Cadalyst - June 2008 - (Page 41)

mcadmodeling Keeping Emotions out of Decision-Making I have told my children that emotion clouds judgment. When anger rears its ugly head, you lose your ability to think clearly. It' s the same with any kind of decision-making. The more emotional you are, the greater the probability that you will make a poor decision. When you find yourself reacting to a situation with emotion, take a step back and ask yourself what it is about the situation that elicits that emotion. If it' s a good enough reason, then go with it. If not, rethink what you are about to do. Do yourself a favor: take the emotion out of the decision. best way to reduce cost is to close the company down). But many people haven' t learned that. They think that it' s all about dollars and cents. I have seen many companies that spout on about their employees being their most valuable asset then turn around and lay them off to make their financials look better for the upcoming quarter. Sure, you have to make money to stay in business, but at what cost? When you eliminate the highly paid, seasoned employee in favor of a lower-paid and most often inexperienced one, you always have to invest in training the new employee. It' s even worse when a company outsources its work. There' s always a learning curve. Is it rational to spend all the time and money necessary for training and then eliminate that investment in favor of doing it all over again? And whatever happened to long-term planning Ð you know, infrastructure growth? When we eliminate those who do the important things for the company, we face two dilemmas. First, our proprietary knowledge walks out the door. Second, we reduce our experience base and ultimately our capabilities. Okay, I' m coming down off my soapbox now. Fear Ð o f anything new or different Ð can be a major stumbling block in decision-making. I was watching Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and I was reminded of an interesting story. Striking workers in the eighteenth century, fearful that mechanization was replacing them, threw their old shoes (or sabots Ð pronounced sa-bo) into the machines' moving parts. Hence the word ª sabotage.º The truth of the story is irrelevant. What is important is that we are often our own worst enemies when it comes to decision-making. The process of rational thinking is more work than its irrational opposite, but the rewards are much higher (figure 1). When faced with a decision, we need to do three things: keep a cool head (see sidebar titled ª Keeping Emotions out of Decision-Makingº ), research our options, and be very wary of what can' t be verified. If we have been working in the 3D modeling field a while, we have experience with what' s out there. That experience can be a major plus. But it also can hurt us. With experience comes preference. We get into habits as we do something on a daily basis. Just because ª that' s the way we' ve always done itº doesn' t mean it' s the way we should. We need to be aware that 3D modeling capability keeps growing and changing. We need to stay on top of what is possible. That' s why I got into writing in the first June 2008 cadalyst www.cadalyst.com Figure 3. Looking at a new or unfamiliar interface, such as that of Maxon' s CINEMA 4D, can be most intimidating. Rational thinking would say, ª We just need to learn it.º Irrational thinking would say, ª Stay away! It' s bad!º place Ð so I could learn about what' s available and pass on that knowledge to others to help them make informed decisions. We can' t rely on rumors for our decisions. We need to figure it out for ourselves. Just because a friend of ours heard something about a certain software package doesn' t mean it' s an accurate depiction of that program. Just the Facts, Ma' am Why do people prefer one 3D modeling program over another? I am frequently asked, ª If all 3D modeling programs do essentially the same thing, then how do you pick one to use?º I invariably answer that it has to do with just three things: capability, preference, and price. You pick a 3D modeling package to do your job. Naturally, then, that means you want something that will do what you need. If you need a solid modeler, get one. If you prefer history-based modeling (where one feature builds upon and is dependent on another [figure 2]), look into one of the many fine examples of this program type. If history isn' t important to you, go to a program that doesn' t use it. If you like a program' s interface (figure 3), go with that. If software is out of your price range, be very careful about your purchase. Turn off the Autopilot A lot of this month' s column may seem like a diatribe or merely stating the obvious. The reason why I wrote it is that sometimes people aren' t aware of what they are doing. They get so busy doing their jobs that decisions come more or less from their autopilot. They rely on gut feelings, which most often are commanded by emotions. It may sound obvious to say this is bad, but in actual practice it' s not always easy to tell where the decision came from. That' s why we need to think clearly and logically about what we decide. We can make good, rational decisions. We just need to work at it. Mike Hudspeth, IDSA, is an industrial designer, artist, and author based in St. Louis, Missouri. 41 http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - June 2008

Cadalyst - June 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Community Building in Progress A Quarter Century of Cadalyst Tracking a CAD Giant The Highs and Lows of CAD Hardware Industry Insights — Looking Ahead Cadalyst Lab Reviews: HP xw4600 Workstation with LP3065 30” LCD Monitor NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 — Graphics Card LaCie 324 — LCD Monitor CAD Manager: Making Standards Stick MCAD Modeling: Rational vs. Irrational Decisions AEC Insight: Data Collection in AEC CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Just a Few CAD Renovations

Cadalyst - June 2008

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