The managing director of the Small to Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) was a tad upset. Every time he opened his favourite trade magazines, all he read were glowing stories about his competitors. There was never any mention of the award-winning products his company had designed.

So one evening over a few pints of cask-conditioned ale at the local Duck and Grouse, he broached the subject with his marketing manager, who proposed that the company develop a few case studies to showcase some of the many interesting products that it had developed over the years - stories which could then be submitted to the trade journals for publication.

Sadly, however, it appeared that no-one apart from the chief engineer at the company had the engineering wherewithal to pen such pieces. And the marketing manager made that known to the managing director in no uncertain terms.

So the next day, the chief engineer was duly summoned to the managing director’s office where he was politely asked if he might be able to write several thousand-word articles detailing the design of the company’s products.

At first, the engineer was reluctant to take on the role. He’d never been good at writing at school, which was one of the very reasons that he had chosen to study engineering. But worse, he also realised that since there would be no hours left in his busy work day to write, the task would have to be relegated to the weekend, eating into the precious time he spent with his family.

But the managing director was a persistent fellow, and each week he would hound the chief engineer to write the stories, until he finally bowed in under pressure and agreed to do just that.

Once tweaked by the marketing department to include the prerequisite number of superlatives, the case studies were eventually published, firmly establishing the company as one of the UK’s leading product developers.

Buoyed on by the success of the article placement scheme, the marketing manager suggested to the managing director that they might be able to increase the profile of the company further by asking the chief engineer to create a video ‘blog’ in which, each week, he could share his thoughts on product design to his design peers around the world.

Sadly, however, the scheme didn’t work out quite as the two men in suits had planned. Tired of having additional responsibilities shovelled on his shoulders, the chief engineer went on a series of video rants, railing about any number of subjects that took his fancy - most of which were completely irrelevant to product design.

While the chief engineer’s videos were unappreciated by the marketing manager and the managing director, his efforts did catch the attention of numerous folk in the entertainment world. So much so, that a group of TV producers hired him away from the company to host a new television show which, strangely enough, had the noble aim of encouraging young people to enter the rewarding field of engineering.
This comment was originally published in the Engineeringtalk Newsletter