by Jared B. Jamison

In a previous post, "Momma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Engineers", we began to discuss whether or not it made sense to steer your children away from studying engineering in college. Some people argue that knowledge workers are becoming commodities in a global economy and, to succeed in the future, the next generation should concentrate on creativity and the ability to innovate. We looked a little deeper into the claim that engineers will become global commodities in the previous post and I think we put that to rest for the time being. Several people commented on the previous blog post that they actually see opportunity overseas for U.S. based engineering firms as well - quite contrary to the claim that engineering jobs will be outsourced overseas.

Now, what about creativity and the ability to innovate? Most engineers don't have a creative bone in their body, right? I posed this question in the previous post and did not receive much resistance or have many people argue against this. Justin did comment that he felt that engineering required constant innovation and creativity, albeit not always "flashy" creativity. No one else commented on this statement. Should I take from this lack of response that most of us believe that creative engineers are a contradiction in terms (or at least that is what the left half of our brain is telling us)? Where did this reputation come from? Is it this reputation what causes people like Apple CEO Steve Jobs to encourage people to study liberal arts and humanities over technology and engineering?

People that actually know what engineers do will often say that creativity and innovation are necessary skills for the job in order to be able to provide solutions to unique problems on a daily basis. So why all the confusion? There was an interesting study done at two universities in Sweden (an engineering school and a business school) comparing entrepreneurial creativity among engineering and business students. One of the findings of the study was that both groups of students were highly creative. Engineering students tended to focus on finding creative solutions to existing problems through an incremental problem solving process whereas business students tended to focus on creating speculative and brand new ideas for existing markets. Engineers are not as "flashy" as Justin referred to in the previous blog post, but we are creative nonetheless. Perhaps, by focusing on problem solving creativity in lieu of speculative creativity, we are viewed as less creative than our counterparts. We, as engineers, can expand on our ability to think creatively through education. Study  a subject that helps you think more speculatively with new perspectives regarding the reasons why innovation is so important. I will go ahead and throw out my endorsement for going back to school to study business - you will not regret it.

I would also argue that engineers are creative and innovative, but are so within defined limits. This is a good thing; it helps protect the public safety and helps protect us from excessive liability. Maybe risk aversion is being confused with a lack of creativity? Engineers are typically seen as a conservative bunch, right? Risk aversion, taken too far, can surely stifle entrepreneurship and speculative innovation. This can be overcome by providing engineers with a work environment that encourages risk taking. How can we encourage risk taking? We'll tackle that subject in a future blog post.