Figure Skating or Hockey

I have often made the statement, "ForeRunner is not an engineering company". Most people then ask, "Well, what is ForeRunner then?". I respond by saying that we are a company that does projects. Often the conversation moves on from there with people shaking their heads about small differences.

There is an old line that describes most peoples approach to the world. It goes something like this, "If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck". Since we look like an engineering company and quack like an engineering company, the outside world thinks we probably are an engineering company. After all, we don't sell a product or operate any facilities, what else can we be? But still we try to draw a distinction, where much of the world sees no meaningful distinction. Why keep pushing a point that seems of so little moment?

Other than stubbornness, I feel there is an important point to be made. To be sure, it is a subtle point. But I feel it is one that is valuable and needs to be made. However let there be no mistake, we are a company of engineers, as well of other highly specialized technical people. And we make no apology for that, we are proud of who we are and what we are. We did not gain our skills and qualifications easily or with no price attached. We worked hard to become what we are.

But if a company of engineers (and other technical types) doesn't want to be known as an engineering company, what does that mean? What are we trying to say? It isn't original with me, but I like the ice skating analogy. The technical abilities and knowledge that we bring to the market are skills.

Ice skating is a skill as well. Highly skilled ice skaters can use their skill to compete in the world, just as skilled engineers compete to bring value to themselves and their world. Ice skaters bring their skill to the world in different ways. Ice skaters compete in Figure Skating competitions, going all the way to the Olympics if they are successful. Or ice skaters compete by playing hockey, reaching the NHL and the Stanley Cup if they are successful. In either case they can achieve great success as a result of the practice of their skill.

But they practice their skills in different manners. In figure skating, the ice skating is valued as an art form. The ice skating is an end in itself. Form is valued over function, with the quality of the form valued by subjective judges. Each judge of the art brings different subjective criteria. Some judges value precision and perfection of form as the highest expression of the skill. Other judges give the highest marks to those who exhibit creativity and purity of expression. But who is to argue with a judge? Figure skating is an art form and art is subjective. Judging art is only opinion, perhaps informed opinion, but still only opinion. And my experience is that whoever pays for the art has the ultimate opinion.

The skill of ice skating finds a different expression in the game of hockey. In hockey, ice skating is a means rather than an end. The hockey players must be very good skaters, but their skating is functional rather than an art form. Skating style is valuable only as it contributes to a winning team, rather than as an art form.

My concern about calling ForeRunner an engineering company goes to the nature of how we use our technical skills. In my experience, many, if not most, engineering companies tend to regard themselves as in the practice of figure skating. In those organizations, engineering is an art form with arbitrary standards. After all, an engineering company's product is engineering. The quality and value of engineering, unless used in the service of building something, is subjective.

In saying that ForeRunner is a company that does projects, I am attempting to make the case for playing hockey. We have great engineers and other technical people here, but I want us to take pride in the things we cause to be built rather than in the paper we produce.

Part of what we have always striven to do at ForeRunner is to bring the right people into the company. Not necessarily the most well educated, or the smartest or the most experienced people, but the right people. Who are the right people? People that can bring a high level of skill, that can play on a team and that can focus on an objective goal. People do not focus on perfecting our art, but in using our art to make the world a better place.