Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about working in embedded systems with someone who’s not an engineer, turns out I’ll speak to her college sociology class about creativity, how to loose it and how to keep it.
Engineering is a creative career, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. I could agree that there are engineering variations that are less creative than others. For example, to me quality engineers are probably allowed less creativity as their work is to enforce standards. But I say only probably because I can think of several ways they can be creative, like in designing their testing procedures.
My problem with creativity in engineering is with all the corporate red tape needed to exert creativity. When you work for a company (like I do), many times you have to sign a document that basically gives the company ownership of any ideas you have. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t really understand how far that document goes. For example, I don’t think they own my ideas for better omelets, but they do my ideas for software optimization. I understand the idea behind this type of contract. I’m working under their roof with their equipment and their resources. But the brain that came up with the idea is mine, so, who’s idea is it? I don’t have the answer. What I do think is that companies should have better ways of sharing intellectual property with employees. If IP is so important, than there should be some sort of shared ownership.
Again, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t understand the legal implications of these ideas, but from a personal stand point, this would be very motivational, it would actually mean to “own” my work, which, in practical terms, means that I’m far more committed to the results of the company.
As engineers we are motivated by different things. It is common for engineers to pass on a better salary offers if it means a more boring job. Not that engineers don’t want to make money, it’s simply a priority second to the challenge and the thrill of solving a problem or coming up with something new. I think companies that are good at challenging their engineers and making them own their innovations will always succeed in having the best talent. It also helps to make innovating easy as possible. I would love to see more companies out there allow their people some time to just be creative with their work rather than simply making the deadlines.
Totally agree with you about “engineers are creative…”. But I don’t think there are some more creative than others… as you said, it depends on their background and their actual context. That’s why, I think creativity is not only work/job related… creativity is for life (as you mentioned for cooking for example).
And we engineers, are way much creative for everything we touch… and I’m not being selfish, it’s just the way we learned to think and it’s now embedded in us, right?
Regarding “creativity” and “corporations”… yes, tough topic…
I think there are different types of creativity.
Engineers can think of different ways to solve a problem. Engineers are good at solving problems, that is what they are paid to do ! At the same time, and in order to solve problems, engineers need facts (think of simple math problems we were asked to do in elementary school, the first thing you were supposed to do was extract all the “usefull” data).
I face many engineers that are completly unable to propose a solution, unless they have ALL the data. They may even delay a solution, until they feel they have all the data available, unfortunately, in the real world, facts are relative and rare.
As I transitioned to marketing, I faced this problem myself (do you really think marketers know how many people will by a product ? c’mon we are not psychics !) Marketing, as Dilbert says , involves a lot of liquor and guessing. Our work, in my mind, is to provide peace of mind to engineers, they want facts, we give them facts so they can work at a problem feeling they have the facts… that, my friends often requires a lot of creativity !
Finally, and clearly …. you are not a lawyer… “The Company” does own any omelet optimizations you might come up with.. so be carefull