Labeling:The Most Elusive Missing Basic of Engineering

David E. GoldbergIllinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, Illinois 61801 USAdeg@illinois.edu

Motivation

• When missing basics listed, people look at list and ask, “What do you mean by labeling?”

• Very important to learn names of components, subsystems & systems of technology.

• Important to assign labels to patterns in data or new systems.• Use and assignment of terms such a commonplace don’t even

notice.• Sometimes think that equations and numbers are the only

tech objects worth knowing.• Sensitivity to names and labels critical to becoming great

engineer.

Roadmap

• Socrates, Aristotle & all that.• Connection to Back of the Napkin.• Importance of learning tech names & how.• Senior design example.• Assigning labels: How & why.• Senior design revisited.• Made to Stick.• The construction of engineering reality.

Socrates and Dialectic

• Socrates was a pain in the neck.• Walked around Athens asking

everyone impossible questions.• Then proved their answers were

wrong, but rarely gave an answer himself.

• Nonetheless, Socrates’s method was useful.

• Conversation trying to probe what & how things really are (or might be).

Socrates (470-399 BCE)

Connection to the Napkin

• Six ways of seeing:– Objects: who & what?– Quantity: how many &

how much?– Position in space:

where?– Position in time: when?– Influence & cause:

how?– Purpose or meaning:

why?

Aristotle and Labeling/Categorization

• Called The Philosopher.• Amazing range & scope.• Created basic categories of

college curriculum.• Founded a school the Lyceum.• We have 1/3 his output (2000

pages in 30 books).• Categories (10): substance,

quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion. Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

Names & Labels

• Names as conventional terms used to identify something.

• Labels as tentative naming of phenomenon as part of crticial/creative process.

• Time + social acceptance: label name.• Consider

– Extant tech names.– Labeling of new/unknown phenomena.

Connection to the Napkin

• How does Dan Roam start?

• With a circle and a label or name.

• Back of the Napkin is as much about names/labels as about diagrams/pictures.

• Words and pictures are interrelated.

Where to Find Names of Tech Objects

• Books: New Way Things Work

• Encyclopedia: www.accessscience.com

• Web: www.howstuffworks.com

• Catalogs: www.grainger.com www.alliedelec.com

• Trade press: www.entertainmentengineering.com www.foodengineeringmag.com

• Thomas directory: www.thomasnet.com

Example from Senior Design

• Tortilla line.• Was using too much “dusting flour.”• Problem: expensive (flour price had risen),

maintenance, quality of product.• Students go to plant.• Don’t know the names of things, but need them

to explain process.

Mixer11

Flour Dusters12

Die Cutter13

Labeling

• Want terms that are – Descriptive– Memorable

• Why is this important?– Focuses attention on thing named.– Saves time in reference to the phenomenon.– Starting point for further modeling.– Permits easy social spread of the concept.

• Examples from news, politics & business. • List iFoundry terms and consider whether they are descriptive

and memorable.

Critical Examination of iFoundry Terms

• “Category creator” vs. “category enhancer”• “Missing basics”• “Cold war engineer”• “Missed revolutions”• Are they descriptive?• Do they have rhetorical intent beyond their

function? Approbation, opprobrium, or other values.

Abbreviations, Acronyms & Initialisms

• 3 terms:– Abbreviation: shortening of word or phrase.– Acronym: abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word.– Initialism: abbreviation formed from initial letters of words.

• Engineering uses abbreviations as shorthand for longer term.• Abbreviation: iFoundry (Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering

Education).• Acronym examples: SNAFU (situation normal all fouled up), BASIC (Beginner's

All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).• Initialism examples: Background, purpose, roadmap: BPR (background,

purpose, roadmap), CSL (Coordinated Science Laboratory). • Rules of usage: lower case for term unless it is a proper name.• Use of an abbreviation can signal an important label or local term of art.• Example: The missing basics (MBs) are important to an engineer’s education.

Return to Tortilla Problem

• Labeling as initial step in solution.

• Recall problem was too much dusting flour.

• What names might we assign to this problem?

A Model of Ideas that Stick

• Sticky: understandable, memorable & effective in changing thought or action.

• Made to Stick model:– Simple– Unexpected– Concrete– Credible– Emotional– Stories

• Forms acronym SUCCES.

The Construction of Engineering Reality• Engineers think of physics and material

world.• All engineered objects are social.• Searle’s, The Construction of Social

Reality (Free Press, 1995), explains. • Helps us understand social and

institutional facts, separate physics from the social.

• Engineered objects are always observer relative.

• Some engineered objects “institutional” in that we must believe they exist for them to exist: E-bay.

John R. Searle (b. 1932)

Summary

• Patron philosophers of questions and labeling.• Back of the Napkin connections.• Names versus labels.• Where can we get proper tech names?• Naming example from senior design: Tortilla plant.• Labeling as choice that is descriptive and memorable.• Examining iFoundry terms.• Tortilla example redux.• Made to Stick: How to make ideas even more memorable.• Engineering is more than physics.

Bottom Line

• Names and labeling are so commonplace in language, they’re hidden.

• Engineering school spends little time on the name of things. You should do otherwise.

• Labeling is a critical step in further inquiry.• Label may be enough of a model, or more modeling

may be necessary.• Either way knowing names and labeling phenomena

are first steps on road to better understanding and engineering.