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:
You can now download the full #research report for more insights into the #MindOfTheEngineer https://buff.ly/3lV1ZUQ
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Scientists Accidentally Discover New Organ Inside The Human Head
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-accidentally-discover-new-organ-inside-the-human-head/
You’d think after centuries of cracking open humans and taking a poke around inside we’d have discovered every organ there is to be found in there, but you’d be wrong. In fact, they seem to be popping up all the time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs
Question: How can we successfully become innovation centric using data and analytics?
Answer: Ask your peers
https://www.sas.com/sas/offers/19/innovation-from-data-to-business.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid-social&utm_campaign=sas-acm-emea-50820-nordics
Tomi Engdahl says:
A symbiotic relationship between innovation and cybersecurity does not always exist in practice; businesses rarely involve the cybersecurity team early in the innovation process. However, innovation leaders say the most innovative technologies are deemed to pose the biggest threat to data security. See how cybersecurity anid innovation can work together.
Innovation in enterprise
https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/tech-innovations-enterprise/37266/?redef=1&THRU&reseller=gl_innovation-re20_acq_ona_smm__onl_b2b_faceads_post_smteam______&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=gl_Innovations-Report-_ay0073_promo&utm_content=sm-post&utm_term=gl_facebook_promo_73hr6olg2y99m4a&fbclid=IwAR3N6dHhkjHmIvQxtrKqnw0PnHFP6qkdgqMH8zeq5EOaJaMN7B-CEzFLCK4
Our new research explores the role innovation plays within large organizations, and where key decision makers see innovation going next.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/20/lewis-latimer-drafted-the-future-of-electric-light/
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What engineers must know about data science
Subject matter experts and enterprise analytics increasingly allied
https://www.controleng.com/articles/what-engineers-must-know-about-data-science/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
The power of negative thinking
We should all spend more time considering the prospect of failure and what we might do about it
https://www.ft.com/content/96654b10-df40-49f3-83e2-046ae9e6a73f?shareType=nongift
For a road sign to be a road sign, it needs to be placed in proximity to traffic. Inevitably, it is only a matter of time before someone drives into the pole. If the pole is sturdy, the results may be fatal.
The poles that support street furniture are often mounted on a “slip base”, which joins an upper pole to a mostly buried lower pole using easily breakable bolts.
the base gives way quickly. Some slip bases are even set at an angle, launching the upper pole into the air over the vehicle. The sign is easily repaired
There are two elements to the cleverness. One is specific: the detailed design of the slip-base system. But the other, far more general, is a way of thinking which anticipates that things sometimes go wrong and then plans accordingly.
That way of thinking was evidently missing in England’s stuttering test-and-trace system, which, in early October, failed spectacularly.
The proximate cause of the problem was reported to be the use of an outdated file format in an Excel spreadsheet. Excel is flexible and any idiot can use it but it is not the right tool for this sort of job.
We should all spend more time thinking about the prospect of failure and what we might do about it. It is a useful mental habit but it is neither easy nor enjoyable.
We humans thrive on optimism. Without the capacity to banish worst-case scenarios from our minds, we could hardly live life at all.
“If you anticipate possible problems, you have the opportunity to prevent them or to prepare the ideal response”
We must be careful, then, when we allow ourselves to stare steadily at the prospect of failure. Stare too long, or with eyes too wide, and we will be so paralysed with anxiety that success, too, becomes impossible.
Care is also needed in the steps we take to prevent disaster. Some precautions cause more trouble than they prevent. Any safety engineer can reel off a list of accidents caused by malfunctioning safety systems: too many backups add complexity and new ways to fail.
A second advantage is the possibility of rapid learning.
When we launch a new project we might think about prototyping, gathering data, designing small experiments and avidly searching for feedback from the people who might see what we do not.
If we expect that things will go wrong, we design our projects to make learning and adapting part of the process. When we ignore the possibility of failure, when it comes it is likely to be expensive and hard to learn from.
The third advantage of thinking seriously about failure is that we may turn away from projects that are doomed from the outset.
