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The painting above, by John Gast, dates from 1872. Here Colombia, a personification of the United States, leads civilization westward with American settlers.  She holds a school book and she is stringing telegraph wire as she sweeps west.  The different stages of the pioneers are highlighted and, especially, the changing forms of transportation. Native Americans and animals flee in terror.  Note that Colombia is bringing light, as witnessed on the eastern side of the painting as she travels towards the darkened westward side.

(The text is adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny.  The photo of the painting is from http://japanfocus.org/-Bruce-Cumings/3687.  The image of the dancer is a frame captured from an Apple ipod video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwq12bL_GPQ.)

This afternoon some of us here at Dordt had a spirited discussion of the advantages of Groupwise’s calendar feature.  Clearly, many of us love it, but for some of us it is more of a love/hate relationship.

Groupwise Calendar is software that allows you to post your work schedule in a way that is useful to others in your organization.  One of the most popular features of the software is something called “busy search.”  This allows anyone who has appropriate permissions to discover when you are not scheduled. There are many other software packages that compete, Microsoft Outlook for one example.  What I’m writing about here applies equally to any of them since it is not the software that I have a problem with but rather our attitudes to this type of software.  This type of software is “Enterprise Management” software. (Well, not a very extensive example, but it fits some of the multiple definitions of Enterprise Management Software.)  Groupwise offers advantages and disadvantages to it’s users that are characteristic of all “Enterprise Management” software.  The “Calendar” feature in Groupwise simply gives me one concrete example from which to discuss this matter.

I have no objections to using Groupwise Calendar, but I do object to the kind of faith in technology that the software seems to inspire.  This misplaced faith leads to unnecessary frustration with people who, from the prospective of a one user of the software, think that others are not using the software properly and thus make it difficult for everyone.  “If only so-and-so would keep this-or-that up to date.”  And so forth.  It is a practical impossiblity for everyone to keep every feature of such software up-to-date with respect to everyone’s potential expectations.  It would be a ball-and-chain on productivity if everyone even attempted this.  It would also be bad if everyone dismissed the software on grounds of it being needlessly complex and tedious, because if used correctly it should not be that way.  In fact there is no single “proper” way for “everyone” to use this type of software. 

“Busy search” purportedly allows the person setting up a meeting to choose a non-conflicting time for the meeting.  I say “purportedly” because the software is only an assistant in this task and not necessarily an effective one at that.  For obvious reasons of confidentiality, Groupwise’s calendar cannot actually show the calender of one person to another person.  Instead it shows times when something is scheduled—when people are “busy.” (Do you suppose they are not busy at other times?)  The “not busy” times are then prime times for scheduling new meetings or activities.

For one example of how frustration arises, suppose that on Friday morning “Joe” wants to schedule a meeting of six people.  He uses “busy search” and finds out that 8 AM on Monday is free for everyone on his list.  He then sends out a notice that is essentially a special form of e-mail announcing the mechanical details of the meeting (when, where, who, what) and asking the recipient to “Accept” or “Decline” the meeting.  The form e-mail also allows Joe to add a description of the meeting in text.  On Monday at 8 AM he comes back to find out that “Jane,” who he expected to be at the meeting, is out-of-town on a conference and has not even looked at her Groupwise Calendar.  Joe gets frustrated with “Jane” for not putting the conference on her Groupwise Calendar in the first place and for not keeping up with her messages in the second place.  When Jane finds out about this she gets frustrated with “Joe” since “Everyone Knows that the Big Conference is held at this time.”  She also wonders why should she be expected to keep up with that calendar program when she is fully committed elsewhere and most of her contacts cannot use it (because let’s say, they don’t and should not have the permissions to use it)?

Or frustration could work another way around.  Suppose when Jane wants to schedule a meeting and does a “busy search” she finds out that there are conflicts beyond the entire next week and she therefore schedules the meeting for 10 days from now to avoid the conflicts.  Later on she finds out that “Joe” had blocked out 3 hours on Monday morning for an “Appointment with Dr. Suess.” which is his code to schedule some undisturbed time in the office.  Had Joe only known of Jane’s need for an early meeting date he would have gladly rescheduled his “Appointment with Dr. Suess.”

In each case, the software was not effective at negotiating expectations and priorities.  That’s the main problem with all Enterprise Management software.  It’s great at handling the widely-understood expectations of routine business within an organization.  This is where it shines and should be used.  But it enforces a silly kind of prioritization whenever things are not so universally understood or routine.  There are times when something ad-hoc works better or even much better.

