Why The Eiffel Tower?…..

Obvious really….. triangular, national, successful (survived 100+ years after its official ‘destruct-by date‘ … If you didn’t know, it was supposed to be taken down some 25 years after its construction!).

Well… it was ‘obvious’ a prior cohort to yours was named ‘Eiffel‘, of course! (Well it was when I first started teaching your group a few years ago!)….

May your tri-national aspirations be so successful!!!

 So that got me to thinking along Eiffel lines………

First, I think you need to know something about me! Here is an introductory video for you!  I will of course tell you about myself face-to-face in the classroom CoVid / illness etc permitting!

Now you will be needing an introduction to the unit, teaching and learning, my website and assignments and assessment! Here it is!  [Thereafter, I am going to stop being a boring talking-head and set you an introductory task that sprang out of your cohort name: ‘Eiffel’….]

INTRODUCTORY FOCUS / TASK:

By the way, did you know that Eiffel (now Eiffage) was the company behind the conception and construction of the spectacular and beautiful Millau Viaduct?  Have you every driven over it?  Maybe you did…. but did you also know that:

1. They risked the entire company on this one single project (perhaps Gustav did the same with his eponymous Paris Tower)…. and while we are at it… did you know that we have our own (sort of) ‘Eiffel Tower‘ here in Mulhouse – and no, I am not talking about a garden ornament, but a real tower….?  You should do – it is worth a visit even though it isn’t quite as high (or quite as ‘Eiffel‘ in fact) : there are panoramic views over the Alsace Plain, the Black Forest and the Swiss Jura.  It is also set in a lovely, little-known and very peaceful garden ‘jardin hygenique’) area on the top of the Rebberg hill between the Emille Muller  Hospital on the Moenschberg and the Mulhouse Zoo where spring and early summer picnics are delightful in the dappled shade.  Do try it – and enjoy the climb to the top : but beware – it takes more effort than it looks!  Therea’s also a good Asian food restaurant and take-away close by… makes a nice spring day out…
2. The Millau Viaduct is so high you could comfortably fit the real Eiffel Tower  well below the level of the viaduct’s roadway.
3. The engineering Eiffage used for the construction was incredibly innovative: it had never been used before at any scale and, before the actual construction, it had never been tried outside the realms of theory and computer-modelling.
4. According to the intercultural differentiation ‘guru’, Geert Hofstede and his cultural differentiation comparatives (try comparing France, United Kingdom, China and the United States!), the French are amongst the most risk-averse cultures in the world: they would run a mile – in theory at least – (well a kilometre and then some!) rather than assume a massive risk….. Yet, just as with the Eiffel Tower, Eiffel’s company confronted the risk head on with the Millau Viaduct: and succeeded against all the odds.  What are the odds? …… Well, I’ll tell you… generally received wisdom and experience says that:
   1. ‘major construction projects always cost lives’ – especially 1000ft above ground, yet Eiffage lost not a single person on this project: not one.  I believe the worst injury was one single fractured wrist.
   2. ‘major construction projects always run over budget’ (usually over the initial budget AND any contingency fund… and then some!). This one cost 394,000,000 Euros and came in (was delivered)  UNDER budget!
   3. ‘major construction projects are always delivered late’.  This one came in not just on time, but EARLY!

   Just how absolutely astounding is that?!?

If you are interested in this – and, in my opinion, you should be because there are business and project management lessons involved that go beyond just engineering projects – I would most strongly recommend that you take a long and leisurely look at the Megastructures programme on the Millau Viaduct (inter alia)…. but to all of you with sensitive, French ears and dispositions, I apologise profusely for the English narrator’s pronunciation on Millau (Mil-OW!).  Try to get past, it or ignore it if you can (good luck!!!) … and enjoy the incredible story.  Here’s the link for you.

As this is a Tri-National programme and I have only given you one link to a French project…. perhaps I should give you one or two more from which there are business, planning, political, technical and engineering lessons to be learned:

• The Boston Big Dig USA.   You may not have heard of this, but other than the construction of the Pyramid of Cheops, the Apollo programme voyage to the Moon and back and the International Space Station, this is probably THE most significant construction project man has ever attempted: incredible scale… incredible duration, incredible challenges … incredible costs … incredible disasters in development and delivery!
• The Burgh al Arab Hotel, Dubai. The world’s first SEVEN star hotel…. taller than the Eiffel Tower and built out in the sea (for reasons of visual aesthetics!)!    ….and one for luck, as they say (so here are TWO for ‘good measure!)  there are always The Palm and The World artificial Islands – Dubai again…..
• Then, if you want a project which is really ‘Out of this world‘, why not the International Space Station (Which, if I have understood correctly, will be condemned to a fiery death – plunging to Earth in 2031?)
• How about a failure or two (depending on the criteria one applies…?)
  • Berlin Brandenburg Airport
• An ‘Aside‘… we are turning towards the Monn – again – and to Mars largely because they are there and we have the engineering to take us there… but the real Q is surely: ‘Should we be going…? – Isn’t it better first to clean up our ‘mess’ on this planet and to live within its ecological means BEFORE we try to settle the human race elsewhere…?’  How do you see it?