All around us are failures — of business models, of pandemic planning, even of our democratic institutions. It is fanciful to imagine designing slip bases for everything.
Still: most things fail, sooner or later. Some fail gracefully, some disgracefully. It is worth giving that some thought.
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Mapped: The Top Female Founder in Each Country
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/top-female-founder-in-each-country/
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Physicists have discovered a material that conducts electricity with perfect efficiency at room temperature—a long-sought scientific milestone. The hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur compound operates as a superconductor at up to 59 °F.
via Quanta Magazine
Scientists Discover the First Room-Temperature Superconductor
https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-discover-the-first-room-temperature-superconductor/?mbid=social_facebook&utm_brand=wired&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook
Physicists finally achieved the long-sought goal, but there’s a catch: Their compound requires crushing pressures to keep from falling apart.
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An Introduction to the Most Useless University Degrees in Europe
https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3jgqy/an-introduction-to-the-most-useless-university-degrees-in-europe?utm_source=vicefbuk&fbclid=IwAR2-iP1a0xAhVNk4Ylnk-x5hkP_vBfncZNfQcpS3HRWuvXGQav9kiJWSoAg
From stand-up comedy to studying coins, here are all the degrees that will guarantee you stay unemployed for years.
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Here’s the trouble with the “just ship it” mindset
Don’t just ship it: Why we worked on a new idea for 3 years
https://medium.com/swlh/dont-just-ship-it-why-i-worked-on-an-idea-for-3-years-d19d863a7a74
Product lessons from growing our startup to 8 million users without a single dime in outside funding
“Version 1 sucks, but ship it anyway.”
I stared up at the bold words displayed on a large screen before an audience of hundreds. All of us were seated in our best suits, eager to hear the next speaker offer his wisdom.
This was 14 years ago when entrepreneurs from all walks of life would still gather to attend business conferences in person (not just via Zoom).
The presenter who stood several feet from us was giving an impassioned speech about the magic of constantly shipping products. “For one, you’re always learning,” he said, in a voice both confident and self-aware. “And you’re not caught up in getting things perfect.”
Now as I look back on that experience, I can say the speaker wasn’t completely wrong. Perfectionism is self-sabotaging and plagues even the best of us.
Fast forward to the present, and there’s still a lot of talk about the “Ship Or Die Mentality,” which glorifies growth for growth’s sake.
I get it, and can even sympathize. Leaders want to build a business that thrives. And in many people’s eyes, it’s heroic to deploy a new product and feel that forward sense of momentum.
But the part I can’t really endorse is the “suck” part.
It comes down to this: I’m not sold on the idea of shipping products that suck.
And history backs me up on this.
Take the Google Glass product launch back in 2014 that was hyped to revolutionize the way consumers experienced technology. Instead, it ended up as a spectacular failure.
Why? Because it neglected to provide real solutions for its users.
To put it simply: it sucked. Big time.
The trouble with the “just ship it” mindset
Quality isn’t always sexy. It’s slow-moving and forces you to take your time and listen closely. It means digging deeper into your customer’s evolving needs.
It means not settling for “good enough.”
At JotForm, we aren’t racing down a finish line, trying to push our product into the market before it’s ready.
While I get the temptation in “just shipping” a new product, here’s where I disagree:
You risk mediocre results.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for “excellence at all costs.” Far from it.
But by staying focused on quality, I am building an enduring company.
People want me to talk about how fast we ship and innovate. But our formula comes down to one thing:
Coming up with a vision, for us, doesn’t come from someone sitting in some isolated room and going “aha,” I need to ship this revolutionary product out NOW.
Our vision comes from understanding the data. From doing more than a thousand interviews, talking to people, and having all those users constantly hammering us with ideas.
From listening to the voices of our customers.
In my earlier years, it used to bother me that we weren’t shipping nearly as fast as the competition.
