Free Writing

Communicating, writing and presenting are all some of the most important things that people can do.  If you can not do this well then you cannot be a leader within your group or even be helpful as you can not get your main ideas across to the rest of the group.  As far as writing goes it is probably the hardest for most people because they might be able to explain everything through words or something like that but if they try to go through writing they cannot get the same detail as talking simply because they are not used to having to do it.  It is also hard in writing because you are never sure who is going to read what you are writing and because of that you have to explain everything that you are doing and can't use acronyms for anything or nick names as someone who is unfamiliar with the subject might have trouble understanding what you are trying to say.  Another thing with writing that presents a huge problem for engineers is that we, or at least I, hate trying to explain every little detail and want them to know the basics with out me having to say anything so that everything can move quicker and i don't have to do as much work.  The only problems is that most people don't know the basics about engineering and couldn't identify even the beginning of what we had to learn, which to us is so basic but to them it is so foreign.  Another huge challenge for us is that we are not the best public speakers, or presenters, but in order to become successful in life we have to make people believe in what we are saying and doing.  If we cant present anything then we will never get our great idea onto the shelves because we cant make anyone believe that it is a good idea.  We have to be able to sell it and not be scared.  Engineers also need to know how to present.  Most of the people we present to are not cared about the details of the latest invention.  They want to know how much it will cost, how much you can sell it for, and how much can they make.  They are interested in the money side, which is fair because they are paying you to deal with the technical details of the operation.  So if you are presenting to people like that then don't bore them with the technical stuff, get to the part they care about, cater to the people you are presenting to.  But what both of those things have in common is communication.  If you are not good at that then you will have alot of problems in life as you cannot get your main ideas across to people or teach someone how to use your device or sell it.  You have to be able to communicate what you are thinking, either verbally or written, to other people other wise your thoughts arnt very useful because no one else can understand you or knows what you are thinking.  And regardless of what your job is you will always have to deal with people and talk to them and make them at least deal with you in order to get promotions, pay raises, or even just keep your job.  Communication is the single biggest thing that someone can have because if you have that half of the battle of anything you are trying to do is over.  If you have good communication then you can go very far simply because even though someone else might have a better idea, they might not be able to put it on paper as well as you or sell it and therefore your idea will be accepted.  Communication is the single biggest downfall for most engineers as we tend to stick to our selves and just want everyone to know without having to say anything.  But if we can find a way to communicate that then we would be fine and could go far in life.