Perhaps you socialize with more people in the public transportation industry than I do.  For you, discussing matters relating to public transportation may not be the #1 way to end a conversation at a cocktail party. For me, such attempts usually end with, “Oh, look!  Tom and Liz have arrived.  Excuse me!”

You do a great job of educating me on the issues that affect your market space. But let’s face it, these issues are not accessible to the general public.   I am always interested in how to communicate to the world the obscure issues you know about that affect all of us every day.  Like anything that has to do with infrastructure, it’s only provocative when it doesn’t work.  Since you do your jobs so well, it’s usually working, right?

In the case of highways, there are certain regions in which the system is generally considered “broken,” as defined by really bad traffic congestion.   Funny thing is, you in the industry can determine when any given system is likely to “break” and plan for it.  However, when the plan requires money, and funding options include toll roads or – gasp! – privatization, the public’s lack of understanding leads to an emotional uproar.

What is causing this unrest?  Is it a market that has not reached its threshold of pain or is it a lack of information?  Both?  Would communicating these matters in a more accessible, non-politically-motivated way be helpful?  These are questions which always interest me; can you tell me what you think?

What is your opinion of this video, produced by reason.tv and hosted by Drew Carey?  Do you think it is too one-sided to be effective?  Do you think it is successful in presenting its pro-privatization point of view?

I attended the ITS World Congress in Orlando several weeks ago to get up close and personal with an industry I’ve supported for several years.  I enjoyed the opportunity to see some familiar faces, got to connect other faces to names and voices, and absorbed a lot of information about the state of transportation technology.  As a special bonus, I got to see Ray LaHood deliver a pro-transportation infrastructure investment speech live and in person.  That was cool!

My observations lead me to believe that the market described by the term Intelligent Transportation Systems, once conjuring up images of laying cable, signal timing, traffic cameras, and variable message signs, now seems to be covering a lot more ground.  Examples like vehicle telematics, electronic tolling, traveler information services, probe data collection, parking management systems, and transit information services are just the tip of a very large iceberg.

If you’ve ever read previous blogs here or spoken to me directly, you might know that I am always interested in how to communicate the hidden world of what You do.  This is why I was amused when, in one breakout session at the conference, it was suggested that the ITS professions do a lousy job of touting their own accomplishments to the users who benefit from their expertise and technology. Yes!

• Traffic egress from the Big Game was flawless after the home team’s win! Was it just luck?

• You’ve saved 15 minutes each way in commute time since ORT was implemented on your route! This one is fairly obvious, I am thinking.

• You can change your travel plans effortlessly because your phone tells you about the traffic congestion coming up ahead! What can’t your phone do?

Does the end user know who or what to credit for this gift of time and fewer headaches?  Do consumers know what is meant by Intelligent Transportation Systems or ITS?  Would we all benefit from having an accessible term to embrace, one which clearly communicated the systems that make driving safer and easier?

With the advent of ubiquitous data, much of it captured wirelessly, the field itself is changing rapidly.  Why is it so important for people using these systems to know what the technology is all about?  Because consumers are the critical component to its success, not only through their willingness to adopt its usage, but by their understanding that they are actually — thanks to crowd-sourced data — part of the system.

It is important to get overt buy-in from the public (not hidden in EULAs tied to random, non-transportation-related apps), because taking information from users’ cars and phones in any way but an in-your-face opt-in manner will, at best, subvert interested participation.  At worst, it will cause roadblocks to the continued spread of efficiency-driving transportation technology.  If people know right off that a system collects their data and they understand why giving it permission to do so directly benefits them, the large majority will want to participate (of course, they should also be able to opt out).  The end result is that we could all get more bang for the buck from our transportation system.

Getting back to how to communicate this wave of technological innovation on the retail level, FHWA once used the term ‘Intellidrive’ to describe this wireless wonderland of connected vehicles and infrastructure, but the term was recently retired.  Because it never had to be adopted on the retail level, Joe or Jane Consumer probably never heard it mentioned or knew what it meant.  Now that all of those unassuming folks need to provide the data which helps the systems work, it seems reasonable to put some effort into creating an easily recognizable and comprehensible name to describe what is taking place, even if it muddles the technical and specialty domains of which only those in the industry are aware.

