Joel Orr's World

My friend Jim Finkel just called me up. "I just talked to Lee Teschler (of Machine Design). He gets notes complaining all the time about the lack of jobs for engineers - and on the other hand, about the growing lack of engineers. What's the answer?"

Indeed. Since the manufacturing community at large continues to reject proferred solutions to the knowledge-loss problem (like startup KollabNet, that I helped found some years ago), why does it also continuously throw away the only extant repositories of corporate memory - namely, older engineers? And if industry persists in keeping its collective head in a dark place, what can we recommend to these valuable rejects?

For some, becoming a consultant is the answer. And since that does not come naturally to all, Steve Liberman and I are assembling the American Consultants Network. I'll let you know as soon as it goes live.

What are your thoughts?