Mastering The Letter "C"

Thirteen words that start with the letter "c" will become increasingly important to civil engineers in the near future. The words are as follows:

1. Conflict - - Look for confrontation and battles that will see civil engineers as active participants - - fights over climate change public policy; fights over the ideas and actions embedded in sustainability (e.g., cement production); and fights over funding requirements needed to improve our aging public infrastructure. Conflict management and public attitude influencing skills will become an important skill for engineers.
2. Commune - - Not in the physical sense of the word, but as networked individuals and groups sharing an Internet version of "accommodations and possessions" - - ideas that spark creativity and innovation. The larger the commune the greater the opportunity for coming across new and innovative ideas.
3. Consensus - - Engineers will be at the center of our future debates and conflicts - - the ability to build and shape agreement with a diverse cross-section of our citizenry will be critical.
4. Combine - - From multidiscplinary approaches solving multidisciplinary problems to design-build project delivery systems to public-private partnerships - - the ability to blend, mix, and fuse a matrix of capabilities will be critical in forming unions that address old problems in new ways.
5. Cohort - - Your groups or network will drive relationship management. Facebook and LinkedIn will become the models on developing, maintaining, and visualizing connections with your key groups and organizations.
6. Communicate - - How and why will drive the communication equation and space. How will increasingly be a function of new technology, while why becomes more in the context of influence capabilities than information transfer.
7. Conversation - - We need a national "heart-to-heart" on a wide variety of complex and difficult issues. Engineers need to be active participates in these discussions and debates.
8. Community - - All problems and politics start at the local level. We need to actively engage at the level of our local communities. Democracy is about driving the car, not just seating in the passenger seat.
9. Coalition - - We need to breakdown the engineering barriers between the various disciplines. A common vision, a common voice - - a bloc of like minded thinkers, problem solvers, and builders that see new paths to enlightened goals.
10. Collaborate - - We must join forces with the other key stakeholders - - the political classes, the bankers, the developers, the lawyers, the scientists - - a combination of the best and brightest that is willing and able to disrupt the status quo.
11. Coordinate - - Working with others while actively arranging the elements of a complex whole to achieve greater social efficiencies will be critical in a future world marked by climate change, energy transitions, and sustainability improvements.
12. Cooperate - - We must be seen as the hub at the center that drives a spirit of national and international cooperation and action for a common goal and endpoint.
13. Coexist - - The future of our world as we know it depends on global harmony - - given that we will always have some level of wars and conflicts. But many of our most complex problems need a space and framework that has a foundation in coexistence. Engineering, in some form or fashion, has the opportunity to provide the global community with the glue and bonding that heightens the spirit of coexistence.