In the examples above when Joe and Jane were scheduling meetings each of them had key opportunities to bypass the “system” and get immediate results.  For example, when on Friday morning Joe scheduled the meeting, by Friday afternoon he should have realized that Jane did not accept the appointment.  Then he should have resorted to other means, such as a phone call to Jane or Jane’s secretary, etc.  He had faith that Groupwise would take care of something he should have been working at.  Likewise when Jane could not find a good meeting time, she should not have trusted Groupwise and given up on a timely meeting schedule.  She should have called or talked to people to find out what was really going on.  OK, we all see that!  So if Joe and Jane were not so smart, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that all of us have a bit of Joe and Jane’s DNA!  We really do get frustrated when we think someone is not correctly using the Groupwise Calendar program (or any enterprise management type program).  We shouldn’t.  Life functions as a complicated whole.  No computer program is ever going to sort out all our priorties and take away the tedium of scheduling (or anything creative).  That’s because the act of scheduling is an act of bugeting time and setting priorities.  It is not always a mechanical matter.

So yes, in some offices and situations, those where mutual expectations are widely understood and there is some basic routine, a program like Groupwise Calendar will often be an effective assistant.  But even in this situation, there will be times when Groupwise by itself will be inadequate.  Especially when, in a larger organization where Groupwise is effective within a department or division, assuming that it will work as effectively in some other context within the organization is risky.

Thus we should reduce our expectations of “Enterprise Management” software like Groupwise Calendar, especially when we are doing something new that crosses boundaries (departmental, divisional) or that is not routine.  If new patterns or activities become routine we will find ways to apply software to make the work flow more efficiently.  But the software is only a mediator of social structures and priorities that are established by people.  Enterprise management software is no savior.

Every college, country, city, company, church and so forth has some jargon that goes with it.  There are some words or phrases that have some special local connotations or importance.  “Everyone” knows about Times Square (pictured above).  “Times Square” is jargon for, “the area around the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue in New York.”  That was easy to explain!

Here at Dordt College for some reason most of our jargon has to do with theology, and it is not so easy to explain.  Some of the jargon at Dordt includes phrases such as, “cultural mandate,” “serviceable insight,” and “creation—fall—redemption.”  A phrase on the ascendancy lately at Dordt is, “every square inch.”  Of course these phrases, now overused, get used too lightly sometimes.   After a while, maybe I even get sick of hearing such jargon.  But let me take it seriously for a moment and show why these phrases have become part of the jargon here at Dordt College, and what this means for me, an engineer.

So here’s the origin of one of our bits of jargon, a quotation from Abraham Kuyper:  “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”*

I love that picture of Times Square above.  It makes it easy to see that no, “single piece of our mental world” can be “sealed off.”  The thought of Times Square brings to mind a whole raft of other thoughts with no logical connections between them.  What does the photo above bring to mind for you?  I am reminded of hamburgers, the Beatles and Abby Road, the subway, light-emitting diodes (as what make the billboards glow), potholes in the road, chicken (red and white stripes, trademark of KFC), stop-and-go-traffic, Friday’s (more red and white strips), New Year’s eve, newspapers, etc.  And that huge variety of all things created (by God or man) all belongs to God.   And it is all supposed to glorify God.  This is the world we do our engineering in.

So the first thing about an Engineering Approach to “Every Square Inch” is that it all (and “all” is a huge variety of everything) belongs to God and is supposed to glorify God.

A second thing is that this variety of all that exists stands in a historical continuum.   God created it all and initially the creation was all good.  Then Adam and Eve sinned and the creation (all of it) now suffers from sin.  Christ offers salvation and he will return to redeem (or restore to goodness) all of creation.  This is the over-arching theme of the Bible, and we summarize it with the jargon-phrase, “Creation—fall—redemption.”  My engineering work is done in the context of this theme, or at least that is what I strive for.  Thus, the fruit of our engineering work belongs to God, is to glorify God, and should in some sense restore the creation closer to goodness.  Being human and sinful, we cannot, by ourselves, bring about true goodness, but that is what we should be doing.  But we can’t do it because we are sinful.  What a mess!  My engineering work ends up just like the jumble of stuff, good and bad, you see around Times Square—or maybe worse.

