I am not sure what it is about Facebook that causes professionals to lose all their judgement and ability to reason and act as an adult particularly when it concerns personnel matters. One outcome of this is that employers are allowing themselves to get caught up in their employees' personal, non-work related use of this…
Category: Social Media
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 54 & 55
Day 54 I waited until today to post about yesterday (Tuesday) because I ended up not spending the whole day at work. I started the day preparing for a meeting with the city admininstrator and other directors in the city. Normally my supervisor, the director of public works, goes to these meetings. But since he…
Opening Day at 2011 APWA Congress & Exposition
This year's International Public Works Conference & Exposition is being held in Denver, Colorado. The event opened yesterday morning with a welcome by the outgoing president, George Crombie, and a transfer of leadership to the new president, Diane M. Linderman. First General Session – Michael Hayden The first general session followed with keynote speaker, Michael Hayden,…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 32 and 33
Day 32 & 33 I decided to combine yesterday's post with today's because wow – have I been busy! On Thursday I tried to finalize a few outstanding items before taking off a few days to attend conferences. I finalized a cost estimate for resurfacing a major roadway in the city. Then sent out the…
Set Up Your Own Blog With Our Blog Route Plans!
Over the last year, there's been a significant increase in the use of social media by those of us working in public works. Some of us are using it for work to enhance communications with citizens or other professionals. Others have started using it only to interact with personal friends and relatives. But even though…
A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 25
Day 25 Water Main Extension Most of the first half of my morning was spent working on a cost estimate for the water main extension I have designed. I also filled out all the IEPA permits for the project and had our water superintendent sign them. Then I filled out the EcoCat to determine…
Geneva’s Great Land Adventure
Several months ago, I read some blog posts about frustration with Gov 2.0 not doing enough and a few other posts with offers from people interested in working for free for experience. The two seemingly unrelated topics got me wondering: How could our city use Gov 2.0 to offer job opportunities to people just looking…
Delivering Public Works Content Through Video
Over the last few years, there have been an increasing number of public works departments, vendors, and organizations taking advantage of video sharing sites. This has been made possible by newer video cameras that now fit into a pocket and websites like YouTube. These new tools and technologies allow anyone to easily capture videos and…
Public Hearings Held City Camp Style
This year, I have been involved with two initiatives in our county. One is Kane County's Transit Plan which is just ending and the other is our Downtown Master Plan which is just beginning. Each planning process is professionally managed and both have or will go through all the traditional steps of gathering public input….
Civil Engineering Blogs
Civil engineers often get a bad rap for being poor communicators. But this is probably due more to the nature of the business rather than actual skills. Our typical work involves peering into sewer manholes, measuring roads, inspecting concrete pours, drawing plans, calculating water flows, and discussing the cool, new fire hydrant design; not necessarily…