You may choose to watch and review others, of course……just search for ‘Megastructures’ on YouTube

What do you think might be the most important lessons to be learned from these projects which put man/mankind on the very leading edge of what is conceivable and humanly possible? [Try to come up with at least four or five lessons to learn and come prepared to share (present, explain and justify them) in your best English .  We will then see if we can take up your observations and build a set of principles around them which will increase the chances of success and reduce the likelihood of failure in future projects in which you may be involved..

You might like to think in terms of (inter alia):

• technological advancement,
• materials sciences and development,
• scientific advancement
  
• engineering innovation
  
• powerful, driving vision
• leadership & team cohesion
• visioneering, planning, preparation & project management,
• appropriate resourcing
• strategy & tactics,
• risk & crisis prediction, prevention & management,  (« Houston, we have a problem… » Jim Lovell, Cmdr. Apollo 13.)
  
• politics and stakeholders and their influence on project and process
• the human resource (from unreliability to ingenuity … and every point between?!)
  
• ...maybe even sheer luck?!?

THE BIG Question:-

Does your analysis of successful projects (and possibly even of project failures?) enable us to distill certian principles which tend to lead towards success rather than failure?

FOR NEXT CLASS: Have a look at a minimum of two of the above 5 videos (or others you my have chosen), create equally-sized teams working on your favourite project video, and come prepared to present & discuss (in English!) in our next class your team’s observations and thoughts in regard to the basic questions I have posed in the paragraphs above….  Make some brief notes if you like, maybe a number of slides or video clips to act as the ‘glue and cue’ for your team presentation, but please do not read them to me/us – just talk us through your observational analyses and evaluations and the conclusions you have drawn, OK?    Given you are normally about a dozen in number, three or four teams would seem appropriate.  I’d go as far as to say that you can work in pairs if you want – that way we can cover more projects.  Obviously – don’t duplicate!!  Come to our second class 13/3/24 prepared to deliver this presentation.

PS. The choice of the image above and the name of the cohort/group led to the above task – I did not in fact intend it – but that is sometimes just how things happen! 

I hope you have fun with it and that what you learn perhaps inspires you as an engineer!

OK….. if that is a sort of unintended introduction, then let’s talk about what we are going to be doing in the 30 hours duration of this unit……….

First of all: Some Principles and two questions.

1. The Last Chance Saloon.  You’ve all seen Clint Eastwood cowboy movies so you can picture the scene: a village on the edge of the desert with a boarding/(‘bawding’?!?) house, a provisions shop and the saloon… the LAST saloon before the desert.  Well, as far as your English is concerned, you are now supping your last cool pint of opportunity to put your English at a fully functional level before you head out into your international career.  I tend to find that from year to year you have all engaged in learning English for 10 – 15 years, but that your confidence in using it with precision is often far less than you would like and the situation may require.   We can do something about this in the time we have together.   So let’s see how things look in the ‘saloon‘ shall we, with a couple of questions.

1. How many years have you been studying English? (What is the class average?)
2. How confident would you be were your boss to put you in these situations?  (Where the scale runs from 0 [no confidence at all], 3 [little confidence – rather worried], 5 [some confidence but still rather reticent], 7 [OK with it, not too worried] to 9 or 10 [Acuna Matata! No Problemo! totally confident]…. You can put yourself at 1, 2, 4, 6 or 8 if you wish…..

• Situation A.  Your boss wants you to write to businesses in the USA to make hotel, internal flight and airport transfer reservations for a very important conference in California where she/he will be making the keynote address.  To be sure, ‘the Boss’ (no I don’t mean Springsteen!) asks you to deal with this in English.
• Situation B.  Your boss arrives at your office door.  A major buyer of your company’s products has just arrived asking to be shown around the office/factory, to be introduced to key people and to have the systems of engineering and production explained to him.  However, his French is very poor – he needs the tour in English.  The boss asks you to handle the matter in your best English.  How do you feel about it (as per the scale above)?

