Water Maverick, Shit Stirrer
Or maybe, ‘the Metaverse and all that shit.’ Anyways, this post is about my plans for 2019:
As a highly competitive industry in rapidly changing times and increasing ecological pressures, the engineering profession seem trapped in a pattern of conflict we can’t seem to break.
Continue reading “Winning the Argument or Solving the Problem”
This is a working post. Add your thoughts.
Continue reading “Building a better engineering profession – step by step”
Dear Manglin
You seem to share a consternation that seem also to be an increasing trend in society. Let’s call it populism.
Continue reading “When I said we need to talk … this was not what I meant.”
Nanette – by Hannah Gadsby. Selected bits from the transcript.
Some notes from the piece “Complicating the Narratives” by Amanda Ripley / Solutions Journalism Network about the current US divide.
Paraphrased: Conflict is important. The power of stories is to help people find a way through that conflict.
Continue reading “Mediation – Complicating the Water / Engineering Narratives”
Something happened today which made me think about how we deal with ‘respect’, and the ‘old guard’ and ‘engineers’. I’m still processing what happened and many of the people I am discussing this with requests confidentiality, so maybe I’ll update this later once we agree on it all and have their permission. It did remind me of a few things, most notably a workshop on complexity we had in March 2018.
Sometimes when people ask me why Future Water exists, before I go into the transdisciplinary blah blah company line, I say that we’re trying to teach engineers to talk to other people. It started as a joke, because it was launched by a team who consisted mostly of engineers, and is currently hosted in the Engineering Faculty, but I am more and more convinced that is what our true purpose is.
I’ve just given another paid workshop, to an audience I at first felt like I have no rapport with – they’re public administrators. My slides were technical, an attempt from my side to show that this is serious, that I did my homework – a common academic / engineer fault, I suppose. But I spoke personally. I’ve slowly decided personal and authentic is my brand, and to hell with it. Shit’s my thing, deal with it. And they loved it. I don’t know if they’re convinced, and frankly, I don’t care. They listened and that is the first step. More on this a bit later. Continue reading “Peopling rather than experting”
After being caught with a dirty house yet again when a film crew arrives, I decided to just embrace it ….
Embrace your inner scruffy. Design it well from the start.
It being anything from good quality odour absorbing clothes, low maintenance houses, rainwater collection devices …
My house. Completed (as far as houses are ever ‘completed’) in September 2016.