Tony’s knack for conveying technical information through humor and everyday language is refreshing. He discusses the importance of clear, engaging communication and offers actionable advice you can use to immediately improve.

Links from the show:
www.tonykordyban.com
My review: The Loose Meat Sandwich King

John answers the question, “If all CFD tools come with a pre-processor, why would anyone want to buy a 3rd party CFD mesher?” We talk about one of John’s least favorite CAE buzz words, “Democratization.” Finally, we cover the need for engineers to develop reasonable writing and communication skills. Note: you’ll learn why it’s important to spellcheck before sending a resume to Pointwise!

Links from the show:
Pointwise
Another Fine Mesh
John Chawner on Twitter

Flowkit CEO, Jonas Latt, joins me for part 2 of our discussion. We fill in a few more details about the Open Source CFD tool, Palabos. Then, we dig into plans for a future, cloud-based, commercial tool powered by Palabos.

Jonas explains the natural cloud benefits for FEA or CFD- which may or may not apply to other engineering tools, like CAD. He also shares his view on the value of cloud resources over onsite hardware for both small and large enterprises.

“In CFD, you never have sufficient resources.”

In retrospect, I realized that I buried some of the Lattice Boltzmann lead. LBM can overcome one of the most painful aspects of CFD: meshing. It completely skips the traditional meshing phase. Instead, you can think of it as dropping your object(s) into an existing vat of particles. Note: not all LBM tools take full advantage of this feature, and still require some sort of surface meshing process. Palabos, however, does enable a full “meshless” implementation.

Links from this episode:

FlowKit CFD Solutions
Palabos Open Source CFD

I voraciously consumed podcasts on all sorts of niche interests. Seriously, you can find podcasts about anything. Poultrycast, for example.

Could never find much related to Mechanical Engineering or CAE, though. If you are into SolidWorks, Lou Gallo’s Solidworks:Heard is great. I never miss an episode of Engineer vs Designer. Tecplot sporadically does some good CAE and visualization discussions on Tecplot Radio. After that, I start running out of options. Please comment below if you can recommend others!

After logging all those audio miles, I became a podcast connoisseur. I know what makes good pod. And, I can judge a new podcast within 2 minutes for a knee-jerk unsubscribe decision. So, I decided to create my own podcast. Haven’t been able to devote the time I originally wanted to it, but am starting anew now.

We need more CAE coverage in the podcast world. It’s a greenfield. If you like talking about this stuff, consider starting your own podcast. You’ll have at least 1 subscriber out of the gate. It’s pretty simple (not necessarily easy) to accomplish- and doesn’t have to cost much money. Drop me a line if you’d like some pointers.

Meantime, here are some of my favorite non-CAE podcasts to accompany your next jog, drive, lawn mow, or ballet:

This American Life
The Moth – Great place to learn about great story-telling.
Risk - Great place to learn about great, dirty story-telling.
Hardcore History
Freakonomics Radio
Joel Osteen
Everything NPR – there are tons of shows to choose from, most great
The Adam Carolla Show (tied for my personal favorite with This American Life)
The Dave Ramsey Show
The International Spy Museum
Witness
Radiolab
The Memory Palace

Equipment

You can listen to podcasts online directly from the publisher’s website. More commonly, people use an iPod and subscribe to the feed through iTunes. I did that for many years. For the last 2 years, though, I consolidated and just listen on my smartphone. This way, I never have to run back home and sync an iPod to my computer to get more episodes. They just come in over the air.

Software

If you are on Android, I recommend BeyondPod. There are lots of choices, and they range from free to dirt cheap. So try a few and pick one you like.

Pod Ninja

One day, I discovered the playback speed option in BeyondPod. It allows you to speed up playback without a chipmunkesque pitch shift. I find that I can transparently listen to just about any content at 1.35x. Often, I find my self bumping the speed up as my mind gets accustomed to the speed. On some content, I go as high as 2x. So, I can consume 90 minutes of content in 45 minutes. I don’t lose any comprehension or enjoyment. The only downside is my wife’s eye rolling at my geekery.

