ikeBlonder and pr

in praise of the press

The course in AppliedPhyschology that I attended back in 1935, taught us that the memory retention capabilities of the average human brain was no greater than about 5% of the inputted subject matter. If one were to use the same subject matter over and over again you might retain as much as 50%. If you pursue a career in a field where the knowledge content grows exponentally, such as electronic engineering, you find yourself in a mad chase trying to stuff more into the head than leaves naturally! One remedy that leaves your ego somewhat deflated, is to specialize more and more in a narrower and narrower field as time passes, so as to keep pace with your innate capabilities.
Of course individuals vary in their mental memories, as witness some of my students in engineering physics, who possessed the amazing ability to forget even their primitive grounding in high school math when confronted with a physics problem!

At one time, when my company was engaged in a man to man campaign to persuade schools to install master teacher video systems for obvious benefits to all (we didn't make a single sale!), the president of a major medical school gave us this kindly advice: Don't go to a doctor who has been out of school more than seven years, his education is obsolete! It seems that he was offering graduate catch up courses to his former students with no takers. Have I taken graduate courses to keep up with developments in RF engineering, or in the explosive field of digital electronics, or in management? No, no, a thousand times no! How about you? The same excuse, of course, no time, no convenient school at hand, and I can't spare the money. Besides, if you want a really upscale retort, "we all know that schools have obsolete equipment and are years behind the state of the art".

But you can't hold your job or advance your career on the basis of 5% of your college education. Does the research going on in your company keep you abreast of your competition? Not unless your name is Bell. How about the peripatetic salesman who come around with the latest semiconductors and whispers stories about how far ahead your competitors are by using his superior goods? Maybe you can hire away your competitor's chief engineer. Maybe, maybe, maybe, where to turn for knowledge? Never fear, the press is here!

Yes, the press is our savior, our mentor, our shining beacon in the darkness of obsolence, and at the right price.

First and foremost is the news of your own competitors. The ability of the reporters to invade every booth and confidental suite makes his report on the trade show a revelation to the most diligent showgoer, and gives the reader a marvelous overview of his industry. The reporters find tasty tidbits in every corner, and break the news on sales trends and technology leaps before the participants even recognize their own children. Secondly, the advertisements, in the usual excess of salesmenship, reveal their scientific strengths well in advance of the delivery date.

Not to everyone's taste, but absolutely invaluable to the scientist are the technical articles. Sometimes selected by peers, or invited papers by the editors, there is no better exposition of the state of the art than what is found in the pages of our press. The hours spent in studying the thoughts and acheivements of the country's best scientists are the most productive hours for the working engineer. The benefits to our country in products and productivity resulting from the information cornicopia of the press should exceed any like input from textbooks and the academic megopoly.

And the price is right. Many of the best publications are free to the trade, supported by advertisers. Some of the most technical are part of one's membership in societies. Even the magazines which are wholly supported by subscriptions, are positive bargains for the money. Once again, let us salute the press, our graduate school, for their unparralled acheivement in keeping us working engineers up to date and competitive in a painless and penny-pinching fashion.