Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Sledgehammering nuts to meet targets

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (well, London) I gained a Civil Engineering degree. Admittedly, it was on the strict understanding I didn't try to build anything, but some stuff from those four years (of a 3-year course.. another story) stuck. And a few bits made an impression. One was the 'unofficial' motto of the industry (possibly the ICE, Institute of Civil Engineers), and that went something like: 'an engineer does for a shilling anything any other dope can do for a pound.' I like that. Honest. No jargon, but still confident enough in one's area of expertise. The corollary of that of course is: throw enough money at anything, and you probably will get a result. Hence the secret to genuine professional success is to achieve a safe, reliable result on brief, as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. To (probably mis-) quote a character in Dickens, 'Expenditure one pound, income a pound and a shilling, result: happiness'. Inspired by a noble few.. too few.. who have gone before, Junkk.com starts by being free, and then we go on to save and/or make everyone money. So we'd like to encourage everyone involved in the planet-saving business to do the same, though there's no shame in trying to make an honest buck en route. But it is with sorrow that we must soon bid a sad farewell to Glorem.com, which has been a valued resource. And I continue to ponder just how well some initiatives flying around really stack up on a 'public cost to public benefit' basis. Just asking:)
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