Innovation

The purpose of the self-directed learning is for you to develop your own learning.  There are a number of tasks that you should complete before you undertake the next section.  You can work through this section at your own pace.  It is expected that you would take up to 3 hours to complete this section.  You must complete this section before you move to the next section.

Task 1

What do you consider the greatest innovation ever?  In your workbook  briefly describe what you think is the greatest innovation ever and why you think this.

This is to develop your understanding of innovation and its impact on you.

Task 2

The videos “Flexible Responses”, “Myths of Innovation” and “Misconceptions on Innovation” put into context aspects of what innovation is and is not.  Taking the definition that we are using for this module and what these videos say about innovation, how does your choice of the greatest innovation ever fit?  Does your choice meet the definition? Write your answers in your workbook , and make sure you explain the reasons for your answers.

You may need to re-watch the videos again

Task 3

Watch the 7 short videos “Tomorrows World”. These videos were broadcast between 1967 and 1979 and they predict innovations that they believed would influence our lives today. You may to take some notes to help you with the next task.

This is to develop your understanding that innovation does not change what we do, just how we do things.

Task 4

After watching the videos what do you think has come true today and what has not come true.  Write your answer for each video in your workbook .

This task requires you apply some critical thought as the answers to the question is not quite as straight forward as it looks.

This is to develop your understanding that innovation does not change what we do, just how we do things.

Task 5

You need to read the article “Innovation and Change” and answer the question in your workbook .

This explains how innovation and change are interlinked.

Innovation and Change

What we saw in the videos were a number of products, systems and services that were just emerging in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.  What is interesting is that while very few of the predictions actually came true the innovations did make substantial contributions to the way we do things to today.  So in a way the predictions were right about the technical aspects of the innovations, but somewhat wrong about the application.  The first video about working from home was certainly true to a certain extend.  The idea that we would just have terminals has not quite come true; what we have is a computer rather than a terminal.  However, this may well change in the very near future as the use of cloud computing expands.

The plastic garden has also not quite come true.  While people have not rushed to embrace plastic gardens what has happened is the wide spread use of synthetic surfaces for many professional sports. With the school computer, this has n more or less come true.  Learning computer programme is now wide spread through many schools and universities.  The office of the future is not quite like the one in the video, but we do have many of the innovations in use today.  We still rely heavily on cash, although that is disappearing quite rapidly.  Cheques have all but disappeared and credit cards are much safer; so many of the predictions are almost true.  What is interesting about the banking video is the prediction that many jobs would disappear.  At this moment we are on the cusp of an automation revolution that will see many jobs disappear.  The mobile phone of course is ubiquitous even if the one in the video is nothing like the ones we use today.  The light pen is a bit of a trick video, they have been and gone…We have moved way further ahead with this sort of technology into touch screens; which began to replace light pens in the early 1980’s.

What the videos and this unit should have taught you is that innovation is fundamentally about change.  It is about looking for more effective and efficient ways of doing things.  Importantly innovation does not change what we do.  Our fundamental needs to live are no different today than they were hundreds of years ago.  We still get cold or hot, hungry, bored or lonely.  We still need shelter, to be entertained and to have meaning in our lives.  Innovation has changed the way we solve these problems.  We may end up with products that never existed before, but all they do is make it easier to fulfil our needs.

You can see now why we have used the definition that

Innovation is a process of value creation, which consists in changing

the composition of a set of variables describing a system or object.

It is because we see innovation as a change to the way we do things not a change to the things we do.  This is important because when you learn about venture development you will learn that all business does at a fundamental level is solve problems and it does this by changing the way we do things.

Task 6

The news is full of stories about amazing innovations.  Have a look through a number of news sites and identify two or three innovations that you think will become widespread and influence our lives.  Write your predictions in your workbook .

This is to develop your understanding of innovation and its impact on you.

The next section is Unit 1 Section OLL 3