If I am right about this, then the problem is not lack of learning or vocabulary, it is more a question of confidence.  That being the case, clearly tons of extra vocabulary won’t really help. Initially, the far more important issue will be to improve your confidence – especially in the spoken communication domain (in the written, you will have time to think, to use dictionaries basic and technical, spellcheck and tools like Grammarly (if you haven’t used this tool – please do – it corrects and it teaches you at the same time – and it works in English and a number of other languages!) to make sure you get it all but perfect.  To develop confidence, you have to realise that successful communication IS NOT all about perfection: rather it is about having the courage to launch out knowing that although you may well make errors here and there, your meaning and intention will be perfectly clear and understandable.

So in these classes, my first and principal requirement is that you ‘launch out‘ and try your best knowing full well that you will make mistakes!  But those mistakes will help me to help you far more than your silence or your reading a pre-prepared script ever will!  Once the confidence is there, THEN we can work on extending vocabulary and upon precision expression.  Two quotes from a very important source coming up… ready?

« The man who never made a mistake never made anything! »

« There is no crime in making a mistake – it’s only a crime if one doesn’t learn from it! »

(Seminal source … literally for me, I guess …

…my Dad: Syd Jolley!)

2. Other Principles – see Tonyversity ‘About’ then ‘Principles‘ menu.  This will include things like:

• don’t use translator tools wholesale… you woyuld not be submitting your ‘own’ work.
• don’t use AI to generate answers / essays / reports – it is almost always evident (even without Zero GPT) from the ‘flatness’ of the language.

Lets have a look at the sort of tasks / projects / subjet focii we are going to be taking on after we have dealt with the things above:-

I have built this around a number of  key elements (not by any means of the same size!) which we may address depending on how fast we can move through them and where I feel your interest is highest.

Each of the tasks outlined underneath is DETAILED on a specific page that you will see on the ‘spring out menu’ when you hover your cursor over your IUT base page link on Tonyversity…(as linked on each of the tasks below).

TASK 1. Personal Profile

Rationale. This is for me to get a quick idea, early on, of where you are in terms of written production particlarly.  You will write a peice according to the following instructions and read some of it I can get a feel for your pronunciation etc…..  I will also want to see how well you can follow instructions in a professional setting.  I will mark both the written and oral components.

Your Task is to create (on two full pages of A4, typed in 12pt and in WORD   a personal/professional profile [NOT  résumé / CV … not a lettre de motivation]  ….

Imagine you are recruited to the sort of post you will be seeking in your first job post-graduation.  On your first day, your new boss asks you to create a personal/professional profile which is to be placed directly upon the company’s website and in its magazine to introduce you to your fellow colleagues and to the company’s clients and stakeholders.  Clearly this is NOT a CV/résumé (you already produced these to get the job) but it may draw upon some aspects therein.  This needs to show your identity and personality (character, sense of humour, interests etc) so that people will know who you are and want to get to know you as colleague or contact.  This is NOT as easy as you might think!  It is not a history lesson, nor merely a list of events, studies and qualifications.  It is not a purely ‘formal‘ document.  You need to learn to strike a professional yet informal tone…. and all in your best English as the company you are working for is international and has English as its corporately-adopted language.  (NB. No-one will correct your English – what you produce gets printed and put online.  You MUST therefore use spellcheck, WordReference and Grammarly (but NOT Google translate, Babelfish etc!) to ensure that you avoid major, unforgiveable errors.

I will ask you to produce this for me in hard copy and to read in class an interesting paragraph or two therefrom.  Both components will be assessed. Dates to be advised.

Task 2. Sustianability Personal and Professional.

Rationale.  To challenge you across all personal, professional and even political boundaries in your life and to develop your technical vocabulary in this area.  Sustainability is going to be a necessary leitmotif for us all for the future and I fear it is going to play an ever greater role in each and every decision we make at work or at home.  In 1854 Chief Seattle foresaw our epoch and called it potentially: « The end of living and the brginning of survival ».  A 180 year old ‘wake-up‘ call…  Let’s hope it isn’t so …. but as Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Starship Enterprise once said: (we’ll have to) « Make it so. »

Sustainability and it’s impact upon your personal, family, corporate and professional (maybe even political?) life in the present and future.  Prior to 1987 the modern concept of Sustainability just didn’t exist…. and even after 30-odd years we still don’t seem to have got the message.  That said, a young girl from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, seems to have had a greater impact in barely four or five years than all the global summits combined – especially upon future generations [I loved her: « How DARE you! » speech.  But where do you stand on what has been described (by Laurent Fabius at the 2015 Paris COP) as the greatest challenge the world (well, humanity at least) has ever faced?]  Not just ‘what do you think’, but:

