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Yeah, what about Bunny? Early in February, I attended DesignCon 2010, and, aside from having a number of really great meetings with customers, partners, and media, I was curious if there would be a return of Bunny. As all of you who attended DesignCon 2009 will remember, Bunny was the talk of the show (for better or worse is a personal judgement call).

Dane Collins, our CEO, recently sent me a link to a thought-provoking blog by Umair Haque on the Harvard Business Review website. The headline boldly asks, "Is Your Business Useless?" Before I read the first word, I knew I'd likely smile as I read through it. Having spent nearly my entire career in high-frequency (HF) EDA, I was already willing to admit that this industry isn't overtly socially friendly. I mean, we are largely a group of engineers whose typical stereotype is introverted, so stepping out into the spotlight to draw attention to ourselves, and, on top of that, to make a point of being "socially useful".... this was going to be good.

Let’s do lunch! (Aka grab a coffee, have a chat, ah heck, let’s just meet face to face!) Now that I have your attention…. Yeah. Let’s do lunch. I was just reading my “Working Mothers” magazine the other day - their ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ issue –and came across a factoid that said taking a lunch break is a great way to reenergize yourself. Step out of the office, stretch your body and mind, and recharge your spirit.

December is the time for lists in my house. Dear Santa lists and New Year Resolution lists. So perhaps I’ve been preconditioned to take note of others producing lists as well? This one caught my eye with its headline: “Engineers spend 60-80% of work time changing designs.” Really?

I like to watch CBS’s Sunday Morning show on "you guessed it” Sunday mornings. Recently they did a piece on “Once Objects of Scorn, Nerds Now Rule.” And it got me smiling! It’s not that being a nerd has become trendy per se but that with the new culture of wireless gadgets and the Internet, you have to be nerd-minded in order to communicate, be connected, survive in the 21st century. So, voila. Nerd has become the new normal! I like this a lot.

Thanks to a coworker, who convinced me that it would be a good thing to do (for the greater good), I've signed up for the IMS Steering Committee for Anaheim 2010. I'm not one to be quiet (oh gosh..why have I not learned)—so now I find myself attending meetings on my birthday, on Saturdays, etc.

If you’ve been reading the MWJ website these past few weeks, you’ve no doubt noticed a lot of information on “behavioral modeling” coming into the public domain. Just this past month, the MWJ website hosted interviews with NMDG’s Marc Vanden Bosch on S-functions and David Root of Agilent on X-parameters.

Dane Collins, AWR’s CEO, recently sent me a link to a very interesting and timely article in the Harvard Business Journal entitled, " Why small companies will win in this economy.” Author Peter Bergman points out that in this economy, the gap of confidence between small companies and big ones is growing, and that it seems counter intuitive that smaller companies are winning big deals and gaining market share in a recession when the big guys seem unable to weather the storm. One reason he gives is that, while customers used to rely on the security big companies provided, the collapse of AIG, Lehman, Citibank, GM, Chrysler, etc. has resulted in the belief that it is risky to do business with big companies and the trust isn’t there anymore.

Last time on this blog, Ted Miracco and I compared and contrasted the recent DAC and IMS shows, and shared some thoughts on why we think DAC seems to be waning while MTT just keeps on going strong. This week I want to continue on with the DAC thought thread and talk a bit more about a fairly major topic at DAC that dominated my experience this year—the Interoperable PDK Libraries Initiative (IPL). This initiative, of which AWR is a founding member, was the subject of both a lunch and a pavilion panel discussion entitled, “Will Interoperable PDKs Fly in a Stodgy Analog World?”

July 27 marked the start of the 42nd Design Automation Conference in San Francisco. For the second year, AWR elected not to exhibit but rather to have a few execs attend for meetings and to “audit” the show if you will. Having just wrapped up a hugely successful and exciting IMS, I thought I’d talk about some of my impressions about the differences between DAC and IMS. Since AWR’s executive VP and long-time DAC/MTT veteran Ted Miracco also attended, I’ve invited him to share this blog with me because he has lots of good thoughts as well.