Blog 10

Steve Jobs' life story is a great example of why a hunger for knowledge and a desire to learn are more meaningful than formal education. He inspires me to think outside of the box and pursue opportunities that are not the norm. In today's society all kids are forced to go to school for a certain number of years and all are set on a path of college preparation. While not all kids choose to go to college, most are still trained for it and expected to at least attempt a college education. This means that people who do not care to learn or who are simply not mature enough to gain the full experience that a college education can provide are guided into a system they care little about.

His story as well as the story of many others I have encountered in the past few years inspire me to keep an open mind when it comes to advising my own children to attend college in the future. Although I feel that education is very important, if you are not passionate about you are learning, the information is useful. I want to instill a since of desire in my children and guide them to think for themselves and pursue anything they are interested in. If this means that they do not go straight to college from school, I need to remember that some of the most successful people follow their own path. As long as I am constantly learning and they are too, we will all be happy and successful.

Assignment 9

What's unique about design thinking approach to innovation?

Design driven innovation is different from innovation in general because it is not innovation in response to consumer demand. Innovative companies design new ideas and then get the consumers' attention. The consumer may not even know that they want what the company has created, but once they see the idea they may gradually begin accepting and embracing the new product. Apple is a great example of a design driven company. They tell the consumer what they want, what they need even.

Employees of design driven companies are constantly brainstorming and sharing their ideas, even if they do not know how their ideas will be used yet. Once they have a collection of designs, they can begin finding ways to use them and then share them with consumers.

Another key difference is that a design driven company may not focus solely on products, but on the processes of the entire company. From work flow to tangible products, every aspect of the workplace has potential for improvement in a designer's eyes.

Assignment 8 - Neural NetworkingTechnology

Neural networks can be useful for a wide variety of business applications. Anything that requires finding and analyzing patterns in a series of inputs can benefit greatly from neural network software. One interesting use of neural networks is in the the real-time face detection used to identify people in videos and pictures. To use a neural network for this purpose, the network must be trained to identify faces, non-faces and face masks using a complicated training technique.

The Use of Neural Networks in Real Time Face Detection

The neural network in this case cannot stand alone. It requires a series of steps to train the network, prepare data for input and interpret the output. Face recognition tricky since the human face is constantly changing. The more "practice" the network gets in identifying faces, the more accurate it will become as it will be exposed to more and more unique circumstances. Different backgrounds affect the recognition and no one can predict every possible combination of colors and shapes that the network will be exposed to.

No Harmony, All Flux Presentation

Slideshow

New Rules for the New Economy

Kevin Kelly's main argument in Chapter 8 of his book New Rules of the New Economy is that in this new economy, companies must constantly walk the line between order and complete chaos to be truely innovative. Some of the points he makes are very important for maintaining a knowledge economy. While innovation is important, it is not useful if it is too radical nor is it effective if there are only subtle changes to the existing.

Knowledge management requires innovation and a framework in an organization to support new discoveries. Companies must understand that to have a rigid infrastructure is to stifle innovation. If there are too many rules, people are unable and unwilling to try anything new for fear of the repercussions and innovation becomes only minor changes to existing processes or products. Changes that will cost more to implement than they are ultimately worth. Companies must position themselves so that they have some structure, but not so much that they are unable to adapt to the constant flux that Kelly mentions in his book.

The flux is the constant changing due to innovation in the market. If companies are not flexible they will bend and break.  If companies are too flexible then they will stretch too far, spreading resources thin and crumbling before they are able to gain their footing again. Knowledge management requires not only facilitating an environment of innovation and knowledge sharing, it requires finding a way to maintain the balance between too much order and constant chaos.

Assignment 5

Mr. Chambers speaks about how Cisco uses collaboration and a unique business model to create an innovative and successful business. One of the key points the Mr. Chambers makes is that collaboration is great, but when you add a visual aspect its benefits are amplified. Productivity can be increased, especially in companies in which travel is needed to hold national and international meetings.

Cisco also uses workgroups and a flat rather than hierarchical structure to work on projects. Cisco empowers more people within its organization to take charge of projects and make the necessary decisions which in turn allows the projects to come to completion much more quickly. The leaders involved in each project are able to focus their energy on just two or three projects rather than having only a superficial involvement in ten projects.

Cisco has found that if they provide the means for their employees to collaborate, they are more likely to use those channels not because they are forced to, but for the leverage that the collaboration offers. Over time, people begin to see the advantages of sharing information which one another and more and more become involved in blogging, messaging and other forms of collaboration.

Assignment 4

Nucor Steel created a social ecology which created a knowledge spiral within the company. By creating an environment in which employees are encouraged to learn and share knowledge, the socialization of knowledge occurs. During socialization, Nucor employees are able to pass tacit knowledge along to each other. The combination and externalization of knowledge is encouraged in Nucor Steel since the employees are able to receive bonuses based on discoveries they make. Employees are taught that they are accountable for their decisions, but that mistakes are an expected part of the learning process.  To reap the benefits of the pay incentives, employees must have a way to document and share their knowledge. Nucor Steel not only uses IT to help transmit the documented knowledge, but also takes advantage of face-to-face communication for knowledge that is difficult to document.

Nucor employees are empowered with the ability to thoroughly learn the ins and outs of the steal industry. Because they are able to internalize the information they are presented with, they are able to make better decisions when it comes to engineering technologies.

Because the knowledge created at Nucor Steel is retained, the company is able to move through a knowledge spiral into a deeper and deeper understanding of all that affects the steel industry. While other steel companies may make discoveries, not having a process in place to share these discoveries keeps them at the top or shallow part of the spiral; constantly acquiring the same knowledge.