Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Service Economy: The Third Industrial Revolution Will Turn Customers into Designers
http://www.gereports.com/post/78572419076/service-economy
The first Industrial Revolution was about machines, the second about technology, and the third will take place inside the “Brilliant Factory,” says Christine Furstoss, global technology director at GE Global Research.
Based in part in the cloud, the Brilliant Factory will be a place where designers, suppliers and production engineers will collaborate over crowdsourcing platforms, design goods and virtually test production without touching materials or machines. “They will download the process to intelligent machines on the factory floor when they are ready,” Furstoss says. “When production starts, they will be able to make real-time adjustments based on what’s happening to optimize efficiency.”
A key element of that crowdsourcing collaboration will be the customer. “Service, the function that’s usually closest to the customer, feeds engineering with reality-based measures of product performance,” says Ian Boulton, senior director for solution strategy at the Big Data firm PTC. “Engineering, in turn, designs products with service optimization in mind.”
Boulton believes that the advent of the Industrial Internet (or Internet of Things), a network that connects machines with software, sensors and data, is “transforming product development processes and accelerating design innovation.” He calls this trend “servitization.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The third industrial revolution
http://www.economist.com/node/21553017
The digitisation of manufacturing will transform the way goods are made—and change the politics of jobs too
Tomi Engdahl says:
Spimes Shall be User-Centric
https://www.basen.net/#/page?name=NBlog_blogentry_161214_0&source=wiki
One of the disruptive differences in our Spime architecture is that it will be user (human) centric. Products and services designed by using real time feedback from millions of customers lead to mass customization and much more persistent, if not eternal, customer relationships. Value steadily flows to the digital side, even with mundane products like (Socks).
The user centric, evolving elevator is only possible with connectivity, massive data processing and real time control feedback.
User-centric, evolutionary design is hard, though, as existing models have been taught in engineering and business schools for the last couple of centuries. Now for the first time, the prototype becomes the norm – your (even physical) product or service will continuously change to better meet your needs. For the deterministic architect or engineer, this is blasphemy. With new digital possibilities, products and services can also merge and split on demand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t Fire-and-Forget Your Products
https://www.basen.net/#/page?name=NBlog_blogentry_200414_0&source=wiki
Most businesses today operate in a fire-and-forget mode. As soon as the product is sold, it becomes a mere liability for the duration of its warranty.
While lot of resources is used to enhance production, sourcing and distribution processes, customer and consumer behavior and the product’s afterlife get surprisingly little attention. Yes there are the registration URLs and earlier the mail-in cards, but they’re usually designed as such nuisances that some one percent or less of customers fill them.
Fire-and-forget model is sticky, not least since it has become the norm propagated by countless business books and common practices since the industrial revolution. It is coming to an end, though.
Spimes will start a new era. Connectivity and sensing technologies are quickly becoming affordable even for the cheapest products, such as rooftiles and lunchboxes. Suddenly the tile manufacturer is aware of the status and usage of every single tile she has sold – providing her with several new ways to interact with and sell more to the customer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Post-industrial society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-industrial_society
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society’s development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
As the term has been used, a few common themes (not limited to those below) have begun to emerge.
The economy undergoes a transition from the production of goods to the provision of services.
Knowledge becomes a valued form of capital, see human capital.
Producing ideas is the main way to grow the economy.
Through processes of globalization and automation, the value and importance to the economy of blue-collar, unionized work, including manual labor (e.g., assembly-line work) decline, and those of professional workers (e.g. scientists, creative-industry professionals, and IT professionals) grow in value and prevalence.
Behavioral and information sciences and technologies are developed and implemented. (e.g. behavioral economics, information architecture, cybernetics, Game theory and Information theory.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mission Growth: Europe at the Lead of the New Industrial Revolution
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/initiatives/mission-growth/index_en.htm
Europe’s economy cannot survive in a sustainable way without a strong and profoundly reshaped industrial base. New technologies have dramatically changed our life and our economy in the past 20 years. Political systems collapsed, new players emerged on the markets, as well as new materials, new technologies and workers who are better skilled than ever. The wind of change is blowing at a time when Europe is facing a severe economic and social crisis. But this situation and the changes are also an opportunity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intelligent People All Have One Thing In Common: They Stay Up Later Than You
http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/night-owls-creative-intelligent/686025/
There’s an electricity in the moon. A pulse, a magic, an energy. A bewitching entrancement unlike that of the sun.
The moon is for things unseen, things done in the shadows and beneath the fog. Under bridges and beneath bed sheets — it’s for wild hearts and unconcerned minds. It’s where plans are made in dark alleyways and secrets revealed under the soft haze of light coming through the cracks of closed shutters.
It’s when we fall in love — that passionate, all-consuming, purposeful love that always looks a little different in the light of day.
It’s by night that we see our true desires.
It’s when we become poets and philosophers, martyrs and murderers.
The night is for passion. It’s for fanaticism, romance and trouble. It’s when your most tender, authentic and suppressed sides come out to play under the nonjudgmental eyes of the stars.
It’s only natural that those who go to bed earlier never experience the psychological and emotional changes that occur under the blanket of darkness.
According to “Psychology Today,” intelligent people are more likely to be nocturnal than people with lower IQ scores.
Average brains were conditioned to follow this sleep pattern, while the more inquisitive, intellectual ones want to defy that pattern and create their own.
All those dreams you can’t have during the day, when you’re snapped out of them by friends, family and work, are finally given time to run around.
Free to play in the open spaces of your mind, you can swim in all those thoughts you hid under your desk or behind mounds of paper work. It’s the most creative time of day, along with the most liberating.
The night is for testing your limits and challenging yourself.
Staying up late has been, and always will be, an act of rebellion. A defiance of the nine-to-five, the very habit of staying up late is revolutionary. Since ancient times, there is evidence that society condoned the night owls.
In the academic paper, “Why The Night Owl Is More Intelligent,” published in the journal “Psychology And Individual Differences,” it’s widely assumed that for several millennia, humans were largely conditioned to work during the day and to sleep at night.
It’s no surprise that those willing to stay up late, to explore the uncharted territory of night, are more inquisitive.
