TEE chapters 1 & 2 TOC

Here is the table of contents from The Entrepreneurial Engineer chapter 1:

1 The Entrepreneurial Engineer: Ready for the 21st Century
1.1 21ST Century Engineers Moving at Internet Time
1.2 Engineering Education, Common Sense & the Real World
1.3 Ten Competencies for the Entrepreneurial Engineer
1.4 Three Principles
1.5 Three Cautions
Exercises

And here is the TOC from chapter 2:

2 The Joy of Engineering
2.1 A Joyous Confession
2.2 Engineering as Liberal Education, Launch Pad & Lifelong Love
2.2.1 Who is Getting a “Liberal Arts” Education Today?
2.2.2 Engineering as Launch Pad
2.2.3 10 ways to Love Engineering
2.3 The Fundamental Tug-of-War
2.4 Science and its Little Secret
2.5 Engineers: First Masters of Modern Enterprise
2.6 Economy of Intellection: Separating Science from Engineering
2.6.1 The Modeling Plane
2.6.2 Spectrum of Models
2.7 Four Tensions Facing the Entrepreneurial Engineer
Summary
Exercises

Chapter 1 is an introduction that weaves together the 10 competencies with three unifying principles and warnings or cautions. Chapter 2 is my favorite chapter. The core of the chapter is the tale of two historical inversions, one between science and engineering, and one between business and engineering.

Earlier posts on TEE

on IlliGAL Blogging are here, here, here, and here. The chapter table of contents of The Entrepreneurial Engineer is reprinted below:

1. The Entrepreneurial Engineer: Ready for the 21st Century
2. The Joy of Engineering
3. Money, Work, and You
4. Getting Organized and Finding Time
5. Write for Your Life
6. Present, Don’t Speak
7. The Human Side of Engineering
8. Ethics in Matters Small, Large, and Engineering
9. Pervasive Teamwork
10. Organizations and Leadership
11. Assessing Technology Opportunities

Over the next few months, I'll discuss many of the topics covered in these chapters on this blog.

Bioteams and genetic algorithms

I wasn't sure whether to post this at IlliGAL Blogging or here, but the perpetual beta has a post about Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near and bioteams here. Rule 9 for a bioteam is as follows:

Learn through experimentation, mutation and team review. Traditional teams believe that analysis is the main way to get things right.Consequently they engage in extensive planning, design and preparation before trying out new things or releasing new products to their customers.

I've always wanted to write a business book that carried the lessons of The Design of Innovation over to enterprise.

Bribery, corruption, and the entrepreneurial engineer

Nosophorus has an interesting comment about The Entrepreneurial Engineer:

Well, will be there in TEE some chapter, section, etc, that deals with corruption, bribery and other kinds of negative atitudes that an Entrepreneurial Engineer would need to face some day ??I am not joking about it, here in Brazil the person who wants to have an entrepreneurial atitude needs to face (daily??) those "challenges".

The chapter that deals most directly with these matters is Chapter 8, Ethics in Matters Small, Large, and Engineering. Here is the table of contents for that chapter:

8 Ethics in Matters Small, Large, and Engineering
8.1 Is Engineering Ethics Necessarily a Dreadful Bore?
8.2 Ethics: The Systematic Study of Right and Wrong
8.2.1 Golden Rules: Positive and Negative
8.2.2 Whence Right and Wrong?
8.2.3 An Engineer’s Synthesis of Ethical Theory
8.3 From Ethical Theory to Practice
8.3.1 Self-Interest
8.3.2 Obedience to Authority
8.3.3 Conformity to the Group
8.3.4 Practice Makes Perfect
8.4 From Personal to Engineering Ethics
8.4.1 What is a Profession?
8.4.2 A Tale of Two Codes
8.4.3 Conflicts of Interest
8.4.4 Whistleblowing is Not a First Resort
Summary
Exercises

I'll confess that the book (and the chapter) are written from an American perspective where bribery and corruption are less frequent than in Brazil. Having said this, the book does not assume that human beings are perfect little angels. Moreover, the term "entrepreneurial engineer" is used in a broader sense than usual. Our times are ones of great change and engineers everywhere, whether they work for a startup firm (startup entrepreneurial engineers) or whether they work for established firms (intrapreneurial engineers or corporate entrepreneurial engineers) , are increasingly involved in helping their companies seek and exploit opportunity. This requires more finely honed personal, interpersonal, and organizational skills than in times past, and The Entrepreneurial Engineer is aimed at building exactly those skills.

The entrepreneurial engineer is here

Over the past few months, I have blogged about matters of professional development mixed in with my genetic algorithm thoughts over at IlliGAL Blogging (here). Starting today, I will blog about professional development matters for engineers and other technologists right here at The Entrepreneurial Engineer. I start TEE the Blog in the Harrisburg International Airport, having just given a professional development seminar for Central PA engineers (see here).