• what is your own personal impact upon the planet?  Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?  A bit of both, maybe?
• what are you prepared to do (even if you yourself are not the direct and immediate benficiary?).
• Why don’t/can’t/won’t you do more?  What is stopping you (and me!) – have you ever taken a moment to think?
• How can you/we do better – what will it take?
• What should corporations and organisations (your future employers) be doing to improve the situation?  Will you be prepared to work for someone who isn’t doing enough?  Might you be able to influence your colleagues, departments, functions, divisions and corporations in choosing a more sustainable direction.
• When I wrote the first draft of this, I was thinking of a BBC News headline in 2019 citing scientific reports that the ‘Tipping Point‘ is coming closer and fast (the point at which our future actions will have little or no effect upon runaway climate change result): ‘we don’t have 18 years, more like 18 months to turn the ship around‘ some are saying.  What does this mean to you personally and professionally …. even, perhaps, politically?  Does it ‘touch‘ you at all?

This is perhaps THE defining moment/issue for your personal and professional life: I am going to challenge you to stand back and take a long, analytical look at the issue… in English.  We will be looking at all sorts of issues from your personal Carbon Footprint scores, to issues like the performance of the IUT and UHA in this regard.  I am hoping that you will be able to propose recommendations to change teaching and learning and other aspects in this regard.  Presently it is quite possible that students in France can exit a Degree or Master’s programme having had absolutely ZERO opportunity (throughout an entire school and university career) to think about / learn about / think about sustainability…    If we want people to choose to change, surely we have to change this?

ASIDE…. It may be difficult to think that you can do much on this score as a degree or Master’s student… but think again: look at this:

• Look at how young the faces are.
• Now look at their idea (came out of an idea that came to a Master’s student writing his thesis: a real problem-solving ‘What If..?‘ moment if ever there were one…. a battery made of sand that can use ‘waste energy in summer’ to heat sand to high temperatures for 6 months or more to heat whole towns for the whole of winter!  It’s moved out of the lab, out of a test bed and is about to heat 35,000 homes.  Do watch the 4th video on this page which will give you a sense of how a simple idea is going to ‘ramp up’ in the future. Here is their vision of future uses of their concept.  Do take a look!

Task 3.  Business Role Plays.

You are all likely to be in business to some degree.  I will face you with a number of team role-pays (realistic work environments) where you will interact with figures & information and make recommendations accordingly as my Directors of Division and Brands.  These will be in the domains of : business performance analysis, human resource management, marketing and strategic planning.  As you rise within your chosen business function, there will come a moment where you will inevitably be promoted to general management and will have to deal with all of these functions….

Task 4.  Getting yourself a position post Tri-Nat

(Job search, the importance of the Job Description and Person Specification, covering letters, cvs, applications, interview & selection etc … but NOT as you will have heard it before, trust me!!!).

Up to now, your applications will largely have been for part-time or apprenticeship posts … and (if you are French) you will almost inevitably have been confined to one page for your ‘lettre de motivation‘ and your ‘résumé’ – do that as a Master’s (or even a Degree) student seeking employment and your CV won’t even be looked at!!!   Did you know (BBC 2018) that 85% of CVs are NEVER even looked at (much less read!) …. Why?  Because the covering letter  is so poorly presented, unattractive, underdeveloped and lacking in application to the post’s requirements.

There is no silver medal in the race to secure a post/position: coming second is just frustrating: ‘so near but so far‘…. so you’d better be aiming with every application to be THE ONE.  For that, there is an approach which is likely to enhance your chances of success.  My intention is that you ‘buy in‘ to this and apply it to each and every post.

Task 5: Advertisment Effectiveness.

We are all prey to advertising and materials of persuasion from our earliest days; but what makes certain Ads. work and others not work at all?  I will be facing you with certain adverts and some Communications Theory and asking you to use your intellect, analytical ability and this theory to evaluate the advert you have been given and why it works or doesn’t.

My Rationale:-

These tasks and situations are designed to enable you to develop:

• confidence in using your existing English in a variety of different formal and informal professional contexts relating principally to engineering
• a greater fluidity and precision in the use of technical and professional English.
• an enhanced understanding of business practices and operations.

Let’s enjoy our time in the Last Chance Saloon for your English – I intend to!

Best

Tony