bostonbubble.com

[Guest]

and in a way, this will also spill over onto the rest of the country but Boston, being one of the top R&D centers of the nation, will feel it earlier on...

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2007/id20070605_039465.htm

An excerpt:

[Guest]

How's having 40+% of MIT's graduates work in finance or management consulting suppose to help our R&D?

http://web.mit.edu/facts/graduation.html

BTW, wasn't there suppose to be a national shortage of engineers? If so, then why couldn't these vacant jobs steal our 'best and brightest' from pencil pushing careers?

[Guest]

Do we even need an MIT anymore?


http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_14/b4028055.htm


Even in Las Vegas, a city not known for understatement, the overhaul of the Tropicana Casino & Resort is grandiose. When the $2 billion face-lift is completed in 2010, the hotel will have more than 10,200 rooms, a new convention center and shopping mall, parking for 6,200 cars, and multiple pools. That's great for gamblers, but it's a big challenge for the architects putting all the pieces together. "It's like building three mega-resorts at once," says Jim Stapleton, vice-president of Cincinnati-based FRCH Design Worldwide, the lead architect on the project. Adding to the complexity, gaming tables and sections of the hotel will remain open through the renovation. Worse, it's happening at a time when U.S. architects are in short supply.


Time to call India. In a cramped office in Kolkata, some 8,000 miles from the Strip, dozens of Indian architects spend their days and often nights generating plans for the Tropicana. They work for Cadforce Inc., a Marina del Rey (Calif.) startup that is helping bring offshore outsourcing to yet another U.S. sector. All told, Cadforce has some 150 designers and computer technicians in India and 41 in the U.S. working on a new hospital in San Diego, private homes, fast-food joints, and more. "The tidal wave of interest has just begun in the last year," says Cadforce CEO Robert W. Vanech, a venture capitalist who founded the company in 2001.

[Guest]

In the article:

[john p]

The person stamping the Contract Documents for Permit needs to have supervised the Documentation. It has eroded to a point where people aren't even shy about announcing that they aren't doing their professional duty. Do you know we (Joe Public) still don't know who stamped the tunnel ceiling drawings? For all we know, that professional still has a license and is practicing here in Boston. Wouldn't it be ironic if that professional was involved in the inspection of the repairs? It could be possible? Do you know why the Globe or even our Politicians don't press on this? It is because they don't even have a fundamental knowledge of how professionalism operates in their society. They don't even understand how the professionals are supposed to be accountable. The greatest service our politicians, government and press could have done was making the business people pay who shut down the professional. Unfortunately, they don't even understand how it was suppose to work. They have lost the fundamentals needed to protect the society they are leading.

Two things will bring down this process: first cost. Short sightedness might save a bit on the design. When the project gets bid and the slew of questions come in, they will need some grown ups to align it with what's right. If the documents are a disaster, they will pay with change orders from the contractors. In many projects cost overruns can go 4 times plus the overall design fees so shaving a bit and then get ground and pounded during construction is the mistake of junior varsity, inexperienced people. The art of this nonsense is how people migrate in and out of projects and find a way to get promoted without doing anything and leaving behind a disaster. It is funny as a professional to work for clients that have a revolving set of managers that come in an out, make outrageous and ridiculous statements, set the projects on the worst course and then leave. The next manager comes in and trashes the last one and so on. It's kind of like the acquisition strategy of most "growing" corporations.

In our society, things regarding safety are supposed to have a circuit breaker, a professional who monitors things and raises a flag. This process did not work in the tunnel did it? The professionals also need to help educate their clients to keep them from going down the wrong path and make costly mistakes. If you look at a lighting fixture you will eventually find a "UL" Label on it. It has been tested for safety. We test sheetrock, fireproofing on beams, wind rating on windows, slip resistance on flooring, etc. Just as each element is tested and rated, so are the professionals. Imagine not having a UL rated fixture. It's like not having a registered professional. We are slipping into the standards of a 3rd World Nation. Actually worse, in many developing countries they adopt our codes, so it's a matter of enforcement.

We are in an era where the wrong type of people has gotten in power. Just as housing has fundamentals so too does professionalism. During the stock market bubble people were getting in way over their heads and got big jobs beyond any fundamental capability. We have Presidents not listening to the Military leaders. Suits telling the Military how to fight a war.