They are more apt to make discoveries and challenge authority. They want to expand their mind, not shut it off just because people tell them it’s time for bed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I want to print personalised cancer drugs in a day
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990.200-i-want-to-print-personalised-cancer-drugs-in-a-day.html
Biohacker Andrew Hessel’s open-source drug company aims to make bespoke cancer-fighting viruses using DNA printers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Worrying About Stuff Is a Sign of Intelligence
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/12/worrying-about-stuff-is-a-sign-of-intelligence.html?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
The tendency to worry about stuff could be a sign of a certain kind of intelligence, according to a paper in an upcoming edition of the journal Personality and Individual Differences
After analyzing the results, Penney and his team found a correlation between worrying and verbal intelligence.
Correlation doesn’t imply causation, of course, but this is not the first paper to have found a link between anxiety and intelligence. On the other hand, Penney and his colleages also found an interesting association in the other direction: The more respondents said they replayed past events over in their minds, the lower they ranked on non-verbal intelligence.
“It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry. Individuals with higher non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals from individuals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Smartest Book About Our Digital Age Was Published in 1929
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/05/the-smartest-book-about-our-digital-age-was-published-in-1929.html
How José Ortega y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses helps us understand everything from YouTube to Duck Dynasty.
I’d read other works by Ortega (1883-1955), and been impressed by the Spanish philosopher’s intelligence and insight. But this 1929 study of the modern world, his most famous book, struck me as hopelessly nostalgic and elitist.
Yet I recently read The Revolt of the Masses again, and with a completely different response. The same ideas I dismissed as old-fashioned and out-of-date back in the 20th century now reveal an uncanny ability to explain the most peculiar happenings of the digital age.
Are you, like me, puzzled to learn that Popular Science magazine recently shut down comments on its website, declaring that they were bad for science? Are you amazed, like me, that Duck Dynasty is the most-watched nonfiction cable show in TV history? Are you dismayed, like me, that crappy Hollywood films about comic book heroes and defunct TV shows have taken over every movie theater? Are you depressed, like me, that symphony orchestras are declaring bankruptcy, but Justin Bieber earned $58 million last year?
If so, you need to read The Revolt of the Masses. You’ve got questions. Ortega’s got answers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon Not as Unstoppable as It Might Appear
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/technology/personaltech/amazon-not-as-unstoppable-as-it-may-appear.html?_r=0
Thanks to its ugly spat with book publishers, Amazon has lately been cast as the abominable boogeyman of American commerce.
But there’s another theory about Amazon’s future, one for which evidence began to mount this year: Despite fears of Amazon’s growing invincibility, the company’s eventual hegemony over American shopping is not assured. It might not even be likely.
That’s not just because investors began to question the company’s aggressive spending this year, or because its big new thing, the Fire Phone, turned out to be about as unwelcome as the flu.
Amazon may face a deeper problem. Like many of the local and big-box retailers it has displaced over the last decade and a half, Amazon could itself become increasingly vulnerable to the threat of technological upheaval.
The key to its vulnerability is the smartphone, a device whose scope and significance Jeff Bezos, the chief executive, has not yet managed to corral.
Phones have already radically altered both the way Americans shop and how retail goods move about the economy, but the transformation is just beginning — and it is far from guaranteed that Amazon will emerge victorious from the transition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
All creative people want to do the unexpected.
Hedy Lamarr
The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
Lois McMaster Bujold, “Brothers in Arms”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t major in CS: 5 reasons why
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/measure-of-things/4431764/Don-t-major-in-CS–5-reasons-why
You’re convinced that majoring in CS will teach you everything you need to know to write that cool app and make you an instant millionaire, but it’s not quite true.
Here are five reasons to resist the urge to major in Computer science.
4. Don’t let human resource departments dictate your life.
No question, if you want a job right now, a CS degree will get you one. It’s also true that many HR departments obsess over acronyms rather than intelligence and ability. The problem is that HR rarely has much understanding of what technologists really do. If they understood the problems facing their companies, they’d be solving them instead of searching for other people to do it.
3. CS skills are the first to be outsourced and off-shored.
Because computers are cheap, computer science programs can be administered anywhere. You’ll be graduating in a worldwide class of several hundred million, most of whom have access to very little hardware. Take advantage of the wealth in the west, spend time in the lab learning how stuff works.
Let the wizards in the far east do the boring work.
2. You can “wing” the CS you need when you need it.
Computers are tools, when you focus on a problem, you’ll figure out the tools you need.
Everyone needs problem solving skills. Learn about the things, the tools come with them!
The arcane bits of CS that you don’t pick up in EE, Mech Eng, physics, mathematics, or even economics, are short-lived. Programming languages, scripting codes, and operating systems come and go every decade—you’ll have to wing them anyway, you might as well get used to it.
1. Would you rather create new technology or support people who create new technology?
I could be wrong, but I bet most technologists will agree that the most interesting problems don’t involve software for the sake of software. The cool problems require understanding how the world works, whether that world is human culture, the physical universe, or the interface between the two.
Comment:
But good heavens, point #1 could not be further from the truth. There’s nothing at all “wicked-boring” about computers and software, and there are quite a few real problems to be solved in that area. This item shows a clear bias and personal preference, and the author (sorry Mr. Stephens!) should have known better to have included it.
(Disclaimer: I am both a hardware AND software guy)
Tomi Engdahl says:
But some investors are saying that her product focus (to the point of micromanaging) hasn’t generated results, and that the company should give up on trying to create the next iPod, merge with AOL to cut costs and focus on the unglamorous core business that it has.
Source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/12/18/2311237/marissa-mayers-reinvention-of-yahoo-stumbles
Tomi Engdahl says:
What do companies like Netflix and Amazon have in common?
They developed software platforms powered by HTTP to disrupt their respective industries. Both Netflix and Amazon recognized that software communication driven by HTTP could ultimately enable them to integrate systems faster, simplify development, and accelerate the features into market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/
The trouble with ignorance is that it feels so much like expertise. A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight.
In many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.
