The envelope, please
By Bill Schweber, Executive Editor -- EDN, April 15, 2004
We're inundated with award ceremonies. The movie and music industries alone seem to have dozens, and many of them get live coverage on TV in addition to pre-event publicity and postevent news stories. And that's not surprising, given our celebrity-driven culture and corresponding media adulation, and there are those gowns to consider as well.
Our little corner of the world is different. Although we have awards for many science and engineering disciplines from a variety of sources, these awards garner little general attention, except for the six Nobel prizes; their hilarious complements, the Ignobels (www.ignobel.com); the Charles Stark Draper Prize in engineering and technology; and the Fields Medal for mathematics (www.mathunion.org/medals/). This lack of attention is a symptom of a society and culture in which glitz and glamour get more attention than substantial achievement, and what's easier and more fun for the media to cover?
A recent article looks at the phenomena of well-known versus lesser known awards and even cites a statistic from the International Congress for Distinguished Awards (www.icda.org) that committees each year give approximately 160 high-level awards with a collective value of nearly $40 million (Reference 1). Two-thirds of these awards are for humanitarian efforts, and the remainder is for scientific and technological achievements.
Do I wish that awards and prizes that we receive for our endeavors inspired greater excitement and received greater attention than they do, perhaps on par with the Oscars? Absolutely. Is it going to happen? Don't hold your breath—not in a world in which there are so many who are famous, who wish for their 15 minutes of fame, or who are famous for being famous.
But that lack of wide recognition is no reason to ignore the tangible achievements in the engineering community, and that's one of the many reasons for the EDN Innovation and Innovator of the Year program. Each year, we try to make sure that products and individuals who have accomplished something innovative in what is inherently an innovation-driven discipline get industrywide recognition among design engineers, vendors, and even competitors. This issue (pg 26) lists the winners and summarizes the awards presentation and event held March 29.
This year, we've added a new category, innovative start-ups, in addition to the 13 product-focused categories and the Innovator category. We've also changed the voting process that determines the winners. In addition to the important votes from readers, we've added votes from our technical editors and an independent advisory board. By using all three sets of voters, the winning selections more fairly represent perspectives and better assess significant innovation.
Whether or not you voted or agree with the outcome, looking over the winners does reinforce one strong point: Despite the ups and downs of our industry, a lot of innovation is occurring. Equally important, as EDN readers, you know that innovation doesn't just happen by applying money and meetings, that it is often unpredictable despite those ubiquitous "road maps," and that true innovation is the result of hard work by real people. Spreadsheets and program-evaluation-and-review-technique charts can't innovate.
Contact me at bschweber@edn.com.
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