Image by Incase

Flowkit is a lean, young CFD company enjoying the luxury of building new technology from scratch… without the baggage of decades of existing code/customers, and with the cloud in mind from day 1.

I met Jonas Latt, CEO of Flowkit, about a year ago while researching CAE companies with a focus on the cloud. Jonas educated me on the advantages of Open Source in the CAE space, as well.

In part 1 of this 2 part interview, we’ll dip our toes into LBM and Open Source CAE.

Links from this episode:

FlowKit CFD Solutions
Palabos Open Source CFD

If you protect your phone in a case, however, the ProClip holders won’t work well for you. That brings me to my favorite phone holder: The Arkon Slim-Grip. This thing is rock solid, elegant, and configurable enough to handle smartphones of all sizes… naked or otherwise. So, if you and your spouse have different phones- or if you buy a new phone every 6 months, Arkon Slim-Grip is the choice for you. Check out this video review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9Qpa0aZAGc

I don’t like a phone mounted to the windshield as it blocks some of my view. I prefer it mounted just below dash level to the right of the steering wheel (or to the left if I’m in England). If that’s true for you, I recommend combining the Arkon Slim-Grip with a vehicle specific mount from ProClip USA. That can be a bit of a pain in the ass, though, as ProClip and Arkon use different connection systems. You’ll just need to get this adapter plate. This one will work, too, if your Slim-Grip uses the ball swivel connection.

Check out all the different suction mounting options. Depending on your car, you might like this sticky mount. If you travel a lot, I recommend grabbing an extra Slim-Grip with the vent mount for rental cars.

I’m excited to jump back into the startup world with CyDesign Labs. It’s a bit early for me to reveal too much, but watch this space. Details on cutting edge, seriously cool, innovative engineering technology will soon be unleashed.

Many of you asked how I went about finding this new home. CyDesign represents an amazingly good match for my professional history and interests. But, it didn’t just fall in my lap. I’ve been intentionally searching for this opportunity over the last five years. I thought I’d share my process in the hopes that it will inspire some of you to find a career that gets your blood pumping.

Start with a blank sheet

… or better yet, create a free-form mindmap. Write down all the things you like about your current job. Write down all the things you don’t like. Now, forget about your current job. Pretend it never existed. Brainstorm elements of a future job that sound enticing. Don’t edit this list. Just try to get as many ideas as possible on the paper. Be realistic. Be unrealistic.

Unscientifically sift

Once I had all of these thoughts out of my head and on paper, I just stared at the grand mess for awhile. Don’t expect enlightenment in one sitting. Just pull out the list every so often and let your subconscious brain start to make random connections. Eventually, key elements will emerge.

My short list

I am hugely lucky. I love the CAE space. You may not be so lucky. If you work for a Duck Call Company and hate all forms of hunting, maybe it’s time to pick a better direction.

So, here’s what I came up with:

• CAE space
• Upfront
• Startup environment
• Cloud
• SaaS
• Some element of Open Source
• Fresh category
• Business critical value
• Ability to grow and mentor a team

Some details on my thinking:

CAE Space

I’ve often had this niggling worry that I’m selling myself short by staying in the Mechanical Engineering Software world. After all, the Armani wearing sales pros in other industries are pulling power moves and multi million dollar deals with much of the same professional toolset I’ve earned. After much soul searching, however, I realized that many of those industries just don’t interest me.  I love the idea of CAE. I love helping people who create new products. Though I no longer have the skill to drive an FEA tool, I still find colorful 3D stress plots to be magical. I love the fact that those plots, conjured from thin air, can have a very real impact on the corporate bottom line.

Upfront

There are people who love manufacturing and detailed design. I’m not one of them. As much as I love CAE, I despise its use near the end of a design process for verification. I’m interested in pushing simulation as far upfront as humanly possible on the GANTT chart. Ideally, I’d like to see tons of CAE done before CAD models exist in any form. Is that even possible?