One can’t help but feel for the people who fall into Kimmel’s trap. Some appear willing to say just about anything on camera to hide their cluelessness about the subject at hand (which, of course, has the opposite effect). Others seem eager to please, not wanting to let the interviewer down by giving the most boringly appropriate response: I don’t know. But for some of these interviewees, the trap may be an even deeper one. The most confident-sounding respondents often seem to think they do have some clue—as if there is some fact, some memory, or some intuition that assures them their answer is reasonable.
The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.
What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.
This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge.
Occasionally, one can even see this tendency at work in the broad movements of history. Among its many causes, the 2008 financial meltdown was precipitated by the collapse of an epic housing bubble stoked by the machinations of financiers and the ignorance of consumers. And recent research suggests that many Americans’ financial ignorance is of the inappropriately confident variety.
Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all. And over the years, I’ve become convinced of one key, overarching fact about the ignorant mind. One should not think of it as uninformed. Rather, one should think of it as misinformed.
An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, heuristics, metaphors, and hunches that regrettably have the look and feel of useful and accurate knowledge. This clutter is an unfortunate by-product of one of our greatest strengths as a species. We are unbridled pattern recognizers and profligate theorizers. Often, our theories are good enough to get us through the day, or at least to an age when we can procreate. But our genius for creative storytelling, combined with our inability to detect our own ignorance, can sometimes lead to situations that are embarrassing, unfortunate, or downright dangerous—especially in a technologically advanced, complex democratic society that occasionally invests mistaken popular beliefs with immense destructive power (See: crisis, financial; war, Iraq).
Because of the way we are built, and because of the way we learn from our environment, we are all engines of misbelief. And the better we understand how our wonderful yet kludge-ridden, Rube Goldberg engine works, the better we—as individuals and as a society—can harness it to navigate toward a more objective understanding of the truth.
When looking only at the confidence of people getting 100 percent versus zero percent right, it was often impossible to tell who was in which group.
Why? Because both groups “knew something.”
The way we traditionally conceive of ignorance—as an absence of knowledge—leads us to think of education as its natural antidote. But education can produce illusory confidence.
But education, even when done skillfully, can produce illusory confidence.
But, of course, guarding people from their own ignorance by sheltering them from the risks of life is seldom an option. Actually getting people to part with their misbeliefs is a far trickier, far more important task.
In the classroom, some of best techniques for disarming misconceptions are essentially variations on the Socratic method. To eliminate the most common misbeliefs, the instructor can open a lesson with them—and then show students the explanatory gaps those misbeliefs leave yawning or the implausible conclusions they lead to.
Such an approach can make the correct theory more memorable when it’s unveiled, and can prompt general improvements in analytical skills.
Then, of course, there is the problem of rampant misinformation in places that, unlike classrooms, are hard to control—like the Internet and news media. In these Wild West settings, it’s best not to repeat common misbeliefs at all.
But here is the real challenge: How can we learn to recognize our own ignorance and misbeliefs? To begin with, imagine that you are part of a small group that needs to make a decision about some matter of importance. Behavioral scientists often recommend that small groups appoint someone to serve as a devil’s advocate—a person whose job is to question and criticize the group’s logic. While this approach can prolong group discussions, irritate the group, and be uncomfortable, the decisions that groups ultimately reach are usually more accurate and more solidly grounded than they otherwise would be.
For individuals, the trick is to be your own devil’s advocate: to think through how your favored conclusions might be misguided; to ask yourself how you might be wrong, or how things might turn out differently from what you expect. It helps to try practicing what the psychologist Charles Lord calls “considering the opposite.”
Because it’s so easy to judge the idiocy of others, it may be sorely tempting to think this doesn’t apply to you. But the problem of unrecognized ignorance is one that visits us all.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 10 commandments of attracting millennials to manufacturing
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4437856/The-10-commandments-of-attracting-millennials-to-manufacturing-
As Generation X ages out of the workforce, many organizations will find themselves with a gaping worker gap. And it’s never too early to start to be the kind of company that attracts millennial workers.
“When we started the company, we wanted to focus on culture,” Tracy Tenpenny, vice president of sales and marketing for Tailored Label, told EBN. “We had a philosophy of wanting to be the best place to work, and as we went about putting those elements in place, we realized that they were really elements that millennials are attracted to and appreciative of.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Hot & Cool NASA Innovations
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325060&
Partnering with industry, NASA has developed new technologies that are not only hot and cold but also tiny and out of this world. Ranging from nano structures to asteroids, check out what NASA has been up to.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackers Go Off-Grid for Power
Powerful ideas for development
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325058&
Hackathon produces designs that could be assembled by villagers with limited resources.
It’s just amazing what like-minded engineers who have never previously met each other can come up with when working together to win a design competition. It does of course help that the target was to devise a workable, affordable, and simple off-grid power generation source for domestic use by poverty-stricken communities around the world.
Earlier this month one of the UK’s foremost distributors of electronic components (and much else) RS Components, together with its US affiliate Allied Electronics and Practical Action, an international charity focusing on the use of technology to challenge poverty in developing countries, organized the so-called Power Hack.
The rapid-prototyping hackathon was held over two days at Google’s offices in London. The three participating teams grouped electronic and electrical engineers with different backgrounds from companies such as Schneider Electric, Elektor, Bare Conductive, as well as tech industry leaders such as 3D printing pioneer Adrian Bowyer, founder of the open-source RepRap project.
This was RS Components/Allied Electronics’ second attempt at such an event.
The one criteria shared by the design engineers was that they were all already active in the company’s DesignSpark community. A couple of them had sparse experience of using the rapid prototyping tools provided — Design Spark Mechanical, DesignSpark PCB and the Toolbox App. “The companies nominated them as they felt it would provide excellent training,“ said Brojak.
came up with the Seebrick, a copper-iron thermocouple that could be embedded into the clay bricks typically used to insulate cooking stoves. The brick — which uses the well-known Seebeck effect to generate electric power — could also be built into home walls and use solar energy amplified by reflectors.
The team calculated that the bricks could generate 2.5W, and that 6 side-by-side would be sufficient for 2 hours of cooking, and that three rooms would be able to be illuminated with LEDs for a night.
The idea would seem to be to have 3D printers available in local centres for making the key parts, and to have some pre-fabricated, but not pre-wound ones made for construction in villages.
