{"id":1030,"date":"2011-11-03T18:48:26","date_gmt":"2011-11-03T18:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2011-11-03T18:48:26","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T18:48:26","slug":"dont-be-nice-be-effective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/11\/03\/dont-be-nice-be-effective\/","title":{"rendered":"Don't be nice.  Be effective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This was the rather puzzling sub-heading to the First Biennial Lecture on Sustainability at the University last night, given by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atkinsglobal.com\">Atkins<\/a>' Director of Sustainability and former CEO, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atkinsglobal.com\/media-centre\/features\/keith-clarkes-call-to-action\">Keith Clarke<\/a>. \u00a0The actual title was: <em>Sustainability and Climate Change<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>What attracted me, however, was not the title, but the combination of the speaker \u2013 a senior engineer by anyone's standards \u2013 and the blurb. \u00a0This went:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Revolutions, whether social, technological or economic are messy, frightening and have unpredictable consequences. \u00a0The need to move from carbon intensive economic growth to low carbon economies quickly is the greatest revolution in our history. \u00a0Engineering can watch, whinge or lead. \u00a0It's time to lead. \u00a0The world cannot afford you not to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, I thought. \u00a0Spot on. \u00a0Tell me more.<\/p>\n<p>Though clearly aimed at the UG engineering students who thronged to the event, it attracted me because I know a little about how successful some universities have been at radically changing their approach to teaching the new generation of professional engineers, encouraged by the sort of forward-thinking companies that Atkins clearly is. \u00a0I went expecting to hear stories from the front line; of problems and progress \u2013 constraints, challenges and their overcoming.<\/p>\n<p>Not a bit of it. \u00a0I really felt for the short-changed students, especially as they'd been promised \"a treat\" in an overly fulsome introduction. \u00a0In a 50 minute talk, the first 40 were spent on climate change and sustainability in a rehearsal of the knowns and the known unknowns, and it was only then that we got to the engineering. \u00a0At which point, the only things I thought worth writing down were:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Do comparators within boundaries<\/p>\n<p>Talk to people from other disciplines<\/p>\n<p>Great engineering comes from struggling with the question<\/p>\n<p>Do it differently; be prepared to be wrong<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What a missed opportunity \u2013 and I still don't understand the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was the rather puzzling sub-heading to the First Biennial Lecture on Sustainability at the University last night, given by Atkins' Director of Sustainability and former CEO, Keith Clarke. \u00a0The actual title was: Sustainability and Climate Change. What attracted me,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}