[Closed] 'I have never yet come across an engineer who can turn his hands to business'

Well, I do happen to own a uni.... Lidl special....

EDIT; and as a wedding photographer with a conscience and proper training, I don't dare take risks either - must have got that from my engineer stepdad!

But it makes good telly, innit. I don't watch it.
I have a cnc milling machine. When I write code for it I am a techie. The person who did the operating system for it was an engineer. The cad model I use was made by a cad designer, who was following the brief of an engineer.
The engineer is the person who decides how the thing is going to work, what material and all that kind of thing.

"100 idiots make idiotic
plans, and carry them
out. All but one justly
fail. The hundredth idiot
whose plans succeeded
through pure luck, is
immediately convinced
he's a genius."
—Iain Banks, Matter

I have a mate who is as well: He's currently building his second MTB frame, welded up in a jig he made himself, with tubing from a pipe bender he made himself becasue commercial ones are rubbish. He has lathes and a pillar drill in his garage, and swarf on the floor. THAT'S engineering!!

Sounds more like a school metalwork class.

Both engineering and business are skills, ones that can be learned by a wide range of people with a reasonable level of intelligence, common sense and time. A degree of aptitude benefits both, but I know people who toil away at both without any and get by. I do both, I find both hard, but I'm successful at both. If I had my choice I would probably do neither as the levels of stress and responsibility are too high.

I have no time for the technician/engineer debate. If that is the most important thing you have to worry about in your job you are doing ok, believe me. As for chartered engineers, well, fair play for making the effort to get the qualification, but it's just a series of tests and you can train a fresh graduate to pass them if you want to, so it means nothing to me, get over it. I only value track record on the job.

Transferring from engineer to manager or engineer to businessman [u]or the reverse[/u] can be very hard as different skills are required. If people are unwilling or unable for whatever reason to learn the skills then they will probably do a poor job, naturally. There is nothing unique in engineers in this regard.

Make of that what you will.

Recommended read - Jeff Schmidt "[url= http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds ]Disciplined Minds[/url]"

[i]Sounds more like a school metalwork class.[/i]

Yeah, but if you can't use a lathe, you're just a product designer rather than a proper engineer 😀

You're all shit , we should have been on mars by now you lazy ****.

Believe me, if there were rare and valuable minerals on Mars, we'd be there by now - think Avatar.

But it's a frozen dustbowl that's only of interest to science - science not considered important enough by the public to fund that kind of exploration.

Engineering has many sub-disciplines, but they all involve aspects of both creative and methodical thinking/design. While there are often hands-on aspects, these are not defining.

Re Software - do you imagine that 2-5 people could successfully engineer software, ~280,000 lines of code over 5 years, to operate a 3 billion Euro safety-critical multi-satellite system, without a high degree of imagination and technical rigour?

All of my engineering courses so far have had a module in business or industry. I doubt business courses touch upon the rudiments of engineering.

[i]Re Software - do you imagine that 2-5 people could successfully engineer software, ~280,000 lines of code over 5 years, to operate a 3 billion Euro safety-critical multi-satellite system, without a high degree of imagination and technical rigour?[/i]

Indeed. I don't think that's in dispute (well apart from say the Ariene 4 to 5 cut n paste special). However other professions also have those qualities, but for instance we don't call creative accountants fiscal engineers.

we don't call creative accountants fiscal engineers

"An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems,"

Re Software - do you imagine that 2-5 people could successfully engineer software, ~280,000 lines of code over 5 years, to operate a 3 billion Euro safety-critical multi-satellite system, without a high degree of imagination and technical rigour?

a key difference is though, that you have to be a chartered engineer with the imeche (or equilvelent for civil eng etc) where as in software in the past people have worked on high level and safety critical projects without being a member of a professional institution...

the BCS exists but you can be a software engineer without being a memeber or having any involvement with it

cant do that as a Doctor or Engineer

So there were no engineers before any of the professional engineering bodies were formed?

