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ASME Annual Awards Dinner

by Steven Cerri on April 25, 2011

ASME Dinner Last week I attended the annual awards dinner sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Section of the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers).   It was a great event and hats off to everyone who made it happen. Dr. Robert J. Moffat Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University was the recipient [...]

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#95 The Air Traffic Controllers Were Not Managed!

April 18, 2011

Hello everyone, I think that the “air-traffic-controllers-asleep” issue has some interesting lessons for us in the area of management. Here is what I mean. One of the workshops I conduct includes a section devoted to the topic of “how to develop your team culture”. That is, what can a manager do to develop and propagate [...]

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#94 Why Everyone Wants To Be A Leader

April 15, 2011

Hello everyone, I’m always amazed at how much people love the word “leader”. Everywhere I read (only a slight exaggeration) I find references to this person is a leader, that person is a leader, everyone is a leader. Leadership doesn’t even seem to be a function of experience. Someone right out of college can be [...]

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#93 Motorcycles Should Make You Nervous

August 3, 2010

“Just ride” Hello everyone! That’s right! Motorcycles should make you nervous. I have always liked motorcycles although I’ve never owned one. I have ridden motorcycles belonging to my friends; mostly in college. For me, riding a motorcycle has always been accompanied by a feeling of excitement and apprehension. I remember that first ride. I was [...]

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#92 Jethro Tull and the Engineer’s Mind

July 28, 2010

Emotions of Music versus Work Hello everyone! Recently I rented a DVD of Jethro Tull in concert live at Montreux, Switzerland in 2003. For those of you who lived through the rock and roll era of the 1970s the name Jethro Tull probably brings back a flood of memories as it does for me. While [...]

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#91 Descent Into Leadership

July 22, 2010

Hello everyone! I know, everyone wants to be a leader. No one wants to be a manager… right? Management has no glory but leaders are the heroes. I’ve heard it all before. Business magazines tout the virtues of leadership and praise the leaders and say little about the managers who toil at their craft. I [...]

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#90 How Do You Manage?

September 10, 2009

Do you manage for the sprint, or the marathon? Hello everyone! Do you manage for the sprint?…or …. Do you manage for the marathon?… or … Do you manage for the race? What is a sprint? Imagine a Summer Olympics bicycle sprint race around a track. The racers are poised on their bikes. Their leg [...]

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#89 Keeping Your Job

September 1, 2009

The difference that makes the difference Hello everyone! Last week I attended two very interesting and significant events. In the morning I attended the commemoration of NASA Ames Research Center as an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Historical Site, honoring all the great work that has been accomplished at that world-renowned facility. Work [...]

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#88 Un-Conferences Can Be…

August 17, 2009

What is an Un-Conference and can it help? Hello everyone! The Un-Conference This weekend I had the opportunity to attend an “un-conference” for freelancers. While I am not a freelancer, I thought it would be interesting to attend an un-conference and see how they work. For those of you who have not attended an “un-conference”, [...]

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#87 Finding a Mentor and Coach

March 10, 2009

Hello everyone! This week I was interviewed by Dice (the IT job portal) for an upcoming on-line resource they are preparing to assist young IT professionals in advancing their careers. I was asked what my three top suggestions were for IT professionals who wanted to advance their IT career. We ended the interview on the [...]

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#86 It’s Easy To Become a Technical Manager

March 10, 2009

“You are worth gold!” Hello everyone! Two or three weeks ago I received this comment to one of my blog postings that read, in part, as follows: “My question is how do I get back to a position of manager vs IC? (Individual Contributor) When new managers came into play – change happened and because [...]

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#85 Engineers Are Natural Leaders

March 5, 2009

“Engineers Are Natural Leaders–Say What?” Hello everyone! I know this week’s blog may cause some controversy but I’ve got to put this out there because by being silent, I believe it’s only making the situation worse. You see, recently I had dinner with a friend of mine. During the conversation he made a comment that [...]

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#84 The Young Are Restless—Once More

March 3, 2009

“Young people and the manager” Hello everyone! Is it a bad rap? Last week I wrote “The Young Are Restless” and I received a number of emails commenting on my evaluation of the situation. All were positive and in agreement with what I had written, and yet, there two sides to the story. In this [...]

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