What would you call the new data-driven driving experience?

The scene:  It is a steamy day in this Bold New City of the South.  Our main character, a forty-something woman wearing bright, casual walking garb and wide-brimmed hat, is enjoying a tour of stately historic homes dotting the riverbank neighborhood of the city.  While pedestrians and bicyclists meander from home to home with tickets in hand, children sell lemonade on the corner and porch fans spin.  It is a scene frozen in time.

Our protagonist emerges from one “shoes-off-at-the-door-please” manse, and takes a seat on the spacious wraparound porch as she waits for the rest of her party to emerge from the home.  She ponders which truth she should embrace: She Lives in a Hovel, or She is Incapable of Such Self-Indulgence?

Taking a seat next to her is a heat-weary gentleman with a cane.  This nice, talkative fellow turns out to be the homeowner taking a break from his hosting duties, something he can do as he is blessed with a gracious horde of volunteers inside.  The niceties move past compliments of his home and the fine taste of his professional decorator wife to the topic of work.  A retired doctor, he travels the country speaking at engagements, which explains his facility for making new friends quickly.  “The key to connecting with people,” he tells his guest, “is to speak at their level.  You can’t elevate them to your level, but you can get down on their level to make them comfortable.”  This will enable them to “hear” you better, he tells her.

She raises her eyebrows and smiles politely.

“What do you do for work, my dear?” he asks.

“I am an executive recruiter in engineering and planning consultancy as it relates to transportation infrastructure such as airports, roads, rail, transit and ports,”  she responds.

He sits up attentively: “What do you think of this fast train they want to build down in South Florida?”

Her amusement that, in this part of the world, Tampa and Orlando are considered “South” Florida quickly dissipates as she struggles with how to respond to this question.  Recalling that Southern ladies do not generally talk politics with strangers, she smiles and responds:  “Of the proposed lines in the United States, the Tampa-Orlando project is the most shovel-ready. They could start building it today.”  She thinks this is a nice, neutral response.

“Do you think the government should have to pay for that?  Do you think we as taxpayers should have to pay for that?”  One hand on his knee, one waving in the air as he leans in, she can tell he won’t be settling for her compact answer.

No calculations are required to determine this gentleman’s position on the topic, so she chooses to answer the question by explaining why the anti-high-speed-rail camp’s position is weak.

“People who oppose this project are not opposed to building it; they merely think it should be a privately funded endeavor, operating for profit.  However, they are not measuring our current transportation network to the same standard.”

“The costs of our road system are widely distributed.  We fund the building of our roads through tax revenue and selling of bonds, the latter of which is debt our taxes pay over time.  This cost includes acquisition of the land for the roads.  We fund the significant operations and maintenance activities of this road system through annual budgeted tax dollars, including security and safety such as the Highway Patrol.  The drivers — you and I — pay for our own equipment and for the operation and maintenance of that equipment.  We also pay for gas, tolls, our own liability through insurance each of us is required to carry and any parking costs at our destination.”  She pauses for the grand finale:  “Add to this the cost of defending our interests in oil-producing regions of the world, and suddenly driving doesn’t really look so cheap.”

“Assuming that the equation on the roadway side is now complete, there is no reasonable way to expect a private operator to pay for its land, track, equipment, liability, operations, maintenance, fuel, staff and safety, then roll that into an individual ticket price and actually compete on a per-trip basis.  Why?  Because the driving public cannot add all of the ways it pays to drive on the same per-trip basis; it’s not an apples to apples comparison.”

Her point made, she slides up to the edge of her seat.  She can tell she has his attention.  “We are here today because we obviously appreciate beautiful things.  What we have to decide is whether we want to respond to a future requiring increased capacity by building 20-lane highways — and bearing the associated direct and non-direct costs of that decision — or provide a dependable and dignified alternative to travelers so that they develop habits that will mitigate a future overwhelmed by concrete and cars.  That future is not only unsightly, it will continue to deceptively bleed each of us of our hard-earned cash.  From a long-term perspective, we are painting ourselves into a very expensive and ugly corner by not grabbing the opportunity to build this project.”

Silence falls.  He looks at her and squints, “You’re good, very good.”

