Willie Nelson getting ready to perform. Farm Aid 2009. Photo by Larry Philpot www.soundstagephotography.com On April 29 Willie had a birthday. “Maybe I didn’t love you- Quite as often as I could have” sings the just turned 80 year old legend, Willie Nelson, in his classic “You Were Always on …

“To create consists of making new combinations. … The most fertile will often be those formed of elements drawn from domains which are far apart.” Henri Poincarể In an environment where change is rapid, resources are relatively scarce customer demands are high, and the need for innovative thinking is critical. …

We use language to describe and understand our world. As we communicate with each other, we try to accurately depict what we are thinking. We report what we observe, what we infer from what we observe, and what we conclude about our inferences. Likewise we use language to learn from …

The second trap has to do with what constitutes a model. As we say on page 65 of Vitech’s Primer for Systems Engineering, “There are major advantages arising from using models as the basis of systems engineering. Models thoroughly consider the entire engineering problem, use a consistent language to describe …