Session 3-29/8/2011

 

A brief summary of the previous session from prof lifted the curtain of session 3. As usual, the appetizer of this session was a video, and this time, it was quite a long clip about the life of stuffs in general. Frankly, that clip really opened my eyes since it revealed a lot of interesting facts as well as presented some interesting viewpoints. Firstly, according to the speaker, “stuffs move through a system from extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal”, which has been adopted by humankind for the last 200 years. Since it is a linear process, stuffs once get disposed directly in to the environment by being thrown into the landfills or the sea will not be recycled or reused, which is without doubt a waste of money and resources as well as burden to the environment. Only by transforming the linear process into the cyclical process, which excludes the final stage (disposal) and in some sense the first stage (extraction), can humankind effectively obtained sustainable development. Not until Prof elucidated that sustainable development is a kind of development that provides humankind with all the necessities at present without sacrificing the ability of the next generations of humankind to meet their own needs did I fully grasp the meaning of this term. Seriously, gaining sustainability in development should be the ultimate aim of countries worldwide, no matter how rich or poor they are, since only by doing such can people preserve the humble amount of resources of all kinds for their children’s, grandchildren’s and so on along with saving this young yet severely damaged planet.

However, accomplishing that goal is somehow similar to using a double-edge sword. In order to achieve sustainable development, countries, especially the developing ones as well as the undeveloped ones, have to go through a couple of years of dramatic change in the whole system including the human factors as well as non-human factors, which inevitably leads to stagnant growth in economy. Technology, the main fuel for sustainable development, will have to be advanced vigorously while life will be turned upside-down!

The speaker also condemned the “consuming” mentality of millions of people in the US. Ironically, after the 9/11 disastrous event, G.W.Bush, who, firstly, as a human and secondly, as the president of a nation, was supposed to show his sympathise as well as transferring it to the others, did nothing but urged the citizens of America to shop, shop and shop to make up for the loss of the country. But this mentality were inoculated into the American quite a long time ago, dated back more than 50 years before that calamity even took placed – right after the WWII. In order to boost up the economic development, the government of America was advised to create the mind-sets for consuming in its people, for the rise in the demand would led to the surge in supply, and once the suppliers kept manufacturing and the consumers kept buying and consuming, the economy would prosper. Advertising, naïve as it seems to be, has become a powerful tool for the US government to manipulate its people. Although this solution has kept the US thriving for years, it has brought about several adverse side effects. To start with, people’s value is now calculated through the amount of goods they own. It is still true that one can still be respected if one is mentally rich, but since stuffs are more conspicuous than “brains” and people tend to make judgements on others based on their appearance, the more “stuffs”, specifically luxurious ones, one owns, the more one is respected. Another thing to be taken into consideration is that the desire to consume is driving people crazy and imprisoning them in a vicious a circle. The crave for owning more goods make people work doggedly and after a long day working, all the American can do is laying on the couch, switching the TV on and watch it. Hilariously, most of the programs on the TV are inserted with a few advertisements, which then add up the people’s desire for buying more and to afford that, people have to spend more time in their workplaces.

The first half of the session ended up with two presentations, which were not really interesting to me though presented quite well. At the dawn of the second half, Prof gave an introduction of a new term -innovation management- to everyone and defined it as a mean to create value by increasing the efficiency of translating promising concepts into high value products and services.  To illustrate, Prof showed a diagram called R-D-A   translation process, with each letter stood for Research, Development and Application respectively:

As is indicated in the diagram, the tube symbolizing “Research” is far bigger than that representing “Application”, so we can easily infer that coming up with new ideas is quite a child’s play. It is how to turn these ideas into reality, or in other word, to apply them that differentiate the geniuses and the idiots. That is why the D stage which involves translating new insights and ideas into practical application is unsurprisingly labelled “nightmare”.

Besides, I was also introduced to “the Shahi Landscape Model for technology assessment”:

                                     

ð  Key Takeaway? Standing out is the only way to surge forward.  Daring to do what others have never thought costs an arm and a leg, but the reward will be great.
The presentations of three students in the class wrapped up the whole lesson, which I believe to be pretty intriguing.(Rating 7.5/10)