From the beginning—from creation—God intended for us to develop the world.  That’s the “cultural mandate.”  Think of all that stuff in Times Square.  Or just think about the stuff immediately around you.  That’s a lot of engineered stuff.  (The fabric of your clothing, the building you are in, the electricity used to read this blog or charge your laptop’s battery, etc—lots of stuff, all engineered.)  All that stuff started out as just dirt or water or air.  Then the ore was mined from the dirt, refined, and eventually engineered into stuff.  Lots of stuff.  Lots of engineering—and manufacturing and marketing, etc.  Engineering work is not the only aspect of the cultural mandate, but it is one of them.  And because we are sinners, we can’t get the engineering just right.  It is all tainted by our sinfulness.

Christians believe that a relationship with Christ, founded on the Bible, and with respect for the knowledge of God that nature reveals (Psalm 19, Acts 14:17, Romans 1:20), helps to direct our lives (and thus the fruit of our work) toward goodness.  We believe that the creation has within it the potential for development, and that we are supposed to be developing it.  In this development, we are subject also to limitations imposed on us.  We call these limitations “laws of nature.”  But in other aspects, we are given freedom to glorify God or not.  (What glory to God could there be if there was no freedom?)

So for example I’m free in some sense to drive at 120 MPH on the interstate.  But I cannot make the car fly no matter how fast I go due to the shape of the car and generally, the laws of nature.  Although I might drive at 120 MPH, if I crash at that speed we all know that I cannot avoid the consequences.   So there are “laws of nature” (which are really theories made by people about the way God’s creation acts) and there are “normative laws.”  Normative laws are those rules or ideas we have in which we have choice.  I don’t have to love my wife.  That a husband should love his wife is a normative law (a theory made by people about the way we should act).  It is through our faith-beliefs that we come to postulate normative laws for ourselves and expectations for others.  These normative laws then motivate certain actions.  These actions cause cultural development.  This process of discovering and forming normative laws is always, for any person, deeply rooted in faith.  That is because normative laws cannot be proven.  You can argue about them, and certain denominations and religions try to codify them, but you cannot prove to anyone that one of these normative laws is “right.”

The law-structure (natural and normative laws) of the creation has been described in great detail by Protestant Calvinistic philosophers.  Kuyper sees the laws as the boundary between God and creation (including us).  God is above the law, the creator.  The creation is under the law.  Since we (and the whole creation) exist to glorify God, meaning and a sense of fulfillment and purpose in our lives come from understanding God (as best we can), his creation, and the laws (natural and normative, as best we can).

A “modality structure” has been proposed to help us think about the law-character of creation.  The fifteen modal aspects are in an ordered list.

Faith
Love
Juridical
Aesthetic
Economic
Social
Lingual
Historical
Logical
Psychic (feelings)
Biotic
Physical
Kinematic (motion)
Spatial
Numerical

Each aspect in the list above depends upon and builds upon the aspects below it.  Upon consideration, you will realize that the higher aspects have associated with them mainly normative laws whereas the lower aspects, mainly natural laws.  (The last six are especially strongly associated with natural laws.) 

Kuyper proposed that all objects (and plants, animals, and people) in the world respond in all aspects.  But every object has leading functions and object functions.  For example, a car is for transportation.  It has a kinematic object function.  But, some cars might make me more noticeable than others.  A fancy or special car might help me meet people.  After all, why do I need transportation?  So the car has a social leading function.  (Social–that’s one of the modal aspects.)

Thus for an engineer, Kuyper’s theories, and similar neo-calvinist theories, form an organizational structure for thought and design which gives meaning, purpose, and fulfillment to our work.

Well, that’s the short and dirty of a big topic.  There are many different names for the modal aspects and other variations of the language regarding this world-view.  But my faith which has lead me to this Christian worldview is the primary reason that I’m at Dordt.  To study this and become a better engineer—an engineer who’s work and life give praise to God.

Interestingly, if you compare Dordt’s engineering curriculum to that of a state university, you will find much more emphasis on the lower modal aspects in the engineering curriculum at state universities.   Those aspects are less controversial since they are dominated by the natural laws.  But, if the neo-calvinists are right—if everything functions in all aspects—then an engineering education at a state university is lopsided in its heavy emphasis on natural laws.  It only takes a little taste of real life to understand that having a certain design that “works” in the sense of consistency with natural laws is not good enough.  An engineer also has to engender the confidence of others in order to get the design into production and into the world.  Engineering is a multifaceted task.