So you'd be happy to go under the knife by someone who calls themselves a Dr, as opposed to someone who the BMA call a Dr?

So you'd be happy to go under the knife by someone who calls themselves a Dr, as opposed to someone who the BMA call a Dr?

...depends on the circumstances.

a key difference is though, that you have to be a chartered engineer with the imeche (or equilvelent for civil eng etc) where as in software in the past people have worked on high level and safety critical projects without being a member of a professional institution..

This is quite right. Software is engineering with no regulation, recognised training or experience, and the people paying for it have no idea if it's any good or not.

Which is why on any project you get some good people and enough idiots in high enough positions to wreck it... Unfortunately.

Turn it on its head. The number of bizniz people who've managed to transition into successful engineers? Square root of nack-all. End.

Square root of nack-al

Have you investigated the limit of the square root of nack-al? If so which direction are you tending to nack-all from?

Gosh, this is all a bit worrying.
I studied software and electrical engineering.
Last I looked I'd done alright.
Haven't met Lord Sugar though.
He sounds like a d1ck.

Nzcol, but are you as successful as AS? See, he has a point 🙂

4 pages of posts discussing something Alan Sugar said?

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Noyce ]Robert Noyce[/url]
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_E._Moore ]Gordon Moore[/url]
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove ]Andrew_Grove[/url]

Haven't done too badly out of engineering.

True , good point well made

There are engineers and engineers. As has been said if you wan't to have medical treatment you want a Dr accredited by the BMA.

Proffessional Engineers are accredited by the Engineering council.

The skills I need to be a Charterred Engineer are as below...

http://www.ice.org.uk/mgn3

Note that its not all teckie, I have to have commercial and leadership skills to. That is the difference between a proffesionally qualified engineer and .... well an engineer. No disrespect to Engineers as we all do a craxcking job.

If Al Sugar had said he's never met a engineer that can turn his hand to buissness, well for some engineers that may be true (although I doubt it would be a fair comment). To say that a proffessionally qualified engineer can't turn his hand to bussiness is ridiculus ...as that is what we are trained to do (as well as the teckie stuff!)

like the x factor - its about the T.V. Show not the outcome

we need to remember they're T.V. shows! they're not about the apprentice or finding a pop star - they're about ratings

Gordon Moore

This guy is an Engineer.... :wink:[IMG] [/IMG]

Sugar knew he were an engineer before he took him on, so if that's his opinion then don't take the guy on instead of drag him through a long drawn out 'game show', sorry, 'process' and then dump him for being an engineer. To me it was the face don't fir but he couldn't he arsed to 'engineer' a decent excuse to get rid of him....

Gary_C,
I get it, but don't know how many else will. You have to be a certain age (old).

I get it, but don't know how many else will. You have to be a certain age (old)

Off the top off my head I'd guess his speciality is Farokh rather than mechanics or electronics.

Interesting to see the incredible defensiveness of so many types of self-defined engineers.

Much of the argument above illustrates Lord Alan of Hackernee's point: engineers (like all other people employed for their technical knowledge) tend to miss the point of "business".

If you're all such good businessmen/women, why afren't you out there turning your great ideas into a profitbale business lead by you?

I'll help you with the answer - you see all the techy stuff around it, but you don't see the bigger picture. Few people like engineers, doctors, academics, lawyers, teachers, etc. do.

Accept you've lost this argument.

Or maybe it's because we enjoy the technical side, instead of the side we all see on Sugar's program.

I'll help you with the answer - you see all the techy stuff around it, but you don't see the bigger picture

Yes, we do. At least, some of us do. We just are either out of our comfort zone, or as above are pragmatic about risk so don't take it, and hence lose out.

If you're all such good businessmen/women, why afren't you out there turning your great ideas into a profitbale business lead by you?

For many it can be becuase that is not where their interest lies. Not everyone's be all and end all in money.

Plus people here are not claiming they are great businessmen/women but that many Engineers are. Not a difficult concept to grasp.

