President's Blog

Back in 2002, the National Academy of Engineering issued a report, "Raising Public Awareness of Engineering," which demonstrated quite dramatically that the engineering community does not have a coordinated campaign for raising public awareness. Six years later, the academy's new study, "Changing the Conversation," shares the basic premise that the various engineering societies still are not speaking with one voice, even though hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent. This latest effort focused on three objectives:

·  Identifying a small number of messages to improve public understanding.
·  Measuring the effectiveness of the messages.
·  Publishing the results of the measurement effort.

The academy retained various firms to develop and test messages. The effort focused on youth (9 to 11 years old), teens and adults overall. A committee composed of key members of various societies, universities and the private sector oversaw the effort, including ASCE Executive Director Pat Natale.

Several different messages were created, including "Ideas in action," "Life takes engineering" and "A timeless imagination." These all represented various themes to help key audiences and the overall public better understand the role of engineering.

The focus groups were questioned to determine their awareness and understanding of engineering and to begin testing the message themes. Among students, the majority have a general understanding that civil engineers design and build, but don't understand what they really do. They have a positive impression of the profession, but think that they may not be smart enough for it. Many believe that engineering is sedentary and involves very little contact with other people. Also, salary was a career objective, but "making a difference" was also important.

A number of other messages were tried, including "Engineers shape the future" and "Engineers connect signs to the real world,"  as well as a set of taglines with concepts like "Turning ideas into reality," "Because dreams need doing," "Design to work wonders," "Life takes engineering," "Power to do," and "Bolder by design." One of the messages that tested best was "Engineering makes a world of difference."

The study produced a number of interesting conclusions. One in particular was that the image of engineering is by and large very positive. Another that stood out was that the continued focus on math and science is not necessary and can be a turn-off.

I urge all of you to obtain a copy of this important work, fully titled "Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering." (It is also available for reading online at the National Academies Press' Web site here.) ASCE is prepared to participate with our sister society in its very vital and important effort. Improving the public understanding, and in particular encouraging more students to pursue engineering degrees, is a key objective of mine and of the Society.