Startup environment

Large, established companies can be great for stability, structure, and predictability. That may be the exact right environment for you. Having been in both, I feel more comfortable in the creative-anything-goes startup world. Red tape and bureaucracy suffocate me. They stifle my creativity and enjoyment of life. I enjoy wearing whatever hat it takes to get ‘r done.

Cloud

I firmly believe that the future of all business software is on the cloud. I’m not just trying to make the right bet, though. I happily consume many cloud tools like Google Docs, Salesforce.com, Evernote, and Nirvana. It’s gotten to the point where the idea of some application being locked to a single device feels claustrophobic. So, you could say I truly love them there duck calls.

SaaS

Software as a Service. No flame wars allowed on this one. I realize there are a few trolls who love to paint Cloud/SaaS as evil. We’ll agree to disagree.

To me, the idea of selling “seats” for a huge upfront cost is antiquated. It extends the sales cycle and forces customers to take on too much risk. It imposes a tough barrier to innovation- particularly with the SMB companies best poised to build something new.

Some Element of Open Source

I don’t eat enough granola to feel comfortable going full-on Open Source. I do, however, like some of the theory around it. It affords a much larger-than-normal development and QA staff than otherwise might be possible. It engenders a passionate community. All good things. But, this one was a nice-to-have in my mind. I’m a capitalist.

Fresh category

Jim Spann and Ed Williams opened my eyes to the beauty of a fresh category during my days at Blue Ridge Numerics. We were not selling CFD software. We were selling CFD software for non-specialists. We did not meet with the same people that high-end CFD (Fluent, CFX, Star CD, etc) sales teams met with. Therefore, the ideas we were presenting were brand new to our audience. That’s exciting for both parties in the meeting.

SpaceClaim was a similar experience. People would death march into the conference room expecting yet another CAD tool presentation. I’d lead off with a shocking statement: “SpaceClaim is not CAD. We’re not here to replace your CAD tool.” Suddenly people were on the edges of their seats learning how new people could be using 3D in new ways in much earlier concept phases.

Business critical value

Having happy customers is important. Yes, I want a customer to tell other customers how fun my widget is to use. It’s far more rewarding, however, for a customer to say, “We owe a lot of our success to your widget.” So, I definitely require a “cool” factor… but my widget needs to directly impact the bottom line.

Ability to mentor and grow a team

Kevin O’Shea infected me with the joy of teaching while at Blue Ridge Numerics. As he “remade” me professionally, it was obvious that he was also having fun. I took that same attitude when teaching my skills to later generations of sales people and application engineers. It feels so good to take a newbie from 0% to 80%. There is nothing better than watching a student master a new skill.

Speaking of teams: they can make or break any business. Good corporate culture doesn’t just happen. You have to hire positive people, nurture good corporate attitudes, and quickly excise cancer cells. Life is too short to work in a shitty environment.

Google

Once you have such definition, you can begin your search. Google is your friend. That’s really all I did. Lots of keyword combinations, lots of deep articles and blog posts, and lots of potential candidates popped out.

Grab your balls and make some calls

This might be a tough one for some of you. I started off as a Mechanical Engineer. After inexplicably finding my way to sales, I learned that you can call anyone out of the blue so long as you are concise, respectful, and bring some value to the conversation.

When a candidate startup hit my radar, I used LinkedIn to research the company and find key contacts. I would usually send the CEO a short introduction email via Linkedin asking for a phone discussion. One key here: after all this thinking and searching, I was TRULY interested in what these companies were up to. You can’t fake that. Every CEO was happy to take my call. I wasn’t just some guy saying, “Uh, do you guys, like, uh, have any job openings? Oh, and, uh, what kind of products do you make?” I could talk confidently about the industry and ask intelligent questions.

From there, I either disqualified the company or arranged a deeper phone conversation or lunch/dinner. Simple as that.

In the end, I relied on gut feel and a bit of spiritual guidance.

Final thoughts

Yikes. I just wrote over 1000 words and didn’t even tell you what CyDesign does! Let’s save that for another post. Meantime, here’s another resource to consider if you are struggling with the career thing: Dan Miller’s 48 Days to the Work you Love.

Do great things!