The third team suggested recycling common waste materials such as aluminium cans and plastic bottles into small waterwheels, which would be connected to a micro-generator by a 3D printed hub component.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NXP and distributor Mouser Electronics organized again next year the competition, which is designed as an innovative application NXP’s simple logic circuits. Finished the designs must be NXP beginning of June.
Entry stage is sufficient to block diagram of an idea, but will later be needed for a block diagram of one of the online tool.
Top 50 design must NXP from Mouser and the printed circuit board with the idea into practice. Five best are rewarded.
The competition requires innovation, because there is only 2×9 logic gates.
Details of the competition can be found at http://www.thebigidea2015.com
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2234:suunnittele-logiikkaa-ja-voita-rahaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
http://convergencepromotions.com/TheBigIdea.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Illustrated Guide To A Ph.D.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-illustrated-guide-to-a-phd-2014-12
Every fall, I explain to a fresh batch of Ph.D. students what a Ph.D. is.
It’s hard to describe it in words.
So, I use pictures.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Brand New World In Which Men Ruled
By JODI KANTOR DEC. 23, 2014
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/23/us/gender-gaps-stanford-94.html
Instead of narrowing gender gaps, the technology industry created vast new ones for Stanford University’s pioneering class of 1994.
In the history of American higher education, it is hard to top the luck and timing of the Stanford class of 1994, whose members arrived on campus barely aware of what an email was, and yet grew up to help teach the rest of the planet to shop, send money, find love and navigate an ever-expanding online universe.
The reunion told a more particular strand of Internet history as well. The university, already the most powerful incubator in Silicon Valley, embarked back then on a bold diversity experiment, trying to dismantle old gender and racial barriers. While women had traditionally lagged in business and finance, these students were present for the creation of an entirely new field of human endeavor, one intended to topple old conventions, embrace novel ways of doing things and promote entrepreneurship.
It was largely the men of the class who became the true creators, founding companies that changed behavior around the world and using the proceeds to fund new projects that extended their influence. Some of the women did well in technology, working at Google or Apple or hopping from one start-up adventure to the next.
Dozens of women stayed in safe jobs, in or out of technology, while they watched their spouses or former lab partners take on ambitious quests.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Graham:
Immigration reform is crucial to keeping the US a tech superpower, as 95% of great programmers reside outside the US
http://paulgraham.com/95.html
American technology companies want the government to make immigration easier because they say they can’t find enough programmers in the US. Anti-immigration people say that instead of letting foreigners take these jobs, we should train more Americans to be programmers. Who’s right?
The technology companies are right. What the anti-immigration people don’t understand is that there is a huge variation in ability between competent programmers and exceptional ones, and while you can train people to be competent, you can’t train them to be exceptional. Exceptional programmers have an aptitude for and interest in programming that is not merely the product of training.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here are 6 reasons engineers are the greatest, above and beyond other groups.
Why engineers are better than everyone else
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4428606/Why-engineers-are-better-than-everyone-else
Team work, not cut-throat competition
Without this work-together, share-the-knowledge mentality, there would be no open source – no Arduino, no Linux, no Android. There may be no “i” in “team,” but there sure is an “e” for “engineer.”
You’re boring at parties
Yeah, at a cocktail party you might not be able to jump in on the conversation about the latest celebrity baby or this week’s political scandal, but, folks, this is a plus. It means you’re not wasting precious memory on People magazine material.
Here’s my unsolicited advice: Leave the party and its shallow conversation behind. Go host your own party. Maybe a coding party; Startups have been born from less.
So you’re not boring. You’re smart and informed.
Start-ups don’t happen without you
It doesn’t matter what type of start-up we’re talking about. Start-ups don’t happen without engineers – ever.
There’s no entrepreneurship without the technology you can provide, not in 2014 when the world is held up not by Atlas but by smartphones, tablets, and even laptops.
And it’s not just a matter of keeping young businesses mobile. Who builds the machines that mass produce a start-up’s goods? Who writes the tech behind their web site’s retail arm? Who designs just about everything to make their creative ideas a reality? Engineers, that’s who.
Your degree is worth more than the paper it’s printed on
Meanwhile, you doubled down on lab time, wrote code on the weekends, and worked at an internship that might not have paid but offered valuable mentoring opportunities that you took advantage of to mold your craft for the real world. You learned and grew, and you’re better off for it.
Go ahead, argue
There’s a saying: Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig. After a few hours, you realize the pig likes it.
But it’s stating their idea and hearing opposing ideas that makes an engineer happier than a pig in mud. And why not? Arguing is an opportunity to open the mind to new ideas, to think, and to reinforce one’s own research and rational.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way.
Others make problems, engineers find solutions
Got a global energy crisis? Engineers revise power demands and build alternative energy options.
Need a more flexible work environment? Engineers create mobile devices that let you work from home, your kid’s soccer game, or the road.
The world comes up with problems, and engineers answer with solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
For the love of Bong! He’s Chief Contract Killer Evangelist… for WHAT NOW?
Post-Web-2-point-oh give me a break…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/29/enough_with_like_an_uber_for_x_already/
Comment We’re in one of those phases of the tech biz where imitation equals innovation, if you add excremental incremental changes and a personable plonker to spokesperson The Coming Revolution.
Having lived through this once before, this scribe can’t work up a good hype-cycle over boilerplate “innovation”. It’s colour-by-numbers stuff, as was the late 1990s tech boom in which anybody with a template business need only stand still to be buried under an avalanche of funny money.
If your sole idea is to imitate someone else’s whole operation, except for its customer base, you’re not an innovator.
“We’d like you to talk to our Chief Contract Killer Evangelist because he’s a fascinating guy who’s worked in a range of post-Web 2.0 startups.”
Your Chief Contract Killer Evangelist is preening and coiffed. He has watched 30,000 hours of TED videos which means he’s learned all Twenty-Seven TED Speaker Mannerisms Guaranteed to Engage Your AudienceTM, meaning in conversation he’s a self-important, hyperactive crashing bore, whose chief skill is not answering questions.
