Author: David Long

Don’t Lose Your Advantage

Systems engineers enjoy a decided advantage in the system design world. They are tasked (and trained) to see the entire design. It is the system engineer’s job to address the complete system solution. This means understanding the problem and the context as well as the design solution. That perspective advantages …

The Importance of the Engineer

In the summer of 1928 a young medical researcher left his London lab to go on holiday. He was studying the staphylococci bacilli that are responsible for a number of nasty infections including septicemia. As a part of his research he cultivated the bacteria in cultures grown in Petri dishes. …

Systemic Leadership

The system view is critical to understanding and managing any system. While this seems obvious to the point of triviality, it carries some subtleties for leaders that are not so obvious. Subtleties that are important to the effective management of systems. As a beginning point, it is appropriate to lift …

The Musician’s View

Every year at Christmas I am reminded of the systemic nature of music. Music is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I sing bass in several different choirs during the Christmas season and every year I get to sing the same parts in the basic repertoire of traditional Christmas …