   "You can't just look away from the screen to stop the video?"  etc.. etc.. etc..   This is leading now to the advent of the use of gimmicks to sell products.   From hand-waving, to wearing a device on your wrist, to having it come in different colors many of our electronic products.   All these are just gimmicks.  Features you will care very little about a week after you purchase it because most likely you forget you even have it or your level of motivation to use it will have diminished to such a low level you won't want to trouble yourself to use it ( I wonder, do you want to talk into a phone on your wrist and have EVERYONE around you hear the response? ... think about it).    

    I lament when I watch commercial after commercial try to sell us these gimmicks too.  Take for example the commercial of the baseball team on the plan where they guy records a video of his teammate bobbing his head as he sleeps and then the other guy adding music to the video to make it even "funnier".   Wow!   That just screams " I have to get that phone!" .... NOT!    Do we not have better things to do with our time?  Is that why I go to work every morning?  So people can waste their time doing stupid videos?  I can still remember a time when commercials would show workers using their computers to solve complex problems, but now we treated to idiotic videos of so-called business people dancing on tables and switching "keyboards" (That happens all the time!) to a peppy beat.

     In my view, the only thing being disposed of faster than our products is the passion it takes to develop them.  How do you get yourself up in the morning knowing your product will be here-today-and-gone-next-week (as opposed to to next year).  How do you validate features which will be used only a handful of times (if ever at all) and it they work only 50% of the time the consumer will be pleased?    How do you challenge yourself to make a product work as fast as possible when the product will be shelved in a matter of months and the total time you saved to the user is measured in minutes or even seconds?  How do you connect with a product that many feel is being "slapped together" like a LEGO building rather than being carefully designed like a beautiful glass skyscraper. 

    Of course many will argue that it your consumers are not going to connect with your product then neither should you and if they are happy with a disposable product then so should you.  If it fills a micro-emptiness in their soul for split-second then maybe you have done your job.  

   I just don't know if I am there yet.