Q: “But the legality …”
A: “I’ll get to that in a minute. Now, with the platform in place, our next job was to try and ensure a maximally-enhanced seamless transition from desktop to laptop to tablet to smartphone, so that the quality of experience of the stalkee and ultimate victim is consistent in all environments with …”
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 inspirational women engineers and scientists
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4429389/10-inspirational-women-engineers-and-scientists?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&elq=a674ebdf2a7b4bf69e3b4661b2447751&elqCampaignId=20845
Tomi Engdahl says:
Which Engineer Are You? EE Personality Quiz
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4429856/Which-Engineer-Are-You–EE-Personality-Quiz?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&elq=a674ebdf2a7b4bf69e3b4661b2447751&elqCampaignId=20845
Grab a pen and paper to keep track of your choices, have fun
Tomi Engdahl says:
NASA fails: When NASA didn’t get it right
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4433240/NASA-fails–When-NASA-didn-t-get-it-right?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141229&elq=a674ebdf2a7b4bf69e3b4661b2447751&elqCampaignId=20845
We here at EDN often celebrate the great things NASA does. Its missions to Mars and the Curiosity Rover, for example.
However, sometimes NASA and its engineers don’t get it right.
In the following pages we look at 7 such moments and how, when possible, engineers acted to correct mistakes and continue NASA’s mission to “reveal the unknown to benefit all humankind.” Read through and enjoy knowing that even rocket scientists make mistakes
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Thiel Explains Why Mentorship Is Tricky For Tech Companies
http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-mentorship-2014-12
serial entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s advice often goes against traditional thinking.
The idea of mentorship is no exception. Here, he shrugs off the notion that having a smart set of advisors around is any indicator of whether or not your startup will succeed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Marantz / New Yorker:
How Emerson Spartz builds viral sites that grab Facebook traffic using headline testing and other people’s memes
The Virologist
How a young entrepreneur built an empire by repackaging memes.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/virologist?currentPage=all
young people using technology can “build movements to create change.” This is not Spartz’s specialty. “I basically have only one speech,” he told me. “It’s about how to make things go viral. I have personal preferences about how I would want those principles to be applied, but in practice they can be used for pretty much anything.”
Spartz is twenty-seven and has been successfully launching Web sites for more than half his life.
Odom described Spartz to me as “inspiring” and “legitimately awesome.”
In 1999, when Spartz was twelve, he built MuggleNet, which became the most popular Harry Potter fan site in the world.
Web development is a low-overhead enterprise, especially when you live with your parents. MuggleNet made hundreds of thousands of dollars through advertising, and Spartz funnelled his earnings into a new company: Spartz, Inc.
After graduation, they started building rudimentary Web sites, sometimes as many as one a month: GivesMeHope (“ ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’—the twenty-first-century, Twitter-style version”); Memestache (“All the Funny Memes”); OMG Facts (“The World’s #1 Fact Source”). Many of the sites fizzled out; others gained a following. When Internet culture developed a fascination with “fails”—news bloopers, errant autocorrects—Spartz created a site where users could post funny mistakes from Facebook (Unfriendable), a site featuring gaffes from television (As Failed On TV), and one about garbled text messages (SmartphOWNED). When the data indicated that optimism was attracting more visitors than Schadenfreude, Spartz let his “fail” sites languish and focussed on promoting GivesMeHope, a repository for anonymous, uplifting anecdotes.
When he was growing up, Spartz said, his parents made him read “four short biographies of successful people every single day. Imagine for a second what happens to your brain when you’re twelve and this is how you’re spending your time.”
The offices of Spartz, Inc., are in a loft space with polished-cement floors, bright-red walls, a hammock, and an aquarium full of sea monkeys. Games are everywhere—Xbox, Blokus, Ping-Pong—but I never saw anyone playing them.
Employees communicate with one another through instant messages. They almost never talk out loud, and there are no office phones. When something must be discussed face-to-face, staffers arrange to meet in one of several conference rooms ringing the central space.
Most of Spartz’s old sites are still online, but, because their content is user generated, they run largely on autopilot. The company now devotes much of its attention to promoting Dose, which in November received thirty-three million page views.
Much of the company’s success online can be attributed to a proprietary algorithm that it has developed for “headline testing”—a practice that has become standard in the virality industry.
“We spend a lot of time doing a lot of back-end things, a lot of tweaking,”
On a whiteboard behind him were the phrases “old media,” “Tribune,” and “$100 M.” “The lines between advertising and content are blurring,” he said. “Right now, if you go to any Web site, it will know where you live, your shopping history, and it will use that to give you the best ad. I can’t wait to start doing that with content. It could take a few months, a few years—but I am motivated to get started on it right now, because I know I’ll kill it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
WWWTXT: The Oldest Internet Archive
http://www.fastcompany.com/3040130/superlatives-week/the-biggest-archive-on-the-internet-that-youve-never-heard-of
Los Angeles archivist Daniel Rehn has found a cache of “web text” that dates back to 1980. What’s amazing is how much hasn’t changed.
Reading through these bits, the most surprising thing is how little seems to have changed.
He republishes the most prescient bits on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook, usually just a snippet of text with the date. Reading through these bits, the most surprising thing is how little seems to have changed: The things people talked about online during the Internet’s early days are more or less the same things we talk about today. Sometimes, eerily so—a mirror world, strangely compelling, of past-as-present posts.
Pronounced “web text,” wwwtxt was originally intended to include only content from 1988 to 1994, but now reaches all the way back to 1980.
The best stuff comes when he just goes reading not for anything in particular, but aimlessly following threads and people to see where they go.
“I find that putting the parameters back to 1980-1988 always sets it straight,” Rehn explains. “It’s sort of getting back to the roots of things. There’s sort of this feeling like, as you get into your 1993-1994, things become a little too familiar. Things become a little too like today.”
Usenet, by far, is Rehn’s biggest content source. The distributed global network of discussion groups—like rec.arts.drwho or alt.politics—came online in 1980.
