Future of The Environmental Services Industry

It's All About the Presentation: Maps and Data   Making Job and Life Simpler Maps are seen by their readers as neutral carriers of information, and thus have the power to persuade without appearing to do so "because the myths they contain are naturalized within the system of 'facts'." -- William Owen, quoting in part Denis Wood -"The Power of Maps" I have found that most people in the engineering and environmental industry tend to be map geeks. I don't mean "geek" in a derogatory way. The word "geek" can be considered a complement since geeks seem to be the richest and most powerful people in the world, these days. For people in the engineering and environmental  business, we know a well managed project starts with a good base map. Knowing where things are located in relation to other site features is critical. State of the art GPS survey technology is helping make very precise base maps. In addition, we "geeks" know ...

Moneyball: Out of the Box Thinking But if we win, on our budget with this team, we'll change the game. - Billy Beane,  Oakland  A's General Manager I saw the movie "Moneyball" the other day.  If you have not seen it, I recommend it. You can view a trailer to the movie  here . The movie is based on a true story. In  the movie the General Manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, a guy named Billy Beane, attempts to devise a strategy for assembling a competitive team for 2002, but struggles to overcome Oakland's limited player payroll.  They have one of the smallest payrolls in baseball and can't afford to compete with the big payroll teams like the New York Yankees.   In the movie, and in real life, he teams up with an Economist named Peter Brand and together they look at players and player statistics from a completely different angle than was traditional throughout the history of baseball.  The Economist  (as Economists do) looks at...

Environmental Industry: Deflation or Inflation - Which Will It Be?  I continue to believe that the American people have a love-hate relationship with inflation. They hate inflation but love everything that causes it.  -  William E. Simon "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours."  -  President Harry S. Truman Inflation Wikipedia defines  inflation  as " A rise in the general   level of prices   of goods and services in an   economy   over a period of time.    When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services." I noticed the price of disposable gloves go went up  about $1 per box in the last year and the price of sampling tubing has gone up about $0.02 per foot.   I could pull out my old "Economics 101" book from my years at Western Michigan University (now about 28 years old) and go through th...

All the Other Skills Needed "The Americas Cup is a race of management, money, technology, teamwork and, last and incidentally, sailing."   -Bill Kock The quote above is applicable to many other  circumstances, sporting events and business situations.  Successful Engineers, Geologists and other Scientists often become Managers or Owners and spend more time dealing with personnel, management and financial issues than they do dealing with the science of their industry. Being a good sailor doesn't mean you're going to win races. As the quote says above, it takes management, money, technology and teamwork.  You can't sail most race boats alone and you can't run most successful businesses alone.  I've been repeatedly reminded of the reality and meaning of this quote lately as I and our race team have been getting prepared for the Chicago to  Mackinaw   Island Sail Boat race starting this Saturday.    Our team has put in thousands of ...

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Software Update "Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for  improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to  manage the change that is inevitable." -  William Pollard "Yea Cloud!" -  Windows 7 Commercial In our last newsletter we mentioned that we would be  upgrading our software.  Well....we did it and I think you are going to like it.  We still have many ways that we are going to improve it even more, but for now we are pretty happy with what we have.   I think it will always be a work in progress, as I'm pretty sure technology is not going to slow down anytime soon.   Check it out for yourself by going to  www.sampleserve.com .  The login ID and password are right there on the front page. What will it do for you? It will allow you to see your results in multiple formats (maps, tables, graphs, etc..) and to evaluate your results compared to various state clean-up...

The book  "Future Shock" , written by Alvin Toffler  was released for publishing 40 years ago this month (in 1970). The main thesis of the book is that millions of otherwise psychologically normal people will experience an abrupt collision with the future. Regularly educated citizens will fall victim to the disease of "change". Unable to keep up with the supercharged pace of technological and social change, many people will become disconnected and suffer from "shattering stress and disorientation". A docudrama by Orson Wells in 1972 (see it on YouTube  here  ) outlined the book in dramatic fashion, as only Orson Wells could do. I watched the video again the other day and remembered seeing it back when I was a kid and being concerned about  "Future Shock" . It was funny watching it again and seeing the things they predicted for the future. Some things they got right...they predicted big things for the "computer". No mention of "...