TWC Session 3

Lets change the style of presentation for once....

Session 3, is a reflection of reality. The world has changed, and it has gradually shifted from a linear operating system to a cyclical system. The linear system is one which brings about economic well-being at the cost of the environment. Alarms are ringing, and the world knows, the linear system results in wastage and focus on high energy consumption with fossil fuels. Not surprising, if we follow the rate of consumption of an average American, we will need around 3 to 5 of planet Earth. There will be no true sustainability where the truth lays over the fact that future generation cannot survive at the rate we are depleting the finite resources.

We need to shift away from the linear model, where economic well-being is brought about at the expense of the environment, to a cyclical system which considers about both economic and environment well-being. Although environment and economic growth always grew in lockstep, this conventional argument is now dangerously naïve and society has proven it.

Look at Natural Capitalism, a new system introduced by a frugal cornucopian, Amory Lovins; a visionary who made the world saw the importance of resource efficiency. The focus of his school of thought was based on the core principle of looking at the demand-side solutions, narrow down to what we really want, finally, look at better and cheap ways of producing the product. Ultimately with all these, increase productivity of natural resources by changing both production design and technology to develop ways to stretch the same amount of natural resources five, ten or hundred times further than they do today. An “End-Use/Lease-Cost approach”, reducing waste and accounting for the environment, lowering cost of production, hence, allow profiting.

Indeed, the ignorance of history of resource exploitation should come to a halt now! We should stop waiting to achieve scientific consensus, stop discounting the future, take a step back, look at life, and free ourselves of this illusion. Laziness has caused us to rely on scientist to recognise problems and hopelessly hope that an invisible hand will descend from the sky to remedy. Let’s stop pointing fingers, and with baby steps, slowly change the world. One just need to understand, one less plastic cup use, is one less plastic cup to bury. If everyone starts to reduce wastage, look for environmental alternatives, we are at the very least attempting to path a different road away from the bleak future. Build a next generation responsibly.

The shifting trends only meant one thing, we need to manage innovation, and innovation is all about change. How we manage change was the second part of Session 3. The society today was about Technology Push and Market Pull. We either reinvent existing product to suit market demand or be a creator of a tipping point, where we design and shape new consumer behaviour. Indeed, innovation is no easy feat. The translation of an idea to an innovation is a 3 part process. It begins with research over an idea, a dream, followed by development, the nightmarish processing of the idea, before it reaches application, the reality.

Change is often slow because human beings are often intimidated by opinions and failure. It’s like a man trying to ask a lady out for a date. Prior to asking, the guy will probably ask himself, am I good looking enough? Am I an individual with a social status high enough for her? This list of opinion is never ending and personal opinions start to corrupt the very idea which is full of potential. Worse, an individual will start to seek opinion to cover up for his insecurities, all these to avoid failure.

Similarly, managing innovation is management of an idea.  Along the way, we will meet up with obstacles. A friend brought up, life’s like that, it’s always better to fail early, fail fast, fail cheap when we work on innovation. Nonetheless, I have to agree, focusing on how to avoid failure results in stagnation. We will lose our ultimate focus. Embrace the existence of failure and learn to deal with it to be better. A saying goes “prevention is better than cure”, but I always ask myself, where do you truly learn? Preventing the issue from occurring, or ‘curing’ the issue? The world is never perfect, but it is due to the little imperfections that allow us room for progress.

PS: A good feast from lesson.

TWC Session 2

Overview

Session focused on two major topics:

1) Technology, Society and Global Dominance

2) Technology and Human Development.

Session 2a

Session began with a short video: History of the World in 7minutes. A clear cut demonstration of how dominant players of the world are changing. Professor introduced a framework of thinking where ge split countries into 3 categories: Rising Star, Dominant player and a Falling Star. The rapid change in dominant players was further depicted by the changes in world economy over the millenium.

Key Takeaways

What caught my attention, for the first half of the lesson was the fact that a Dominant player can be a Rising Star or Falling Star. This is easily differentiated by the overall attitude of the country, and not their aptitude. Look at the Americans: Dominat player, but a falling star, a simple example on how they deal with their sovereign debt can tell about their country's attitude to face the music. Heavy resistance in the politcal arena results in stagnation.

Issues for Further Discussion

Then again looking back, the issue about America being a dominant player, but a falling star, could be seen as a result of herself being a super power playing too big a role in safeguarding the small nations. Should we review this issue and reassess if America is a dominant player or not?

Session 2b

On the 2nd part of the lesson, class touched on Technology and Human Development, where development is a change in human activity based on an impact assessment, for example how a driver or consequence such as technology impact human lives.

We took a look at Global Health, largely based on life expectancy, literacy, income and size of population. We also looked at the changes in human inequalities, and how this disparity is closing in. This is assessed with the help of the Human Development Index. Lessons then ended about the Millennium and development growth goals

Key Takeaways

From the lesson, I believe that human inequality exist, and cannot be eradicated due to competitiveness; a innate character of human. Although this inequality cannot be eradicated, we can reduce this disparity through education, boost our ability to understand and attempt to catch up this human race. I also introduced to the class how embracing foreign talents can allow society to understand and close the disparity of human inequality.

Issues for further discussion

What caught my attention was the use of Human Development Index to rank countries base on Human Development. I find this method of quantifying welfare of the state as generally intriguing, however, I wish that the class could discuss this issue further by thinking about how we can assess the satisfactory level of society, for example the use of happiness index?

Rating

I enjoyed this lesson, very informative, a lot of class interaction, that I fail to bring up with this blog post such as the individual presentations. I rate this session 9/10.

TWC Lesson 1

Brief Overview

Lesson officially began after professor presented his contract with us. This session was an introduction of Technology and World Change. Readings assigned are aligned with the origins of technologies. The videos took the stage of the class: 1) Shift Happens, 2) Guns, Germs and Steel, a documentary on the findings of Jared Diamond, but what caught my attention was the term: “Luddite”

Interesting Ideas

Although technology has the efficiency, the speed, the capacity to accomplish more, not all people embrace technology, especially the “Luddites”. A term introduced by Professor himself. Luddites are people who oppose mechanizing. With that I went a little further to find their origins of opposition over technology.

Do a little Google, and their origins of fear lie with worry about losing their livelihood over technology. A case where full automation occurs, eventually resulting in unemployment and large discontentment.

I am skeptical about this ‘fear’ raised by Luddites. In fact I believe technologies are productivity-enhancers, not just job-eating aliens. As an employee, the machinery alongside them can be more of a helpmate than a threat.  Employees have the intellect and experience over their field jobs, they can raise society values by thinking on areas to improve performance and we can never deny the fact that we need workers to oversee the operation ability of technology.

Key Take Away Points

Shift Happens was a wake-up call, it called my attention on the fast-moving pace of society and each and every individual should be on our toes for change is occurring rapidly with technology. We must adapt, or we will be left behind.

The class placed our focus back in time to understand why some nations tend to progress a little faster than others, based on Jared Diamond's research: Guns, Germs and Steel. The short clip, focus on the roots about human inequality, emphasizing that technological advancement is not uniform due to Geographical disadvantage, failure to learn from shortcomings and strengths of undeveloped societies.

Issues for Further Discussion

There was a discussion relating to the concepts of “technology”, “innovation” over the changes in timeline. However, I felt that more time could have been spent on the discussing the concept of “world change”. Could this disparity of technology be overcome by understanding geographical limitations and looking back at history to learn from experiences? Are there real life examples that we can learn from?

Rating

Overall lesson was enjoyable, I look forward to more in-depth discussion. I rate the lesson 7/10.