He turns to her fellow tour-goers, who meandered into the scene as it unfolded, points to our heroine and says, “She’s good.”

They nod.

Curtain closes.

~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~

Ten years ago, I was often tasked with search assignments that required identifying a “rainmaker.”  A practice may have been thriving, struggling, or just starting up, but the need for investment was always crystal clear:  Someone had to be there to “own” the sales funnel.

Interestingly, I seldom hear this term any longer.  “Rainmaker” seems to have exited the consulting lexicon.  In fact, it makes me bristle to just hear it, let alone use it.

If you aren’t in the agriculture business or involved in ancient Indian rituals, a “rainmaker” is defined as an executive who is very successful at bringing business to his or her firm. Doors open for individuals like this.  They have established and cherished relationships with the client base, and are respected figures within the business communities they serve.

Relationships always matter, but was a rainmaker cultivating them or capitalizing on them?  Were  these capable folks truly making rain or catching it skillfully?  In a world where the demand for their services far outstripped the available supply, part of the challenge was picking the right battles — i.e. knowing where to be and when.   Just the image of rain says it all:  It happens quickly, sometimes torrentially, and then it makes things grow.  If you’re efficient and resourceful, you want to make sure you’re directly underneath the storm.

Lately, the landscape has not been abundantly lush.  Your firm may be having success, but you certainly aren’t hubristic about it.  The term “rainmaker”  implies a brash confidence.  If you were a “rainmaker” ten years ago, you operate very differently today.

As firms begin to recover from the drought of the last few years, I see new, strategic hiring in key roles with business development responsibilities.  However, never is the term “rainmaker” invoked.  Firms are no longer looking at the work being let around them and thinking “we need to hire someone to bring some of that our way” because the market is not in that stage of abundance.  Instead, someone’s business development acumen is measured by his or her ability to plan, position and nurture while ensuring that everyone in the organization gets involved with the action.  If executed successfully, there will be a harvest and food on the table.

We are now all farmers.

Upon first understanding the gravity of the STEM shortage and what it means to the civil engineering industry, I wondered why other countries produced so many students interested in studying engineering in the U.S. After an informal survey and some anecdotal discussions, I came to the conclusion that the supply issue has a lot to do with demand – that is, the demand of young people in the U.S. for what we have taught them to value: the glamour of obscene internet riches, Wall Street largess, professional sports paychecks, and superstardom of the Hollywood and reality-TV variety.

In other nations, students might know the names of top engineers.  These individuals are held in high esteem in their communities, regionally and sometimes nationally.  They are celebrated in the press, by politicians and by the education systems for what they do, not how much they earn or their propensity to “live large.”

Can we influence today’s youth to value engineers and the many contributions of civil engineering in this way?  We have a celebrity obsessed culture, so maybe, with an audaciously creative outreach plan – coordinated with school systems everywhere – we can at least create awe and wonder about our achievements and innovations.

How about a travelling tour of engineering wonders, coming to your city’s grand auditorium or convention center where engaging, playful engineer-educators with amazing props offer hands-on demonstrations to our little sponges about why a cable stayed bridge doesn’t collapse or wash away, how high-speed trains stay on the tracks or how we decide where to build a road and why?  Is this too ambitious?   Then what about a video series of demonstrations by a team of appointed discipline-specific gurus (who the kids will follow through years of instruction), accompanied by classroom models and lesson plans?  (More scalable, but perhaps less compelling?)  Your ideas?

Is there anyone in the industry brainstorming this stuff, and is there anyone willing to fund it? (*see postscript)

Coming down to the ground, and with all seriousness, I suggest that at the very least, let’s stop enabling a society that takes everything you do for granted!  Every lower elementary school-aged child should:

• visit a water or sewage treatment plant (what an eye opener!),
• receive lessons on their state’s most complex public works/infrastructure project of the current generation, preferably inclusive of a field trip guided by an engineer-educator, and
• witness in-school demonstrations of the engineering disciplines which touch their lives on a daily basis – civil, mechanical, electrical – so they understand exactly how these skills are applicable to the world around them.

Once we open the children’s eyes to the wonders of engineering that affect them every day, and celebrate those among us who are responsible for our infrastructure marvels, the children will choose to emulate.

