Beth Robinson

My goal: Help make better stuff in better ways

Better Stuff

I love the manufacturing industry. Ideas are powerful but the majority require development or production of some sort of physical stuff to carry out. Including the electronic device you are reading this on. Better here can mean more environmentally sound, less expensive, higher quality, and many other things.

Better Ways

Innovation and "better" requires the ability to tackle complex problems. At my blog, Inventing Elephants, I explore the different possible steps in a framework that includes gathering multiple perspectives, creating a model with an understanding of systems and possible interconnections, and carrying out planned actions.

Career

Currently, I am a Technical Customer Service Engineer. I help customers and prospects figure out which grades of paper to use, plus do a range of other projects. I began as a product development chemist for an adhesives company. Then I practiced my people and sales skills as an account manager for a life sciences company. In the long run I want to become a product manager, connecting the different functions of a manufacturing company that need to work together to develop new and improved stuff.  

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For more about me visit my LinkedIn profile, follow me on Twitter, or read my personal blog - Creative Spiralling.

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Random Pieces of Additional Info

• I'm a voracious reader. I adore books and the words within them. I bounce across genres but my first love was the realms of fantasy and I still visit them frequently. 

• I'm an INTJ and my strengths are Learner, Input, Intellection, Consistency, and Strategic.

• My hair reaches my waist but lives twisted up in a bun most of the time. 5 minute prep in the morning is a wonderful thing.

• I live near Philadelphia with my four-year-old, my husband, a dopey grey tabby cat, and an attack kitten.
  

• I played the saxophone in elementary school - it had been my Dad's - and took piano lessons and sang in high school but was never really able to hear or be the music.

• I used to say I became an engineer because I thought like one. I fell in love with materials science in high school but was still tempted to just become a writer instead. Discovering blogging made me happy. Writing for a reason makes me happier.

• I collect little boxes of all sorts of different materials and styles. My daughter loves to look at them. And open them.

• I don't actually remember learning how to cross-stitch, even though my mother remembers teaching me, and I still love the feel of thread moving through fabric.

• I grew up mostly in Virginia, lived a couple of years in Florida, and have been in Pennsylvania for ten. The first and third are very similar but there was something shocking about seeing a five-foot-long alligator just sitting on the sidewalk in the time between.

• I hate Twinkies and whipped cream and could do without cooked fruit in my dessert, even when it's tasty, but will try nearly anything chocolate. Sorbet is also nice.