Happy New Year! I took the opportunity to largely unplug from the grid over the past few weeks to rest, relax, rejuvenate and visit with family and friends. I hope you had the opportunity to do the same.
Not completely unplugging, I had a chance to poke around and came upon the Khan Academy. I was already familiar with the site, but took the opportunity to sample some of the science-related courses. It’s amazing just how many subjects and topics within these subjects are there. And the quality is really good. Most of the lessons are in easily digestible 10-minute chunks.
One only has to look around at some of the LinkedIn group jobs tabs such as the Automation Engineers and Automation & Control Engineering groups to know that automation professionals are in high demand.
In an Automation World magazine article, The SetPoint: Noble But Unappreciated, former Emerson Process Management chairman John Berra, highlighted the challenges in learning the skills required to be an automation professional:
Our work demands the broadest skill set of any engineering discipline—it requires knowledge of chemical processes, mechanical, electrical, electronics, software, networks and IT (information technology).
Perhaps there is an opportunity to take a page from the Khan Academy and break out the knowledge an automation professional requires into similarly digestible, 10-minute, instructional chunks.
I’m not sure if anyone has done anything like this or not. It’s on my list as something to poke around with this year.
