My article about the carryover effect of the housing crisis on school districts appeared in Scholastic Administrator magazine. Scholastic Administrator is a must-read resource for 240,000 of today's school leaders. My article on fiscal trouble in school districts reported on the real-life impact of the current financial crisis and how leaders in education are dealing with the situation.
On LinkedIn recently, Logan Kugler, a freelance writer, asked “What do editors want?”
There were many good answers, but one that I felt hit the mark best was left by Owen Linderholm, an editorial director. He said, “…doesn’t matter how good a writer you are if what you say is crap.” This was especially true, Owen said, for writers specializing in the trade end of the market, especially in technology and business.
He’s right. Accuracy, above all else, is critical. And it dovetails with the next most important aspect of pleasing an editor: the ability to break down and explain complex issues and topics. From my experience, these are the two factors that differentiate technology and business journalists from generalists who write on too wide a range of subject matter. In very complex areas, experience and expertise matter.
Mechatronics will pave the way for 90 percent of tomorrow's vehicle innovations. Today, however, the one million lines of mechatronics code embedded in the average vehicle accounts for up to 35 percent of the quality problems and 55 percent of the repair costs. With the number of lines of mechantronics code expected to grow 50 to 100 times in the next few years, the question on the minds of automakers is what can be done to address quality problems associated with mechatronics. My article in the January issue of Managing Automation explores the technology solutions being proposed by PLM vendors to address the problem.
My article on Curves' use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in their fitness centers recently appeared in the online edition of RFID Journal. This was my first feature for the magazine, which provides the latest RFID news and information. RFID Journal is a key resource for early adopters, RFID hardware, software and service providers, researchers and investors.
Animal by-products such as fats and oils are usually a waste product with a related disposal issue, but they can be converted into a renewable fuel. In a recent issue of Renewable Energy World (REW), I reported on one U.S. meat processing company's efforts to explore the commercial development of animal-based bio-diesel.
This was my first feature for REW magazine, which is witten for professionals in industry, policy, utilities, finance, etc. The magazine has readers in more than 160 growing markets around the world.