“BBSs are little autonomous, sections of content, very small, but then, equally—it’s hard to describe, but they’re equally interesting, but oftentimes more compelling.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 reasons to fall in love with an engineer
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/serious-fun/4428321/11-reasons-to-fall-in-love-with-an-engineer?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141230&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141230&elq=e1d2b2a5edca4f309f749122fb4d05dd&elqCampaignId=20844
Enjoy the below 11 humorous reasons to fall in love with an engineer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yes, Entrepreneurship Can Be Taught
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/yes-entrepreneurship-can-be-taught/
Entrepreneurship programs are all the rage at business schools across the country. But with the high price tag of MBA programs today, many aspiring entrepreneurs wonder if it’s worth the cost and if these programs deliver real value. An MBA is not going to make someone an entrepreneur. But business school does teach some fundamental skills necessary to run a business, generate revenue, establish partnerships, manage people and generally avoid financial or legal issues. While the investment is significant, think if it this way: An MBA can be easier and cheaper than learning lessons the hard way through a failed startup or spending years toiling in a corporate job.
Of course, it’s entirely possible to learn how to run a company by jumping in with both feet. However, an MBA can be a huge boost for entrepreneurs who start small. I credit my MBA with helping me to sell my previous company, MyDropBox. The degree bolstered my credibility with the acquiring company and gave me the tools I needed to navigate a sophisticated negotiation. While having an MBA was a key factor in my case, the truth is the business world won’t be easily sold on that credential alone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Rapidly Disappearing Business of Design
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/disappearing-business-of-design/
By almost every measure, 2014 was a breakthrough year for design and big business.
Beyond all of the hype, we can measure the rise of design in terms of dollars invested by major corporations in design talent. In 2014, design went to the bank!
Consolidation is nothing new for creative industries like advertising, which is dominated by a few large holding companies. But for the first time, in 2014 we saw Fortune 500 companies—primarily big banks and IT firms—grabbing the biggest share of the design talent pool.
What does this mean for the future of design as an independent field of practice in 2015 and beyond?
The First Wave: Digital Change Agents
The Second Wave: Innovation Consultants
The Third Wave: Venture Design
Mass Extinction: The Corporate Takeover
Rising from the Ashes: Big Design
Tomi Engdahl says:
The One Mistake Google Keeps Making
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/12/30/1731201/the-one-mistake-google-keeps-making
Gene Marks writes in Forbes Magazine that Google has brought us innovations that have literally changed our world yet the company continues to make the same mistake over and over. Google’s mistake, which it keeps making, is building great products that no one will soon buy. Take Google Glass — a great idea with great technology that demonstrates the future power of the Internet of Things. There’s just one problem: no one is buying Google Glass. And now there are driverless cars. After 700,000 miles of open road testing, Google has introduced its “first real build” of its driverless car and it’s pretty amazing. But the mistake is the same as with Glass: it’s a product without customers.
The One Mistake Google Keeps Making
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2014/12/29/the-one-mistake-google-keeps-making/
Google has brought us innovations- from search and maps to Gmail and collaboration services, that have literally changed our world. And great ideas keep coming from Google. Yet the company continues to make the same mistake. Over and over. I don’t mean the ones that result in product failures (and there have been quite a few over the years). I mean something a little more fundamental.
The mistake is the same as with Glass: it’s a product without customers. It’s Google assuming that someday someone will actually buy a driverless car. Not a hobbyist or an eccentric millionaire. But a customer who actually needs or desires a driverless car.
For driverless cars to work, to decrease congestion, increase safety, reduce lawsuits and lower our insurance premiums everyone would have to be driving one. Every road and car in the country would have to accommodate some sort of technology or sensor. The only way this would happen is if the government mandates the technology (similar to the government mandating rear view video cameras in cars starting in 2018).
Google’s mistake, which it keeps making, is building great products that no one will soon buy.
But rest assured – Google knows this. They’re not looking for short term profits. They’re not even looking for profits in the next few years. The dreamers behind Google, like the dreamers at Tesla and Virgin Galactic are people who are looking decades ahead. They can do this because they already have profitable revenue streams or capital from other sources to allow themselves to invest in these dreams.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking that IQ Tests Miss
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
No doubt you know several folks with perfectly respectable IQs who repeatedly make poor decisions. The behavior of such people tells us that we are missing something important by treating intelligence as if it encompassed all cognitive abilities. I coined the term “dysrationalia” (analogous to “dyslexia”), meaning the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence, to draw attention to a large domain of cognitive life that intelligence tests fail to assess. Although most people recognize that IQ tests do not measure every important mental faculty, we behave as if they do. We have an implicit assumption that intelligence and rationality go together—or else why would we be so surprised when smart people do foolish things?
It is useful to get a handle on dysrationalia and its causes because we are beset by problems that require increasingly more accurate, rational responses.
The Case of the Cognitive Miser
The processing problem comes about because we tend to be cognitive misers. When approaching a problem, we can choose from any of several cognitive mechanisms. Some mechanisms have great computational power, letting us solve many problems with great accuracy, but they are slow, require much concentration and can interfere with other cognitive tasks. Others are comparatively low in computational power, but they are fast, require little concentration and do not interfere with other ongoing cognition. Humans are cognitive misers because our basic tendency is to default to the processing mechanisms that require less computational effort, even when they are less accurate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace.
Workplaces need more walls, not fewer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/30/google-got-it-wrong-the-open-office-trend-is-destroying-the-workplace/
Our new, modern Tribeca office was beautifully airy, and yet remarkably oppressive. Nothing was private.
Despite its obvious problems, the open-office model has continued to encroach on workers across the country. Now, about 70 percent of U.S. offices have no or low partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association.
These new floor plans are ideal for maximizing a company’s space while minimizing costs. Bosses love the ability to keep a closer eye on their employees, ensuring clandestine porn-watching, constant social media-browsing and unlimited personal cellphone use isn’t occupying billing hours. But employers are getting a false sense of improved productivity. A 2013 study found that many workers in open offices are frustrated by distractions that lead to poorer work performance. Nearly half of the surveyed workers in open offices said the lack of sound privacy was a significant problem for them and more than 30 percent complained about the lack of visual privacy. Meanwhile, “ease of interaction” with colleagues — the problem that open offices profess to fix — was cited as a problem by fewer than 10 percent of workers in any type of office setting. In fact, those with private offices were least likely to identify their ability to communicate with colleagues as an issue. In a previous study, researchers concluded that “the loss of productivity due to noise distraction … was doubled in open-plan offices compared to private offices.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacking Education; Project-Based Learning Trumps the Ivory Tower
http://hackaday.com/2014/12/31/hacking-education-project-based-learning-trumps-the-ivory-tower/
Project-based learning, hackathons, and final projects for college courses are fulfilling a demand for hands-on technical learning that had previously fallen by the wayside during the internet/multi-media computer euphoria of the late 90’s. By getting back to building actual hardware yourself, Hackers are influencing the direction of education. In this post we will review some of this progress and seek your input for where we go next.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We must act to make a change. Think of your most difficult and least-liked undergraduate course. How would you make it more interesting with a good project?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Always Answer a Question with a Question
http://www.securityweek.com/always-answer-question-question
In all seriousness, asking the right questions is one of the most important and fundamental aspects of a successful security program.
