Editor's Desk

By Michael Hughes

Youth for giving

Ah, the spirit of youth.

They brush away the cobwebs during dusty gatherings of the old, inject energy into sclerotic bureaucracies and breathe life into dead ideas.

The gentleman on the left wishes he had some of that youth stuff. But luckily, IIE does provide the means to leverage the passion of youth to serve IE magazine’s readers. Enter the Young Professionals Group.

Every year or so, the magazine turns its not-so-evil eye toward the marketplace, scanning for products, toys and gadgets that would appeal to the holiday-minded IEs and IE types clamoring for magical gifts, be they celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, the winter solstice, or just a gathering of friends and family.

Staff members have put out some good ideas in past issues, but we’re always looking for new and improved, as the commercials say. So what better way to inject fuel into the old process than to ask up-and-coming professionals what the kids really want in their stockings this year?

After all, no matter how powerful the laser scanning that comes from central planning, crowd sourcing usually can suss out more effective ideas.

So we asked Young Professionals what looked good out there on the product landscape, and they responded just as we expected: with alacrity and verve, in some cases offering details about why a seemingly innocuous product really was a whiz-bang thingamajig.

Trust me, without the information provided about why the Nest Learning Thermostat would be desirable, I would have said, "A thermostat for Christmas? Are you kidding me?"

So turn to Page 32 for this year’s holiday wish list cover story, where you’ll find a number of things designed to bring your engineering-type people good cheer.

Michael Hughes is managing editor of IIE. Reach him at mhughes@iienet.org or (770) 349-1110.