Reminder: This is another posting is not written for everyone and anyone; this entire blog is written for SolidWorks experts ... for aspiring SolidWorks Experts ... it's a blog for people who aspire to become even BETTER Certified SolidWorks Experts, to go beyond what is required to become even MORE COMPLETE Certified SolidWorks Experts by helping others to use the technology more successfully.
Maybe you have heard that the half-life of an engineer's professional knowledge is something like five years ... actually, I think it's less, but I'm a pessimist ... what an optimistic view of a five-year half-life means, is that in five years, half of your collected knowledge and experience as an engineer is meaningless ... you don't get to pick which half matters; the half that matters is probably the part you don't like all that well ... so make sure that you like ALL of what you do, because in five years the good half will be gone. If you stay away from an industry for 10 years -- only one quarter of your expertise will be relevant. If you graduated as an engineer 25 years ago, only 1/32th of what you learned as an engineer is relevant ... the degree is relevant because it proved you would bull your way through some tough courses to earn a professional degree. And, obviously the basics (math, chemistry, physics, engineering mechanics) will always be relevant ... sort of ... it's just that you won't have to use them very often or there will be a tool that will furnish the answer for you in a fraction of the time you could find the answer back in 1982 ... for example, when's the last time that you solved a problem that involved taking a derivative of a trigonometric function?
If you want to see more evidence of what your career is worth if you don't stay current -- take a look at the price of used books that cover software or information technology ...let's assume that you found Matt Lombard's Solidworks Administration Bible
very useful and you believed a copy would pay for itself. Three months ago, the cheapest way to buy this was in Amazon's Kindle format for about $35 (i.e. not an entirely bad option since you can also use Kindle for PC / Kindle for Android); if you wanted a printed hard copy, you would have spent roughly $40 [if you include shipping]. Today, you can buy a used, still good copy of Solidworks 2010 Administration Bible for only $6.31 ... with shipping it's around $10. The market of CAD administrators who buy books like this is telling your that the value is somewhere in the neighborhood of a third what you would have paid a few months ago ... the reason that it's probably not worth a lot more than that is the same reason that your professional knowledge as an engineer declines so rapidly.
Generally speaking, technology moves on because new technology makes people more productive ... you can justify the upgrade in CAD systems only because the new version makes people more productive ... it doesn't work for long to upgrade just because it's cool or you want to. In things like CAD systems, we need to think about all of the people using the system. When your team doesn't move to the technology that can make your team more productive, you risk falling behind ... you risk being less productive than competitors who are finding ways to be more productive. This argument is NOT about justifying an automatic annual SolidWorks upgrade -- it is about the need to keep looking for ways to improve, to keep looking for ways that will make your team more productive.
very useful and you believed a copy would pay for itself. Three months ago, the cheapest way to buy this was in Amazon's Kindle format for about $35 (i.e. not an entirely bad option since you can also use Kindle for PC / Kindle for Android); if you wanted a printed hard copy, you would have spent roughly $40 [if you include shipping]. Today, you can buy a used, still good copy of Solidworks 2010 Administration Bible for only $6.31 ... with shipping it's around $10. The market of CAD administrators who buy books like this is telling your that the value is somewhere in the neighborhood of a third what you would have paid a few months ago ... the reason that it's probably not worth a lot more than that is the same reason that your professional knowledge as an engineer declines so rapidly. Generally speaking, technology moves on because new technology makes people more productive ... you can justify the upgrade in CAD systems only because the new version makes people more productive ... it doesn't work for long to upgrade just because it's cool or you want to. In things like CAD systems, we need to think about all of the people using the system. When your team doesn't move to the technology that can make your team more productive, you risk falling behind ... you risk being less productive than competitors who are finding ways to be more productive. This argument is NOT about justifying an automatic annual SolidWorks upgrade -- it is about the need to keep looking for ways to improve, to keep looking for ways that will make your team more productive.
Engineering is a discipline; it is also a team sport ... it is important to continually practice, develop, hone and update the discipline of thinking like an engineer by using technology to make you and your team more productive. Information technology, search engines and new social knowledge networking tools like VARK.com have made collected knowledge and expertise more accessible to more people AND less valuable as something that any single one engineer should hold onto.By extension, proprietary knowledge has become a less valuable asset to companies ... many do not recognize this; many do not recognize that the asset that is actually more valuable is much more dynamic human engineering capital and team capital ... although many still invest in retaining proprietary knowledge; like building a security and checkout system for a library that will ready in 2011 to filled with books like the SolidWorks 2010 Administration Bible
.. What many companies do not yet recognize is that they can be stingy with their proprietary knowledge if they want ...and there are legitimate arguments, like safety concerns over unauthorized use, for being careful with the release of information. But old financial and economic reasons have changed; it is a different world. The global community of people who want to use a companies technology will take the path of least resistance and go elsewhere if they can -- when the proprietary knowledge is no longer relevant, the value of the stingy company's franchise plummets dramatically ... want an example? Consider why [the more affordable, yet extremely powerful] SolidWorks has a larger installed base than any other CAD tool -- why isn't the base of Pro/E larger? Also, by not paying attention to the shift to SolidWorks, what WILL be the cost of sticking with Pro/E to the companies who have a large legacy base of Pro/E users?
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