WEEK 3

BRIEF OVERVIEW


1) The first half of the lesson was the discussion on how the technological and industrial advances should lead towards the common goal of sustainability.

2) The second half of the lesson was how to encourage and fully utilize innovation in today's industries and  societies.

INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS


1)It was the concept of 'failing early,failing cheap and failing fast' which was covered by one of the presenters. This was a concept that was fresh and new to me because you will come across companies advocating it. It's only from your experiments that you can learn and improve upon your concepts/ideas.

2) ' How stuff works' was really one of my personal favourite material for this class so far. The presenter was quirky and didn't mince her words in sharing the ugly truth about the whole process in global destruction. From the huge companies and governments at the top to the consumers (which is the rest if us),    we all lent a hand in polluting our world. In a short 20 mins presentation, she name everything that was unethical, selfish and greedy about our current system. No matter how much we can talk about the inefficiency,incompetence or selfishness of our governments and companies, we as consumers are also not entirely absolved of the blame.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


1) Companies have to strike a balance between innovation and marketing. If both are satisfied, then can the company enjoy greater profits. Apple was a good example mentioned. Indeed one good point was brought up in class that the specifications of any Apple product is comparable to a few products in the market and  intensive marketing was what made the difference. Having said that,  isn't that the case for all other products? Isn't a celebrity using a certain brand of facial foam entice you to use it too? I feel that it's not just having a good product at hand but also an equally good advertising campaign to back it to double the results.


ISSUE FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION


I was quite intrigued by the 'cloud opportunities' that prof has come out with. How do we differentiate those who has good ideas from those who do not? The industry or market is ever-changing, today's 'what's in' could be tomorrow's 'what's out'.  I'm interested in knowing how does such an company climb to the top    with having less than their competitors. Overall the lesson was an enjoyable one, we had many discussions due to the fact that it was more current and relevant to our current times. We could name/ list many examples to fit in the concepts we learnt.