Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, has a new book, How the Might Fall, in which he details research into what he identifies as the five stages of failure:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Useful reviews of the text are  available here.

A new volume Engineering in Context edited by Steen Hyldgaard Christensen, Bernard Delahousse, and Martin Meganck was launched 2-3 July 2009 at Engineers Ireland in Dublin, Ireland at workshop by the same name (more here).  iFoundry was represented at the meeting by co-director David E. Goldberg who presented a talk: The Missing Basics: What Engineers Don’t Learn and Why They Don’t Learn Them (here).

Engineering in Context

iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg’s book The Entrepreneurial Engineer (Wiley, 2006) can now be previewed on Google Books.  Click here, on the image, or on the Amazon link (here) to learn more.

You have heard about how a musician loses herself in her music, how a painter becomes one with the process of painting. In work, sport, conversation or hobby, you have experienced, yourself, the suspension of time, the freedom of complete absorption in activity. This is “flow,” an experience that is at once demanding and rewarding–an experience that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi demonstrates is one of the most enjoyable and valuable experiences a person can have.

For more information or to buy to book please check here. For other recommended readings refer to our reading page (here).

The curricula and pedagogy of engineering disciplines face mounting pressure to change in response to the national need for engineers who can compete in the global workforce.

In order to understand the social and human dynamics that facilitate and inhibit the diffusion and acceptance of new engineering curricula and pedagogy, the CASEE in collaboration with the ASA convened a two-day workshop in April 2006. This text (here) presents the final report from this workshop.

This earnest guide to career transition periods asserts, reassuringly, that navigating the all-important first 90 days is a “teachable skill.” Business professor Watkins lays out a “standard framework” for leadership transitions, based on “five fundamental propositions,” “ten key challenges,” and a four-fold typology of situations that new managers find themselves in.

The First 90 Days can be purchased here. Other readings that inspire innovation in engineering education are listed here.

In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation’s needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy.

For more infomation please visit the National Academies Press website (here).

“This intriguing book explores the reasons that lead undergraduates of above-average ability to switch from science, mathematics, and engineering majors into nonscience majors. Based on a three-year, seven-campus study, the volume takes up the ongoing national debate about the quality of undergraduate education in these fields, offering explanations for net losses of students to non-science majors.”

The book can be found on amazon.com (here).

Robert Quinn’s Change the World offers profound yet practical guidance for those who truly want to improve their surroundings.

The book is available on amazon.com (here).

This book explains the upcoming “Conceptual Age”, contrasting it with past periods of intense change, such as the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance. The book also defines the six “senses” Pink identifies as crucial to success in the new economy-design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning.

A Whole New Mind can be purchased on amazon.com (here).