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Post Script:  Thanks to Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP for identifying this great event in NY, which led to the discovery of the American Society for Engineering Education;  Also Many Thanks to Ben Matthews, P.E. who has shared information on efforts spearheaded by The Society for American Military Engineers (SAME). If your orgnization is involved in K-12 outreach, please offer details here! Thanks ~

At the time, I remember thinking that constantly looking for your next gig sounded like an exhausting way to make a living.  What about benefits?  Career Development?  Was this really a good thing?

What happened?  Well, in A/E, the closest we’ve come to the scenario above is outsourcing, and that happens pretty rarely in our market space.  I’d say that other industries are better suited to utilizing outsourcing for their benefit.

This doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a change in the A/E consultant’s employment paradigm; The change has certainly occurred.   But unlike the scenario painted above, this change has been employee-driven.

Our industry generally hires talent for specific types of projects, with the inherent promise that we have a machine in place to continue to “feed” the employees as key projects pass.  While an individual performs a functional (technical) role, they are simultaneously gleaning skills in maneuvering the team, office, organization and market as a whole.   Functional skills and organizational skills represent two different axes on the career development chart.

As organizations have become flatter, and “corporate ladders” have shed rungs, employees have adapted the way that we perceive our careers.  Employment tenures are shorter, as in the contract-for-hire scenario, but professionals’ demand for diversified experiences is what is driving it.  We now look at each axis to find potential growth opportunity.

For example, Mike can bring his function skills – Highway-centric NEPA Planning — to a new employer where he will apply his expertise to passenger rail corridors.  The resulting experience serves to grow Mike’s functional domain.  Karen can move on to hold the same function in another organization – that of Manager of Traffic Engineering – yet fulfill an additional organization role of business development lead, an organizational role which was very competently covered within her last employer’s operation by someone else.

Career paths are now plotted in this fashion:  Employees set long term goals and look for a mix of experiences which add to the figurative toolbox necessary to achieve the goal(s).  Often, this means making the choice to change employers at each juncture, rather than wait out the inertia of a functioning organization which has no need to shake things up.

The fact is, companies don’t have the infrastructure they used to…the ladder is often very short (and broad), and you can’t ascend it in a direct fashion.  So, professionals have adapted.  No longer is your career defined by a ladder of increasing responsibility as you “climb” the corporate hierarchy, with an ever increasing technical or organizational domain in your purview.

Your value today, and your ability to contribute to any organization, is better defined by the parts in your greater body of work.   If we’ve ever spoken, you know I call this your professional toolbox, and in it you hold skills developed while fulfilling a number of different — often lateral — roles that are technical, organizational, and sales related.   Your objective in this modern-day game of life is to collect the right tools to provide you the foundation to reach your professional goal.

Often, the acquisition of these tools will require you to change companies and jobs.   From my view, this is the extent of “contract work” in the A/E consulting marketplace…where YOU, the employee, is in the driver seat.

The producers of this video, engineers themselves, analyze cat ownership and care with hilarious results.

“If it’s too easy to get, it’s not worth getting.”

The context in which I utter this phrase has changed over the years.  Five plus years ago, it was typically in the context of counseling a candidate not to buckle under pressure of an offer that came out fast and furious, before my client had the chance to fully qualify and get to know them.

As a recruiter, I am supposed to like firms which offer jobs to candidates at the speed of light (such as at the end of an interview – it happened!).  However, this modus operandi always made me feel uncomfortable and distrusting.   There are so many angles to making the right hire, it’s impossible for each party to evaluate each other in a single interaction.   “A careful employer should understand that thoughtful candidates know this intrinsically,” I would say to myself.  With a tag line such as “candidate + culture” I consider evaluating the “fit” to be an art form.  I therefore counseled employers to be swift, yet prudent, in their pursuit of talent.

Today, I really don’t have to worry about shotgun offers so much.  (Those of you who know what a supreme understatement this is are chuckling at this moment.)  I do, however, continue to counsel EMPLOYERS that nothing worth getting is had easily.