Questions empower us to move from the problem to the solution.
Fully grasping the problem is the conception of its solution. From there, we must ask: “What information, technology, knowledge, or otherwise is missing that prevents us from solving this problem?” Understanding the answer to this question subsequently enables us to ask additional, more-detailed questions designed to tease out what we need in order to succeed. As you can see, by asking questions and answering those questions with additional questions, we are working towards solving big problems by breaking them down into smaller, less intractable problems.
Asking the right questions allows us to approach information security analytically and logically. We need to be able to formulate precise, targeted, incisive queries to hone in on the most relevant data while minimizing time spent with data that are irrelevant. That is the only way to progress towards addressing some of today’s biggest security challenges.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Standardized tests versus creativity
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/rowe-s-and-columns/4437799/Standardized-tests-versus-creativity?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150102&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150102&elq=ee91f0521e6f4ae28d41f60a07d2d9f4&elqCampaignId=20814
We’ve heard it time and time again: the world needs more young people to study engineering. Some people claim that it’s the “geek” reputation attached to engineers that drives them away. Others say it’s the “look to your left, look to your right” attitude at some engineering schools. Others blame the high schools for not doing enough to encourage students to study engineering or science. We also hear that engineering students should exercise problem solving rather than studying facts. Why do students study facts? Could part of the problem come from standardized tests?
A recent Boston Globe article cites one of the problems with standardized tests. School systems try to fill their students with the facts they need to pass.
If teachers spend their time filling students with the facts needed for the tests, how well are they preparing students to function once they graduate? Can they teach students to think and to find out what they need to know to solve a problem if the focus is on standardized tests? Teaching to the test can take time away from teaching students to think and to be creative.
As a general rule—at least here in Mass.—teachers in underperforming school districts are more likely to “teach to the test” in an effort to show how well they’re doing.
Mass. wonders whether students being overtested
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/08/mass-wonders-whether-students-being-overtested/jZpConK32gDAdroaS30lyI/story.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adviser Guides Obama Into the Google Age
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/us/politics/her-task-weaning-the-white-house-off-floppy-disks.html?_r=0
President Obama’s top technology adviser cringes when she hears highly educated adults say how bad they are at science and math, particularly when they do so in front of children.
“That has to change,” the adviser, Megan J. Smith, firmly told a group of teachers at the White House not long ago. “We would never say that about reading.”
Ms. Smith, 50, an M.I.T.-trained mechanical engineer and former Google executive, is working hard to bring her Silicon Valley sensibility to the Obama administration.
Not only does she now carry a BlackBerry, she uses a 2013 Dell laptop: new by government standards, but clunky enough compared with the cutting-edge devices of her former life that her young son asked what it was.
“We’re on it,” she said of trying to solve the administration’s technology problems a year after the disastrous rollout of the federal health insurance website, healthcare.gov. “This is the administration that’s working to upgrade that and fix it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Really, govt tech profit cash grab is a PRIZE-WINNING idea?
Where’s the incentive to innovate?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/31/mazzucato_new_statesman_economics_column/
So WHO is making bank?
These are Schumpeterian profits – that is, the profits from innovation. And the question is: what fraction of the total value created ends up sticking to the hands of the entrepreneurs? No, not the financiers, the stock markets (ie, your and my pension funds) but to the Steve Jobses of this world?
The answer is truly astonishing. It’s under three per cent. Of course that’s an average, but it’s still an astonishing number. And given the size of that number it’s really very difficult to say that Jobs’s mountain of cash was “large”.
Finance gets a few more per cent of that value created but the vast majority of it flows through to us, the consumers.
For example, with smartphones (and agreed, this is projection, it’s all too new to really know yet, but we think the effect will be like that of mobiles a decade and more ago), we’re pretty sure that there’s going to be a boost to growth in the poorer countries simply because of the existence of smartphones. If it’s the same boost we saw with the introuction of basic mobiles (opinion differs, all say it will have some, but more or less than mobiles, well, snarl at each other over that), then for every 10 per cent of the population in a country without a decent computer/internet network, we should expect growth of 0.5 per cent in GDP per annum.
We’re only making the observation that if we allow someone who has increased global growth rates so markedly to keep his pile of cash, then this will encourage the next person with an idea that might boost global growth rates to get on with it. This is not a moral nor justice “deserved rewards” style argument. It’s a purely utilitarian one regarding incentives that induce people to try.
And yes, economics is is all about incentives and perhaps we might expect a professor of the subject to grok that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 tips for landing a job at a coding competition
ou don’t have to win the top prize to take away something arguably more valuable
http://www.itworld.com/article/2846451/7-tips-for-landing-a-job-at-a-coding-competition.html
Hackathons have been derided for stifling innovation and chilling the vibe of camaraderie. But that doesn’t have to always be the case.
The story of the contest isn’t who took away the top $50,000 prize but about the other participants who didn’t finish in the money but came away with something else that is arguably more important.
One of the contest’s biggest sponsors was a growing startup called TopOpps. After the contest ended in early February, it hired ten of the participants to build its entire development team. What is interesting is whom they chose and how their future employees’ participation at the contest presaged their selection.
Tomi Engdahl says:
From poop to potable water: Watch Bill Gates take a drink from this incredible processor of human waste
http://www.geekwire.com/2015/poop-potable-water-bill-gates-takes-drink-incredible-processor/
Bill Gates has long been focused on finding better ways to manage sanitation processes — and build better toilets — for developing nations. A big part of that has included finding ways to conserve water.