So in summary, good engineering work needs to consider “every square inch.”  The modal aspects provide one possible organizational motif for considering “every square inch.”  It has worked for me in the sense that it helps me evaluate the goodness or quality of an engineering design.  Designs that seem to follow normative laws in each aspect provide me with a sense of having done something worthwhile, something that the Lord would find pleasing.  Without striving to please the Lord in my engineering work, that work would become just. . . work.  With this perspective, my engineering activity becomes an extension of worship, a expression of my love of for the Lord that also gives me a sense of fulfilment.   

*Kuyper, Abraham (1998). “Sphere Sovereignty”. in Bratt, James D.. Abraham Kuyper, A Centennial Reader. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. pp. 488

**Photo of Times Square from Stock.xchng

Henry Petroski has a new book out, titled The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems.  One of the themes in the book is that scientists are interested in understanding—that is, knowing things about—nature. In contrast, engineers are interested in creatively doing things in new ways. It is commonly held by many people that engineering is an applied science, but Petroski disagrees. He writes that science does not, “precede engineering in the creative process.” Without doing engineering, scientists would not have the tools and instruments necessary for their work. I fully agree with this perspective.

Today I was reviewing some material that I will use in Dordt’s EGR 104 Introduction to Engineering Design class in a few weeks and was again reminded of the central theme of Petroski’s new book.  The material I was reviewing was a clip from the PBS program, “Nova: Science Now” on the topic of fuel-cell powered automobiles.  This clip is really about engineering, but as seems to be the typical stereotype, it is described in the clip as, “science.” Even the title of the program would lead you to believe that this is all about science, when really it is all about engineering. Maybe you say that the science is foundational. After all, without the knowledge of chemistry, where would we be with fuel cell technology? True, engineers need to know science, but false, science is not foundational.  Without engineering—without a desire to creatively reduce pollution with a new fuel—who would think about designing a fuel cell? Science is important, but it does not deserve to be seen as foundational to engineering.

Here is another example.  Many people think of the 1969 lunar landing as a triumph of science.  For example, a web site called interestingly enough, Science Monster, offers a lunar lander game.  I judge that most people would say this game is related to science.  But, planning for a lunar landing, designing the spacecraft, and operating the spacecraft were all activities performed primarily by engineers.  To wit, Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, is an engineer.

Consider heart disease research. Is that science? Yes, partly. It is also engineering, maybe mainly engineering. There is even a branch of engineering called biomedical engineering. Is the inventor of the heart pacemaker a scientist? No, Earl Bakken is an engineer.

If you wonder what it is about being an engineer that excites me, it is planning for and doing things that solve technical problems and help people!

Engineering at its core is about creativity and design.  The joy of a completed project is really amazing.  When the electric car project successfully rolled out of the shop on May 6, for the first time fully on electric power, the students on that project started whooping it up, running around, and even jumping for joy.  My students “saw that it was good.”  I wished I had a camera with me to record that exuberant moment but I did not.  Instead, I’ve tried to convey the joy of success at an engineering project via the stock photo above.  (From http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1033778 )

Many times have I talked to someone, usually a parent or teacher, who tells me of a young person who is, “really really good at math and science,” and recommends that this person would make a good engineer. This is a typical stereotype of engineering—that engineering is all about math and science.  Some engineering colleges are even located in the “Math and Applied Science Building” or “Math and Applied Science Division.”  That’s a really superficial view of Engineering.  Talent in math and science helps, but that’s not the whole story.  Sometimes students who have average talents at math and science do really well at engineering because they are creative.

Let me get back to that feeling of joy upon completion of a project. . . (I want to successfully finish another project!)  This joy in creativity is part of our humanity.  We are created in God’s image and God is a creative God.  Our creativity is a reflection of God’s creativity.

But there’s more.  God’s creativity is rooted in His love.  In the Genesis creation story each day ends with, “and God saw that it was good.”  At the end of Genesis 1, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”  That sounds to me like a kind of love for all of creation.  We are part of God’s creation.  When we glorify Him in our lives, God is also joyful.  The origin of true joy is God.  The joy of creatively solving technical problems is what good engineering is really about.

Engineering—it provides a way to do your best dreams.

Postscript:

*The slogan, “Engineering: because dreams need doing,” is proposed by the National Academy of Engineering.  Other proposed slogans are:

“A limitless imagination”

“An enterprising spirit”

“Free to explore”

“Ideas in action”

“Shape the future”

“Life takes engineering”

(Reference: Committee on Public Understanding of Engineering Messages, National Academy of Engineering, Changing the Conversation:Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering, Published by the National Academies Press, 2008, available: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12187)