I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, "Ugh, here comes the nerd talk," what a drag.
I can’t blame them: I, too, used to see engineering as a cold, methodical profession—and that was that. The reason I’m here is that I felt that dryness was a fair price to pay if, in return, I would lose my fear of complex problems, get used to analyzing them, and experience all the wonders this field promised—especially since these seemingly abstract concepts appeared to be applicable to any field.
In any case, I found the stereotype of the engineer rather uncomfortable. I’ve always loved music, and while the engineer is, on the one hand, a cold, precise, and methodical type, the artist, on the other hand, lives by unpredictable and unstoppable impulses. It seemed like a terrible contradiction for me to try to be both at the same time.
Now that I’ve finished my degree and worked on projects in both engineering and music, I believe that artists and engineers aren’t so different: both create things. And the process of creating—whether it’s a novel, a program, or a piece of music—is more or less the same. I’ve come to the conclusion that the best art has the rigor of engineering, and the best engineering work has the inspiration of art.
It is not enough for an artist to have a moment of inspiration if they lack the discipline to bring their idea to fruition, nor is it enough for an engineer to be methodical and precise if they lack that initial spark—or, because they fail to put themselves in their "audience's" shoes, they solve the wrong problem with great effectiveness and efficiency.
When I think about the programs I use and enjoy, what sets them apart isn't innovation from a strictly technological standpoint, but rather that they "solve the right problem": they have a bit of a cross-disciplinary feel to them, a touch of "inspiration." To give an example, a few months ago I switched my computer to a Macintosh, and I’m still surprised by how things work exactly as you’d expect them to: it was created by a guy with a technical background who was auditing a calligraphy class at his university—and he managed to build a system that’s not only intuitive but also aesthetically pleasing.
Yesterday I woke up, turned on my computer (yes, before making coffee, like many of us nerds do), and read a couple of emails: one was from my grandmother, who lives in Porto Alegre and uses email at 86 years old. Another was from a French guy I don’t know, but he stumbled upon my MySpace page and proposed a collaboration over the Internet. Before logging into Skype, I read the headlines of a couple of blogs written by people as smart as they are unknown, and watched a YouTube video where a Chinese woman showed how to fold a T-shirt perfectly in two seconds (it’s awesome—look it up). I logged into Skype; my three project partners were already in a “conference”: Martín and Seba from their homes in Montevideo, Juan José from Dublin. While we work, I hear their keyboards, and when I sneeze they say “bless you”: it’s as if they were at a desk right behind me. But I’m not at any desk—I’m on the couch at home.
"What a surprise," many of you are probably thinking. But 10 years ago, my day would have been very different. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s very true: technology has changed our daily lives—and even the way we interact with one another—very quickly.
And here's something I find really interesting: how many of the technologies I mentioned were developed by large corporations or government agencies?
Some were developed by just a couple of people in a corner café (Macintosh, Google, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook—even Microsoft started that way), while others were created by hundreds of people scattered across the globe who have never met face-to-face and work with enviable discipline, simply for the "love of the art."
Lately, innovation doesn’t seem to be happening in the labs of large institutions. Or at least not only there. I don’t mean to say that we’re going to create the next Microsoft or develop the next Linux, but it is true that there are fewer and fewer physical barriers to creating things: it’s no longer necessary to have a lot of capital, be in a specific physical location, have 20 years of experience, or work for a large company or the government. What matters more and more are ideas and knowledge. Ideas, just like in art, don’t have to be totally original or perfect from the get-go. And knowledge—supposedly—we’ve been acquiring over the last five years, or, more importantly, we’ve learned how to acquire it. Some say we’re in the midst of a revolution as significant as the Industrial Revolution: if that’s the case, great—we’re in the eye of the storm. But revolution or not, I have no doubt that this is a very interesting time for “technologists”: let’s get things done.