If you're all such good businessmen/women, why afren't you out there turning your great ideas into a profitbale business lead by you?

I suspect because they get paid a tidy wage to not have to worry about running their own business with all the stress and long hours that entails. Not everyone wants to be a millionaire. No, I'll rephrase that. Not everyone wants to work their wotsits off for a few extra quid when their current wage - and hours - keep them in a comfortable lifestyle with time to ride their bike.

Or maybe it's because we enjoy the technical side, instead of the side we all see on Sugar's program.

See, that's fine. and that's part of what he is saying (though he is an odious twonk, and sees "business" as selling crap products to consumers - ironic then that he's made most of his money through property investment).

I'm a lawyer, so recognise this. Most lawyers are hopeless business people - they have no concept of where to blur the lines or ignore something altogether. What they're into is accuracy on legal points and aversion to all risk. Engineers - on the whole - fall into the same category: really good at getting incredible detail just right, but ultimately not driven by how to maximise profit.

The part of the business I work for was founded by teo engineers. Between them the cross the continuum from precision and risk aversion to entrpreneurship.

I like engineers, but for the most part it shouldn't be assumed that being technically really good at something lends itself to beign really good in a different sphere.

I'll help you with the answer - you see all the techy stuff around it, but you don't see the bigger picture. Few people like engineers, doctors, academics, lawyers, teachers, etc. do

You're also missing the point that has been mentioned on here, that proper engineers with professional training will have done business and been trained to look at the bigger picture, so have a pretty good idea of profit and loss. Reinforcing the point that being a techy doesn't make you an engineer.

but for the most part it shouldn't be assumed that being technically really good at something lends itself to beign really good in a different sphere

I like engineers, but for the most part it shouldn't be assumed that being technically really good at something lends itself to beign really good in a different sphere

True enough, but the reverse is also true. Just because you are a good engineer it should NOT be assumed that you're rubbish at business.

I'll tell you what, ourmaninthenorth, your last post shows something:

lawyers are as bad at spelling as engineers!

ourmaninthenorth: Thats not really the point though is it?

If you wan't to be a teckie you don't wan't to be an entrepreneur? What a lot of people are saying is that engineering gives you many skills that are highly desirable in the city/accounting/buissness etc.

Hence if you have an engineer who is motivated to do buissness then they have an excellent skills base to make it. In my buissness the best managers are engineers that have gone to the commercial side ...not QS's who know the cost of everything and the vale of nowt!

Not quite the point I was making, though I concede my hasty typing hasn't made a great impression....

My view of the world is this:

There is a continuum of risk analysis. We all fit into it, and we apply it to our daily lives. To one side is complete risk aversion - you don't leave the house for fear of a car crash. To the other is recklessness - you run through fast moving traffic.

Professionals are employed - on the whole - to take a measured approach to risk. Vast technical knowledge allows a more precise analysis of that risk. But, the differenence is - in the eyes of Sugar - that what that professional does with the risk is different from his "business person".

The professional says "here is the answer to whether or not you will go to court/that building will fall down/that plane will stay in the air". The Alan Sugar "businessman" says "if I do this, I'll make £x million" and tends to play down the risk of not making the money.

Of course, this is true of so many people, whether they're technical experts or not, and so it is perfectly possible to be both good engineer and good risk taker. But, as I said before - on the whole - being a precise person whose primary focus is on the technical does not naturally lend itself to the Alan Sugar model of "business".

I haven't read every thread of this one but Sugar hasn't met a lad that used to ride with us yonks ago. He worked at the time for Black & Decker as an engineer, focusing on the electrical side of things. Even then I thought 'Knoxy's gonna go places', he was building lights out of bits of plumbing & 18v drill batteries with 10 amp bulbs, experimenting all the time (this was back in the late 80's) He got into diving & built himself one of those motors that pull you along underwater which actually worked. This is him in blue...

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

This is his page on LinkedIn,

http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksknox

I'm sure there's many more like him out there too.