If something about this sounds familiar, you might be recalling famous discussions of the Memory Palace by Hannibal Lecter. You might also remember the information battle that took place within Jonsey’s “Memory Warehouse” in Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher (NSFW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeqFXHhDEM4

The Memory Palace is perhaps the primary tool enabling people with average brains to perform superhuman feats of memory. I was skeptical until I tried it with a list of 10 random items. It worked shockingly well! Since then, I’ve used it (in combination with The Major System) to memorize all sorts of things that I otherwise would have deemed impossible:

• My debit and credit card numbers, expiration dates, and CCV codes
• My library card number
• The access code for my wireless router
• My conference call phone number and organizer/attendee pin numbers
• The precise order of a shuffled deck of cards (after just one look through the deck)

So far, I have only created 2 memory palaces. The first is a tour of 5 rooms on the first floor of my home, totally 25 loci. The second is 10 loci in my second floor home office. I use that one exclusively for memorizing decks of cards. Interesting side note: I had to give up my home office so my oldest daughter could have her own bedroom. That memory palace, therefore, only exists in my memory!  If you can close your eyes and take a mental tour of your childhood home, you may already have a great Memory Palace ready to go. Even if that house burned down decades ago!

Here is a great video overview of the technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2zUIw1ESbE

As you create your own memory palace, I recommend systematizing it a bit. I generally create 5 spots per room. If I’m standing in the doorway of a new room, I’ll typically look for obvious spots or objects as I scan the room from left to right. So, something:

• directly to my left
• far left corner
• opposite wall
• far right corner
• directly to my right

Other people just pick out the most obvious loci in a room without regard to quantity.

Give it a try.
I suspect you’ll amaze yourself.

Willing to take some specific actions to grow your value over time? Let’s talk.

Many engineers stagnate on the career/pay curve after just 5 years in industry. Don’t get me wrong- they do well. The job certainly pays better than flipping burgers. But, why do so many folks with an engineering background see little more than cost of living wage increases?

Better question: What habits of the big engineering earners can you adopt?

Forget about your GPA

Your GPA and prestigious college only matter on your first job interview. Managers looking to hire staff with a few years of industry experience under the belt don’t even look at GPA. They look at the experience and responsibility listed in the work history.

I’ve known plenty of engineers who 10 years after graduation still manage to mention graduating from MIT or Purdue with a 3.9 GPA in every conversation. If this is you, you have to stop. The people around you are not impressed. It screams entitlement, not expertise.

Focus instead on walking the walk with your current position. Be the best you can be, and help others around you do the same.

Learn how to present

Engineering school did many of us a huge disservice. Learn these equations and do this math, but don’t worry about articulating ideas in a compelling way for a live audience. That’s for the Poli-Sci and Drama students.

Most of the big earners in your company appear comfortable and compelling in front of a group. While there are a few natural orators, most of them got good through experience.

Myers-Briggs says I’m strongly introverted. I remember sitting in my first post-college project meetings at GM and sweating bullets as each person took a turn on the weekly round table review. I was so terrified that I couldn’t even listen to the updates before mine.

I quickly fixed my presentation problem by joining Toastmasters. Within a few months, I was making great progress. In the years after, I consciously worked on a couple of presentation skills at every opportunity. After inexplicably moving into Sales, I got more practice than you can imagine. Today, I’m calm and poised in all presentations. No butterflies, even.

Why is this important?
Because, teams are made up of humans. Humans communicate through vocal tones and body language. Having technical expertise is valuable. The ability to effectively pass that expertise along to your team, project, and product is invaluable. And, eventually, it gets you more pay.

Learn how to write

Writing is really just another shade of presentation. Engineers tend toward long words, jargon, and unnecessary volume in technical reports. I believe even the most dry of subjects can be crafted into enjoyable (or at least tolerable) prose.

Take the time to write for readability, not just for accuracy. Clear, concise, engaging writing will also promote clear, concise, engaging thinking. Again, reps and intention will improve your skills here. Think of every email and report as an opportunity to practice.

