Calendar of Events

Turn Your Ideas Into Gold - A Guide to Intellectual Property

Having your ideas stolen is a bad thing; being sued is even worse.  Intellectual Property can account for 1/3 or more of your company’s value. Cash in on assets you may not even recognize, and avoid costly litigation.

In this fast-moving program, you will learn the three steps of protecting your intellectual property, and how these steps create value for your business. Through real-life examples, the program addresses the main issues that innovators must know to protect their creations.

Learning Objectives:

1. The 5 Pillars of IP Value
2. How to protect your ideas, innovations, and brand from theft
3. How to avoid being sued, or worse yet, put out of business
4. How to create an inventory of your most valuable IP assets
5. A simple system to recognize, prioritize and maximize business value

Engineering Ethics – Canon IV – Fidelity to Employers/Clients

A panel composed of David Kish, Jeff Greenfield, and Rebecca Bowman, NSPE Sr. Director for Ethics and Professional Practice and NAFE Executive Director will consider duties to employers and clients, and circumstances under which those duties can be pre-empted by higher duties, especially to the public health, safety, and welfare.

Engineering Leadership Success by Design

The main focus of the webinar would be to ensure engineers understand the need to/how to grow from being individually focused technical experts to people and relationship focused collaborators if they are to progress in their careers. Differentiating themselves as leaders as they progress in their careers will require less of an analytical/engineering mindset and more of a focus on the soft skills of leadership and the application of basic brain science. I would present research from related case studies involving engineers as well as my own anecdotal experiences as a coach working with engineers and provide tools the participants can use to grow their own self awareness and self management skills to improve their relationships and increase their chances for career success.
 
Learning Objectives:

1. Be able to assess their leadership agility level and why it matters to their success.
2. Understand the basic neuroscience of leadership and change.
3. Learn how emotional intelligence and neuroscience intersect to increase leadership agility, drive connection with others, and improve team performance.
4. Eliminate the gap between their leadership intentions and how they impact the emotions and behavior of others.

Energy Storage: The Other Half of Renewable Energies

It is unethical for Professional Engineers to design a project that is not sustainable, but costs may prohibit choosing sustainability over conventional construction methods. With PV alone, we get enough sun every 13 minutes and 20 seconds to meet the world’s energy needs all day, every day, but the sun does not always shine. Wind alone can meet our daily needs more than 40 times over, but the wind does not always blow, and it does not blow where we need it most. Many new technologies reduce the demand for energy thus avoiding costs and environmental issues. New technologies, and a few old ones, are making energy storage more practical. Storage can now make renewable energies affordable that were too expensive a few years ago. This session will help you design sustainable, cost-effective projects.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will better understand renewable energies available today.
2. Participants will understand new and old energy storage technologies.
3. Participants will be able to adapt energy storage to their projects.

Energy Storage: The Other Half of Renewable Energies

It is unethical for Professional Engineers to design a project that is not sustainable, but costs may prohibit choosing sustainability over conventional construction methods. With PV alone, we get enough sun every 13 minutes and 20 seconds to meet the world’s energy needs all day, every day, but the sun does not always shine. Wind alone can meet our daily needs more than 40 times over, but the wind does not always blow, and it does not blow where we need it most. Many new technologies reduce the demand for energy thus avoiding costs and environmental issues. New technologies, and a few old ones, are making energy storage more practical. Storage can now make renewable energies affordable that were too expensive a few years ago. This session will help you design sustainable, cost-effective projects.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will better understand renewable energies available today.
2. Participants will understand new and old energy storage technologies.
3. Participants will be able to adapt energy storage to their projects.

Catapult Your Win Rate by 50%

It’s no longer just good enough to submit a highly-qualified RFP response. Organizations must understand and embrace their entire strategy – from people, to process, to content. And it starts long before an RFP hits the street. In this session, Lisa will talk through the framework that you must adopt to be a high-performing RFP culture. Walk away with simple strategies that you can implement immediately that can increase your win percentage and get your team working better together.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will gain an understanding of behavioral styles and how to apply those to win more business.
2. Attendees will learn tangible strategies for winning the bid for attention span by evaluators which will allow them to stand out above competition.
3. Attendees will learn how to maximize their positive influence while staying true to themselves.
4. Attendees will gain an understanding of the Human Intelligence (HI) of business capture and how to optimize their own team for success.

Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century: A Discussion with Leaders of Engineering Change Lab – US

The world is facing an unprecedented wave of change. Accelerating technological progress, rapidly evolving societal needs, and growing environmental imperatives, including climate change, all present significant, existential challenges and opportunities. The world’s experiences with the coronavirus pandemic has heightened awareness of the need to be better prepared for these challenges. Maintaining the status quo is not an option for the engineering community.  The Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL-USA) is a catalyst for change within the engineering community, helping it reach its highest potential on behalf of society in addressing the engineering challenges of the 21st Century.  This session will provide an overview of ECL-USA, its history, vision/mission, and key learnings about the future of engineering.

Learning Objectives:

1. Become better informed on the current state of the construction community, as informed by ECL-USA’s diverse group of stakeholders.
2. Contribute in new ways to addressing challenges of the 21st century through teaching new engineers; through adapting the public sector, private sector and industry practice of engineering; and through engagement in public policy.
3. Become better informed about trends and issues that will impact the role of engineering in the future and incorporate these trends into the teaching of engineering, the practice of engineering, and lifelong learning.
4. Understand the new types of skills that engineers of the future will need to embrace to contribute at higher levels (leadership, collaboration, high level communication, systems thinking, etc.) and invest in ensuring that engineers acquire these skills through education at all levels, including through lifelong learning.
5. Pursue partnerships and collaborations that capitalize on the linkages between emerging technologies and engineering challenges of the 21st century.
6. Inspire participants to extend the discussion of the future of engineering in their own organizations.
7. Spark interest in future engagement with ECL-USA.

Tools to Ensure Effective Litigation Preparation and Testimony as an Engineering Professional

Litigation in connection with engineering projects and services continues to be on the rise. The vast majority of testimony by engineers is offered through deposition. Preparation is key to successfully offering deposition and/or trial testimony. Although these services are less frequently needed when compared to others provided by engineers, when such services are desired (or required) as a function of litigation, it is extremely important that engineering professionals understand both the process as well as desirable traits associated with effective testimony. This presentation will offer a brief overview of the factual and procedural information about litigation, but primarily provide guidance from the engineers’ point of view in the areas of:

What makes a credible witness?

• How to perform a resume checkup to ensure accuracy and emphasize knowledge, experience and training
• Managing your time
• Preparing opinions and the substance of your testimony
• Writing and defending your expert report
• File management (email, document retention, etc.)
• Strategic deposition preparation and tips to success
• Strategic trial preparation and tips success

Especially in the case of litigation, engineers must be master of their own domain, and keep their integrity intact by being able to explain anything that they have done or not done in a manner that is understood by non-technical people.  Surprises generally happen only when preparation is lacking, or discovery was conducted poorly.

Learning Objectives:

1. Preparing your resume for scrutiny
2. Preparing your opinions and defending your report or work product
3. Managing documents
4. Strategic tips to effective testimony associated with technical matters.

2021 NAFE Summer Conference

The July/August 2020 NAFE Summer Conference has been postponed until July 30-August 1, 2021 in Providence, RI (Hilton Providence).

Virtual 2021 Professional Engineers Conference