Thanks for the supportive comments on syndicating my updates. I am getting self-schooled in RSS, but the instructor's really difficult to deal with. Stay tuned.

• Reflections (and by reflections I mean the shielding eyes from snow glare) on the words of wisdom of snowboarder and Patagonia Ambassador Josh Dirksen regarding key elements of snowboarding style and technique.

• Steve Jobs was adamant about former Polaroid CEO Edwin Land's emphasis on the intersection between science and the humanities. In my December column on the NSPE Young Engineers Blog, I write about how engineers, scientists, artists ,and designers can rendezvous at that intersection.

• During a recent talk with freshmen Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering students at Johns Hopkins, I had the chance to step back in a time machine and revisit a liquid level chemical engineering experiment I had devised for the Senior Lab the summer after I graduated. I write about this nostalgia filled reunion on It Takes Energy to Get Energy. It was a comforting reunion with a past version of myself in a strange, physicist's multiverse kind of way.

• Reflecting on John Steinbeck's ideas on the "inductive leap" as applied to engineering and dot-coms while scarfing pancakes at a Silicon Valley IHOP inside the Avatar Hotel. It's a recent entry in It Takes Energy to Get Energy, my blog on the chemical engineering lifestyle.

• Props and sending vibes in a season of thankfulness to InfinityQS , the Northern Virginia based business process and quality excellence software company whose user group I formerly chaired and co-led.

• Thanks to Dr. Lise Dahuron and all the freshmen chemical engineers-to-be for hosting me in the course, 540.101 Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Today, where I gave my talk, Tennyson's Daydream: What Poets, Coffee Beans and the Global Economy can Teach Us about Chemical Engineering. Great to be back visiting as a lecturer for the Johns Hopkins University Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

• Excited to have launched the NSPE Career Engineering Roadmap this month at Johns Hopkins. Two years in the making, the program was my first major initiative as National Director - Young Engineers on the National Society of Professional Engineers Board of Directors, aiming at promoting career choices for engineering undergraduates and emerging professionals. I also write about it in my November column of the NSPE Blogs. And thanks to all the great dialog from the students who were able to make the seminar!

• My Incoming Chair's message for the New York/ New Jersey Section of the American Society for Quality is now live. Looking forward to a busy and engaging year in the Section. Our newly defined Purpose and Principles is also live on the site--thanks to the hard work of the new Executive Leadership Team of the Section in making this happen. You can also check out the Section's main site for our upcoming events.

• Had a great meeting with the Quality Bureau from Shanxi Province, China. The ASQ NY/NJ Metropolitan Leadership Team hosted a delegation from the province and had a great exchange on quality practices, ideas, and culture. Thanks to Mr. K's Chinese in Manhattan for the excellent service and authentic cuisine.

PAST NEWS

• You've just been offered the job you've been spending so much time preparing and interviewing for. What else should you consider before saying "Yes! When do I start?" Check out my July article for the NSPE blogs to see how to avoid the quagmire.

• Excited to be serving in the role of National Director - Young Engineers for the National Society of Professional Engineers for the 2011-2013 term. Thanks for the turnout from University of Nevada Las Vegas student chapter of the NSPE at the Young Engineer Forum at this year's annual meeting.

• Added a post to my brusied elbow chronology on snowboarding daydreams in the summertime and why competitions make you better, even if you're just a snow-drift eating gravity-bound arriviste like me.

• Thanks to the leaders and teachers of Bergen County and the over 250 students who showed up at Bergen Community College's Second Annual Quality Conference! The theme this year was Who Will Build a Better America? Ideas in STEM Education, Quality, and the Sciences. I was part of a diverse panel of scientists, engineers, and quality professionals that got to discuss: why some clothing stores at the mall have more durable clothes than others; the origins of the lemon oil that goes into PepsiCo's Sierra Mist soda; the portrait of a geologist as a young man; a Czech Republic traveling clinical chemist; a veterinarian who knew in 4th grade he wanted to fork with animals; an entrepreneurial chemist who founded her own diagnostics company; the head railroad quality honcho of a major metropolitan railroad network; an IT and software quality professional who used her own persistence to succeed at work while conquering difficult personal life challenges.

• My NSPE webinar on developing a High Quality Professional Social Network took place mid May. I discussed leveraging professional relationships mutually to learn more about your profession and grow your own skills while developing and mentoring the careers of others. The webinar focuses on collaboration-driven network versus one that just grows headcount for the sake of headcount.