It is easy to blow off the nuances and niceties of the recruiting process when our perception is that we are offering a “primo” job in a soft market.  The flip side of this scenario is that “primo” candidates aren’t going to leave their comfy employment situations to accept just any offer.  They are raising the bar on New Opportunity because it now means having to leave the security of established relationships, selling a home, or some other circle of hell as defined by the Great Recession.

In response to healthy candidate skepticism, the right thing to do is to continue to roll out the red carpet because getting the best talent is still hard work (“If it’s too easy to get, it’s not worth getting”), BUT this is not a one-way street.  This adage still very much applies to the CANDIDATES as well.

The meaning this phrase conveys in today’s context is to empower your candidates in the interview process.  Give them the basic tools they might need to prepare, and see what they do with them.  Advise them in advance of the agenda, who they will meet, and a line or two about each person, and generally what to expect in the meeting.  Throw in a thoughtful topic if you dare.  Do you have some talking points you want them to prepare on a certain topic?  Perhaps you’d like to see a short presentation on their crowning achievements, technically or professionally?

Some of you might think this is prepping the candidate too much, but you’re not telling them what you’re looking for from them; you’re just allowing them to put more thought into how they’ll use the basic information you’ve shared.

Give slightly worried or reticent candidates enough information so that they can “own” the meeting, and see what they do with it.  It is my observation that the more a candidate has invested in preparation for a meeting, the more likely it is that s/he will accept an offer should it be forthcoming.  This is because they actually did something to earn it.

Which reminds me of another adage….The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Who would have ever thought that April 20th’s tragic accident on the Deepwater Horizon would result in a months-long continuous flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? When I wrote down my initial thoughts, the breech at the bottom of the Gulf was an absolute catastrophe in my mind, but no one else seemed to be paying much mind. I’ve lived near and played in the Gulf of Mexico; It’s one of my favorite places on earth. The damage this spill has and will cause is devastating to me personally on so many levels.

Perhaps our lawmakers “get” that, which is why it seems they are taking this disaster as an opportunity to underscore a clean energy policy push (remember, energy production is the #1 producer of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation is #2). The administration is no longer pressured to capitulate to drilling offshore to achieve a “climate change” bill, since there is no one who would be bold enough to push an offshore drilling platform in this context. Also, please note, I doubt you will hear the vernacular “climate change” associated with this effort any longer. It’s going to be “clean energy” all the way.

This still doesn’t tell me exactly what is going to happen with transportation re-authorization, but it bodes well for more sustainable policies. As long as we get there fast enough. Will we?

In tying these two issues, new policy initiatives to be introduced include replacing the funding source for the Highway Trust Fund (whether that be a VMT or other plan) and a change in how the HTF is allocated, moving toward performance based transportation-methodology.

In order to get traction for a Climate Change Bill, a major concession was made in lifting the ban on domestic drilling in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Ironically, as we witness an environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, it is exactly this concession which will torpedo the Climate Change Bill.

So now what happens to efforts to “green-up” transportation funding policies in the next Transportation Re-authorization? Are the two pieces of legislation inextricably linked? Will necessary reform in funding and allocating the HTF be more difficult to achieve? How? Why? How long can we keep a band-aid on our transportation funding problems?

I am not asking these questions for my health – I am asking these questions because I think you have a good handle on this subject matter, so please prognosticate!

6/16/2010 UPDATE:

Who would have ever thought that this tragic accident would result in a months-long continuous flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? When I wrote down my thoughts above, the breech at the bottom of the Gulf was an absolute catastrophe in my mind. I’ve lived near and played in the Gulf of Mexico; It’s one of my favorite places on earth. The damage this spill has and will cause is devastating to me personally on so many levels.

Perhaps our lawmakers “get” that, which is why it seems they are taking this disaster as an opportunity to underscore a clean energy policy push (remember, energy production is the #1 producer of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation is #2). The administration is no longer pressured to capitulate to drilling offshore to achieve a climate change bill, since there is no one who would be bold enough to push an offshore drilling platform in this context. Also, please note, I doubt you will hear the vernacular “climate change” associated with this effort any longer. It’s going to be “clean energy” all the way.

This still doesn’t tell me exactly what is going to happen with transportation, but it bodes well for more sustainable policies. As long as we get there fast enough. Will we?