Last week was exciting. I spent Monday and Tuesday at Bristol to meet other engineers (and scientists and sociologists) that ‘think in systems’. I was able to confirm that I, too, ‘think in systems’. This means that I zoom out and see the big picture of how bits of a project or team interact with other bits in unexpected ways. (example and again)

For various reasons, there were a couple of non-systems thinkers at some of the sessions and I could tell that they thought we were talking gobbledy gook and mumbo jumbo. I’ll admit, sometimes things get so zoomed out and abstract that things get almost mystical. To a typical engineer, we systems engineers are hippies.

One thing that stuck out in my head from the conference was that while trying to make conversation with an older (retired) engineer, he looked at me patronisingly and made fun of me for saying ‘isshoo’ (issue). I think he was implying the correct pronunciation is ‘issyoo’. Horrid person.