• How should you use a relationship building tool like the business card to foster sincere, collaborative relationships with the person behind the card? I talk about the practices of a Business Card Champion in the NSPE Young Engineers blog for May.

• I'm spoke at Columbia University's Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research for Dr. Bill Latzko's Quality Management Class earlier in April. Thanks for inviting me back for the 4th year in a row to talk the basics of six sigma DMAIC methodology, its origins, and its growth.

• I stood up on a longboard in Waikiki while surfing alongside a convention-going neuropathologist. And despite my shoulders crying out in pain afterwards, learning to surf a longboard in the birthplace of surfing was an incredible experience. My latest post on the surfing world, including some pics of Honolulu's sites and eats, is HERE

• Thanks again to Dr. Esther Solomon at the Fordham Gabelli Graduate School of Business and her classes on leadership and process management for hosting me again for the third consecutive year to speak on globalization, supply chain quality, and applications of six sigma DMAIC to finance. As always, the classes were engaging and are always a great way for me to meet up with such a highly background and knowledge diverse group of MBA-ers.

• How does the scientific method and analytical problem solving lead an individual to world domination? My February column takes a look through the perspective of Alexander the Great

• My Thinking Engineer's Manifesto is now posted on the NSPE Young Engineer Blog - taking time again at the end of the year to reflect on continuous improvement and career development throughout the engineering profession.

• My Austin S. Lin Surfing page is now live!

• All engineers are imaginary ones. See my latest column for NSPE on how an industrial engineering buddy, karaoke, and the Smashing Pumpkins have inspired a focus on quality and efficiency across all engineering professions.

• Thanks to Prof. Judith Fitzpatrick and her QA Biotech class at Bergen Community College for inviting me to speak on career development in the quality profession and the expanding lineage of W.E. Deming into todays business world of ever-evolving complexity on November 17.

• Thanks to Prof. Esther Solomon for inviting me to speak to her Fundamentals of Management class on November 10 at the Fordham Graduate School of Business on supply chain quality & the application of six sigma tools to the world of finance.

• Thanks to Dr. Mike Betenbaugh and his "Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering in Today's World" class for welcoming back into my old stomping (and studying and non-sleeping) grounds at Johns Hopkins University. I got to speak on how a line from the Tennyson poem, "The Daydream" : "..the many fail, the one succeeds" can summarize what an undergraduate chemical engineering major may feel like when first being initiated into this unique field by way of an academic rabbit hole. The last time I was in that same classroom was for a linear algebra class and fortunately, I didn't break down into tears during my talk.

• I was given the opportunity to speak at the InfinityQS User Group Conference October 25 - 27 in Washington, DC, speaking on leveraging global knowledge resources for a multi-site process controls implementation by taking a few pointers from how the Medici Family turned 14th century Florence into a thriving hub of innovation and cross-cultural collaboration.

• Read about dragons, the U.N., and energy accessibility in my latest piece for the NSPE Young Engineers column.

• Thanks to everyone who attended my seminar on supply chain quality, globalization, and engineering development as part of the Connecticut Society of Professional Engineers seminar series on October 12. Enjoyed the great resulting dialog on how engineering services and the U.S. engineering profession as a whole fits into picture of international needs.

• Thanks for everyone who was able to make the September 2010 ASQ Section Meeting at the Spanish Tavern Newark where I presented on quality audits of quantitative processes and what accidental statisticians, chemists, and Irish breweries have in common. A description of my talk is here.

• My August NSPE article on how epistemology and cultural convergence contribute to global business collaboration.

• Thanks to the ASQ New York/ New Jersey Metropolitan for honoring me with the 2010 Chairman's Award for my contributions as Secretary and towards the Bergen Community College QA Partnership. Hoping we can keep the collaborative momentum going!

• Pontificating on earthquakes, Japanese bullet trains, and spilled coffee in my June column.

• Congratulations to Bergen Community College and its inaugural Quality Assurance Conference--thanks to all from industry and local schools that were able to attend and learn about QA's role in Sustainable Greening.

• In the spirit of commencement season in universities everywhere, here's my Letter to a (Graduating) Young Engineer for this month's NSPE Young Engineer's Blog.

• My poetry appears in the most recent issue of the award-winning journal, Isotope, Issue 7.2, available now.

• My article on becoming a Recession-Proof Engineer

• Thanks to Dr. Bill Latzko and his Industrial & Operations Research class at Columbia University for inviting me to speak on introductory operational applications of DMAIC Six Sigma methods.