The most, absolute most annoying part of it is that I am a registered professional and have an MBA. The MBA was a cakewalk compared to the technical knowledge. Further, the business "presence" is different from the professional one. Professionals are very, very careful with their wording almost to a point where they don't seem confident. A business consultant makes you feel like they know everything even if they have absolutely no background in the subject i.e. Mitt Romney explaining how to fix the tunnel ceiling. Wording i.e. a site inspection is different than a site observation, as is a door with a closing device is different from a self closing door.... It is a professional’s duty to constantly explore and evaluate and work from the worst case scenario in. Even in the movie the Godfather in the last scene where the old retired Godfather is peppering his son with questions about what is surrounding him, and going over every detail. This is a professional. People that thump their chests and act cocky and pump themselves up and sell the sizzle are a joke. They are not professionals. They have no fundamental base for being where they are. In a strong industry or social fabric, the society should not elevate those that are not fundamentally grounded. Realtors are not a strong professional group, and when you look at the break down of any group of our society, it usually surrounds a morally or technically weak profession. So when the FED bases governmental policy on a shady real estate organization, we’re putting a lot of weight on what we architects call a “soft storey”.

The fine balance of promoting due diligence to an optimal point where it is affordable i.e. medical care are the challenges for the day. It is awful to see sleazy realtors making more money than many doctors that need to operate under much more strict professional guidelines. If professionalism dies in the United States through Enron’s, etc. we will end up being a fat bloated cow that will have to exploit others to survive. Our foreign policy will be the predatory acquisition business concept that digests good companies, and our end game will be war and more war.

[RL]

I know there's been a lot of bantering on the demise of America due to offshoring, however, isn't connecting MIT graduates' career preferences to the growth of mainland China a bit of a stretch?

[john p]

I rode up a ski lift with an MIT grad that was getting an MBA. He said he was doing it for one thing M.O.N.E.Y.

Show me the money, show me the money. Show me the money.

If MIT is the best of the best in engineering, why are their MBA students blowing them out of the water with respect to salary? The Sloan school isn't the top business program that school was built as an engineering center; the MBA is a side dish. I have an MBA, it was a snap, grammar school math, rudimentary logic, oh, and lots of PowerPoint. At times you had to learn how to hug things out.

MIT engineering is out there my friend. They are a cut above the rest, way, way above. If these brains, the best of the best, aren't being paid, it is a sign that our society doesn't value engineering. That is really, really bad. All the business folks that I hear bragging about how many billions they have under management are losers for the most part. They never earned a dime; they ate into others earnings and gambled on the success of others who do actually produce something. It is an important role, but not worthy of the rewards they dole out to each other. I see so much nepotism in the finance industry that it leads me to believe that any monkey could do most jobs, and why I can see the jobs going to bubbaville. If doctors misfired as much as some of the top tiered financial minds they wouldn't get malpractice coverage. The financial industry has become the biggest parasite on the world. What they reward themselves is way out of alignment with what they provide society.

Look at any problem we have ahead of us. Health care, disease, clean air, clean water, cancer, etc. It is going to take brain power to overcome these challenges. When the best of the best are not following their God-given gifts and are not being rewarded by our society, it makes the challenges much more difficult. Further, as the richest nation, we won't even be the leader in solving these problems.

There is something special about building something, solving something, creating something, manufacturing something. When people feel a sense of worth by mooching off of and exploiting others, the society is in decline. It's kind of like how rich people don't feel a need to pay any money or blood in this war. They are in the "Let them eat cake" delusion. It seems that China is cooking us like the frog in the hot water that turns to a slow boil. The MIT thing seems to be a "tell" sign, not so much the underlying reason, so in that respect you're right.

[MIT Guest]

[john p]

Do you honestly feel that business school was as rigorous as engineering school? How about med school?

MIT is an engineering school. Engineering is it's primary focus. It also has an MBA program, the fact that it is near or is number one is a sign that MIT's side dish is better than most's main entree. It's kind of like if General Electric made a car and it was quickly ranked as one of the top cars. It would point to the fact that the automobile industry was weak.

Nice of you to defend your alma mater though. A beaver ring used to mean something though, beavers made things...

[Guest]

I agree with the MIT guest on the academic/coursework caliber of the Sloan school, however, from the p.o.v of MBA cronyism, it's considered more a tech MBA than one geared towards the world of IB/MC like Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, or London Business (and it's nearby School of Economics). Historically, Sloan MBAs have sought management/leadership tracks at places like GE, Raytheon, BP-Amoco, etc over the likes of a Blackstone, UBS, or Goldman. More recently, however, that's changed towards the same goals as the others.

[john p]

Of course those old cronies are going to say that, what else are they going to say that these techies can outperform them in their spare time?

[MIT Guest]

[john p]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922161-1,00.html

[Guest]

[An LSE visitor]