Now Gates reveals another landmark step in the direction of turning waste into everyday resources.
Gates opens the video by explaining that nearly 2.5 billion of the world’s population doesn’t have access to safe sanitation — a huge problem as it causes serious and preventable diseases around the globe. A mere five minutes after they crank up the machine, he’s sipping “a glass of delicious drinking water” and smiling, according to his blog post on Gates Notes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
15 Phrases That Will Change Your Life In 2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/28/phrases-change-your-life_n_6372404.html?cps=gravity_3405_5942769967706883814
As the new year approaches, many of us will resolve to transform our bodies — but what about our minds?
Giving ourselves a mental makeover could be just as important as giving ourselves a physical one. But accomplishing that doesn’t just lie in changing our thoughts — it’s also dependent on changing our words.
How we speak — to others and to ourselves — has a huge impact on our overall outlook. So isn’t it about time we started paying more attention to what we’re communicating?
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Ways Introverts Interact Differently With The World
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/physical-behavior-of-introverts_n_6069438.html?cps=gravity_3405_-4864920025740837456
Introverts and extraverts may seem the same on the surface, but if you look at the way they respond to life’s everyday occurrences, differences begin to emerge.
In her 2012 TED Talk titled “The Power of Introverts,” author Susan Cain reiterated this point in her definition of introversion, explaining that the trait is “different from being shy.”
“Shyness is about fear of social judgment,” Cain said. “Introversion is more about how do you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation. So extraverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their most alive and their most switched on and their most capable when they are in quieter, more low-key environments.”
Now it goes without saying that most of our societal constructs cater to the former — from open office spaces to loud bars to the structure of our educational system — despite the fact that anywhere from one-third to half of the population has an introverted temperament.
While a person’s introverted or extraverted tendencies fall within a spectrum — there is no such thing as a pure introvert or pure extravert, according to famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung — an introvert is most obvious and vulnerable when he or she is in an overstimulating environment.
“We hit the 20th century and we entered a new culture that historians call the culture of personality,”
The resulting crowd, which is often loud, noisy and congested, easily overstimulates introverts and drains them of their physical energy. They end up feeling more physically isolated than supported by their surroundings, and would rather be anywhere but that sea of people.
Small talk stresses them out, while deeper conversations make them feel alive.
They succeed on stage — just not in the chit-chat afterwards.
They get distracted easily, but rarely feel bored.
They are naturally drawn to more creative, detail-oriented and solitary careers.
When surrounded by people, they locate themselves close to an exit.
They think before they speak.
They don’t take on the mood of their environment like extraverts do.
They physically can’t stand talking on the phone.
They literally shut down when it’s time to be alone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meet an engineer mentor, be an engineer mentor in 5 minutes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/engineering-the-next-generation/4438224/Meet-a-mentor–be-a-mentor-in-5-minutes?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150107&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150107&elq=9ee18bc7e85049fa9f4c7ffd07851e69&elqCampaignId=21042
Mentoring seems to be almost a natural instinct for engineers. Engineers see someone in need of a helping hand and step in, just like they would if a design needed help.
But, still, it’s a time consuming act that, if done long term, can require significant commitment. And let’s be honest, not every person out there is looking to learn (or is worth your time). So how do you find these folks to pass your own words of wisdom on to and how do you find the time? Or, if you are looking for a mentor, how do you locate someone willing to help?
held what we call “Mentor Meet-ups,” where we open the door to young engineers and experienced engineers with an invitation to casually network, ask each other questions, and possibly form working relationships.
This time around we are taking a more structured approach. We’re keeping the event small and following a more “speed networking” approach. Our younger participants will spends a few minutes with each more practiced engineer, chatting, asking questions, and discussing careers, then move from seat A to seat B, and so on, giving everyone a direct opportunity to meet. That will be followed by an open breakfast where more casual networking can take place.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Del Rey / Re/code:
Amazon is building an end-to-end platform for hardware startups, part of an effort to become their main sales channel
Amazon Secretly Working on New Platform for Inventors
http://recode.net/2015/01/07/amazon-secretly-working-on-new-platform-for-inventors/
Amazon sells most of the name-brand electronics you can think of. Now, it appears, it wants to be the place where the next generation of gadget and consumer electronics companies can build their brands from the ground up.
Over the last few months, the company has been hiring for a new venture with the goal of creating the “best end-to-end platform for startups.” In another job description, Amazon touts the venture as “a new platform with inventors.”
One listing for a senior marketing manager asks, “Are you inspired by inventors who develop and launch new products? Do you want to market the world’s best end-to-end platform for startups? Do you see the opportunity to connect these entrepreneurs with Amazon’s hundreds of millions of customers through creative and strategic marketing?”
But sources say it could be connected to a recent initiative Amazon has been pursuing. Amazon is attempting to build close relationships with young, promising hardware and electronics companies — think robotic toys, fitness and health gadgets — with the goal of convincing them to build their business using Amazon as the main sales channel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Indian IoT Ideathon
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=187&doc_id=1325203&
How one entrepreneur in India is creating an IoT hackathon culture.
BANGALORE — In every page and almost every article I read anywhere, the Internet of Things (IoT) dominates it all. CES is exploding with IoT. Semiconductor companies are banking on IoT. India, too, is not immune, so let me add some Indian flavor to the ubiquitous IoT.
Industry stalwart Satya Gupta has tweaked the hackathon and brought it to India. He explained his brainchild the IoT Ideathon to me during the 2015 VLSI Design Conference, going on now.
“The IoT-Ideathon, is a unique onsite event for creative engineering minds to convert their ideas to prototypes in 60 hours. It’s based on the concept of hackathons, which are mostly software-based events that last for about 24 to 48 hours to make mobile apps and so on. If we were to make it hardware and product-centric, we realized that this couldn’t be done in 24 hours. Hence, we made it a three-day event held in conjunction with VLSI Design 2015, which starts on Monday [Jan. 5],” explained Gupta, who also is the co-chair for the event.
“Moreover, IoT apps are [more] idea-centric than knowledge centric. You need not have five to ten years of experience to think of a successful IoT app. You just need a creative imagination, see the world around you in a different way, notice some pain points, and find some ways to solve them by using simple IoT apps.”