• My article for NSPE on how the latest Hewitt Study shows why top companies for building leaders continue to focus on leadership despite tough economic times.

• My Thinking Engineer's Holiday Guide to Taking Time Off appears in the print edition of the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of PE Magazine.

• I compare and apply Jim Collins's work on the collapse of companies to the collapse of individuals in January's Young Engineer Blog.

• Thanks to Dr. Esther Solomon at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business for inviting me to speak on supply chain globalization to her management class in December 2009.

• My blog article on mentoring appears in the December 2009 print edition of Professional Engineering Magazine

• How does a multi-millionaire scientist leverage simplicity? Check out my recent article on the NSPE Young Engineers Blog

• You can follow my adventures in the Quality profession on Twitter

• I'm grateful for being asked to be the writer for the new Young Engineer's blog for the National Society of Professional Engineers. Come peruse my posts on the engineering life at the NSPE Young Engineers Blog on PE Journal

• *My photography has become an Official Selection of the 2009 International Photography Awards!* Check out the Lucie Awards and more information on the Lucie Foundation here.

• I'm presenting a talk about supply chain quality management in China at the ASQ Metropolitan Section's 2009 Ellis R. Ott Workshops in October at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business near Lincoln Center in Manhattan: Supply Chain Quality Management in China: Leveraging Cultural Convergence to Transition Challenges to Collaboration.

• I will be speaking at Infusion 2009, the InfinityQS User Group Conference, in San Antonio in October 2009. My talk will be SPC and the Silent Spring: InfinityQS in RoHS, REACH and other Environmental Sustainability Mandates .

• Was finally able to get my profile on IMDB updated. Thanks to Will and the Meeting Street Films team for the experience and happy anniversary to the shoot!

• I will be speaking at the Quality Measurement Conference in Orlando May 4 - 7, 2009. My short session on Wednesday May 6   is, Social Darwinism Across a Wire: The Criticality of Quality Management from a Distance in the Modern Era.

• I was interviewed for a magazine article about networking and career building in the engineering profession. The article appears in the November 2008 print edition of PE Magazine, published by the National Society for Professional Engineers. Two minor corrections: first, they fell into the common trap of mis-spelling my company's name. Second, while it looks GREAT to have the letters "PE" after my name, it's a bit premature as I do not sit for the State Professional Engineering (PE) licensure exam until April 2009 (but perhaps this is a good omen!)
  Conducting the phone interview was kind of surreal because I was in Gwangju, South Korea, at the time--it was close to midnight in my time zone and I was trying to talk to Eva, the writer, over the background sounds of a late night karaoke bar, where a supplier had brought me after dinner. Luckily, the interview was an opportunity to get outside for some fresh air, albeit hunched over a bar room staircase with one hand covering one ear and the other one squeezing my Blackberry into the side of my face, leaving a keyboard imprint on the side of my mouth. Surreal, but nice.

• Check out my May 2008 interview in an issue of the NSPE  newsletter, Professional Engineers in Industry.

• I was quoted in a Quality Magazine article on using statistical process control in supply chains in InfinityQS.

• I was one of the instructors at the NJ Transit Course in December 14, also on the Basics of Six Sigma.  So if you've always wanted to visit Kearny, NJ, but never had a good excuse, now's your chance.

• Had the great opportunity to present on six sigma fundamentals with my soon-to-be-PhD co-presented, Godson Tetteh, at Rutgers 59th Annual Ellis R. Ott Conference on industrial quality and statistics on October 5, 2007.

• I spoke at the InfinityQS User Group Conference in Chantilly, VA June 3 - 5, 2007 at the Westfields Marriott. Infusion 2007 website.  I'm spoke on Monday and Tuesday of the conference:

  • High Volume Data Management: What Your Database and the Great Library of Alexandria Might Have in Common
  • The Melancholy Operator's Guide to Gauging Blissfully

• As a part of the Atlanta-based  film production company I'm involved with, Ayce Group, Inc. I was interviewed on the Atlanta-based entertainment show RuleHollywood.com. Check out the interview HERE. The Ayce Group appearance is in the second half of the show, after the Cool People Entertainment interview (also movers and shakers in the ATL film world in their own right!).

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution Article (January 8, 2006) Living Section by Gayle White: "Life Lists"; my own "life list" is on 43Things.com, which spawned the group's inclusion in this AJC article.

• Filmthreat.com Interview by Stina Chyn: "Austin Lin: Making Films to Make a Difference"