I also suggest starting a blog. The regularity and public exposure will give you a nice kick in the pants. As a side benefit, you will begin building your own personal brand… which is another great way to eventually increase your salary.

Michael Hyatt details everything you need to know to get started:
How to Launch a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog in 20 Minutes or Less [Screencast]

Learn your business

Have a very clear vision of what your company makes and the profit structure around that. You’ll have to know that to move into management roles. But, I think it’s critical for everyone in an organization.

To get ahead, you don’t have to gain the knowledge of a CFO overnight. Start with something simple… like, “Who buys our products, where do they buy them, and how much do they spend?” In speaking with thousands of engineers over the last decade, I’ve found that only a small minority can answer those basic questions.

The engineers who impress me (and who I later see rising through the ranks) are the ones who take me for a plant tour, point to the widget popping off the end of the line and say, “We make 100,000 of these a year and sell them for around $500 a pop. Not much we can do on the manufacturing side… but if I could save $10 in material per unit, we’re looking at a million in found money.”

If you make laptops, you probably have a good feel for these answers, because you’ve purchased one yourself. But, let’s say you work for a tier 1 auto supplier making HVAC units. How much does the auto OEM pay for each unit? Quite surprising that many engineers can’t even hazard a guess at $10, $100, or $1000.

Knowing this information, along with some rough understanding of material and production costs will quickly set you apart from the standard engineer. Just dropping a couple of these ideas into a presentation or written document to support your engineering choices will most definitely have an impact on how management thinks of you. Rightly so. You become more valuable by being in tune with what really matters at your company. When promotion time comes, who do you think your CEO would rather have in positions of authority?

What other skills and ideas have helped your career?
Please comment and share below.

Image by Charkrem

SPDM, SLM, SDPM, EKM, SM… Huh? PDM and PLM are good at locking down the finished product of our engineering work and providing a “one document of truth” as we head into manufacturing. But, what about all the trial and error your simulation folks went through to get there? How efficient were they in doing so? How many times did they reinvent a wheel (ie, run the same simulation someone else might have last year)? Did they capture all the results of failed attempts for future reference, or just a report from the one that worked?

If you’re sophisticated enough to use CAE as an integral part of your process, then it’s time to mature up the curve to SPDM: Simulation Data and Process Management. Here’s a quick video overview:

Part II: Skills you can use to become a better engineering presenter

In the presentation above, I demonstrate some of the best practices I preach in the Presentation Skills category of this blog. Watch again after considering the following:

The biggest challenge with this topic is the nature of the subject. Most people don’t have a predefined “bucket” in their minds labeled SPDM. If you just say the official words describing SPDM, your audience will start hearing a lot of terminology that sounds like it belongs in the bucket that does exist in their minds, PDM. That’s bad because they will be putting oranges in the apple bucket. Even worse, they will shut down the intake of new knowledge from you… because, frankly, who wants to know more about PDM? Got that covered already. See what I mean?

This is a concept worth thinking about for every new presentation. Ask yourself this question: In what existing mental bucket might my audience be inclined to (erroneously) place my message? We protect ourselves from the onslaught of new information by making snap judgments on how to categorize new ideas.

If you are happy with the bucket that your audience is likely to pick, then great! If it’s likely they will place it in the wrong bucket, however, you have a huge problem. In that case, your first job is to immediately create a new mental bucket for your listeners. Think about this idea and watch my presentation again. Look for the several spots where I create and re-establish the SPDM mental bucket. It’s very important to distance this new bucket from the likely (erroneous) old bucket.

You’ll also notice my attempts to limit text. Wherever possible, I use large, bold images. Asking your audience to listen to auditory input while simultaneously interpreting textual input creates a mental traffic jam. I ran into a problem with this on the “quotes from happy customers” slide. My solution was to leave a long period of silence towards the end. That gives the viewer a chance to read the text without me babbling in their ears. Not a perfect solution, but way better than talking over the text and immediately moving on.

You’ll also notice this idea in action on the final slide. I paused the video of screenshots until after I finished speaking. If I hadn’t, you can bet nobody would have heard a word I said. That would have created a different sort of mental traffic jam.