Yet, today, as we launch our newest product JotForm Tables — a tool that’s part spreadsheet, part database and allows anyone to manage, track, and organize their data, all in one place — I’m reminded that it’s quality that truly makes a business successful.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Life Is Inevitable Consequence Of Physics, According To New Research
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/life-inevitable-consequence-physics/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unleashing The World’s Technology Potential
https://semiengineering.com/unleashing-the-worlds-technology-potential/
Bringing together hardware engineers and software designers with an accessible technology platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.eetimes.com/how-bidens-economic-policies-may-impact-engineering-fields/
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These Bay Area biohackers tried to disrupt health care. New doc shows what went wrong.
https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/These-Bay-Area-biohackers-tried-to-disrupt-health-15682335.php
Silicon Valley has always strived to achieve the impossible. The story of super-smart underdogs creating new technologies with few regards for rules has come to define start-up culture, but the growing pains of leveling up from DIY hacker house to unicorn status are one of the culture’s most cautionary tales.
Typically that type of story revolves around computer code. In the new Showtime documentary “Citizen Bio” (premiering Oct 30), the hacker subjects aren’t diving into algorithms, but rather their own DNA, hoping to disrupt what is perhaps the country’s most broken system: health care. “Biohacking,” is the diverse field centered around the concept that at-home scientific experimentation can serve as a shortcut to the development of treatments, vaccines and cyborg-esque tech implants which would otherwise be stalled up by tradition medical testing regulations.
“I think biohacking is really a response to a need, a human need in society and gaps in society, particularly in the U.S. People’s health care and medical care needs are not necessarily being directly met in the medical system you have in the U.S.,” says director Trish Dolman.
From 2017 to 2019, Dolman followed four biohackers attempting moonshots that range from curing cancer and herpes to creating night vision contact lenses to implanting hard drives in their arms.
For squeamish viewers, there are definitely scenes in “Citizen Bio” that have such a high potential for messiness you’ll want to close your eyes. But even so, Dolman felt that the biohackers featured took necessary safety precautions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
60-year-old limit to lasers overturned by quantum researchers
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-year-old-limit-lasers-overturned-quantum.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quantum Physics Milestone: Controlled Transport of Stored Light
https://scitechdaily.com/quantum-physics-milestone-controlled-transport-of-stored-light/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reimagining the laser: new ideas from quantum theory could herald a revolution
https://theconversation.com/reimagining-the-laser-new-ideas-from-quantum-theory-could-herald-a-revolution-147436
Tomi Engdahl says:
When X-Rays Were All the Rage, a Trip to the Shoe Store Was Dangerously Illuminating
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/heroic-failures/when-xrays-were-all-the-rage-a-trip-to-the-shoe-store-was-dangerously-illuminating
Tomi Engdahl says:
It Will Take More Than Antitrust Enforcement To Light Innovation’s Fire
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/innovation/it-will-take-more-than-antitrust-enforcement-to-light-innovations-fire
What are the key technology policy issues that will face the next U.S. President and Congress? How about fixing a crumbling innovation system and saving democracy?
That was the gist of a discussion among four technology and policy experts convened over Zoom by the Computer History Museum earlier this week.
U.S. innovation isn’t on a path heading in the right direction, the panelists warned, and big changes are needed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An integrated circuit of pure magnons
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-circuit-pure-magnons.html
Researchers led by Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK) and the University of Vienna successfully constructed a basic building block of computer circuits using magnons to convey information, in place of electrons. The ‘magnonic half-adder’ described in Nature Electronics, requires just three nanowires, and far less energy than the latest computer chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Psychologist proposes radical new theory of consciousness – ‘Mystery now solved’
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1350197/consciousness-new-theory-of-consciousness-psychology-news-artificial-intelligence-ai-evg
CONSCIOUSNESS is the consequence of electromagnetic energy in the brain, according to a revolutionary way of thinking about psychology, a UK expert has announced.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-stacking-graphene-rare-magnetism.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/summary/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/06/earlier-universe-existed-big-bang-can-observed-today/
Tomi Engdahl says:
French And U.S. Scientists Win Nobel In Chemistry For Work In Genome Editing
https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2020/10/07/french-and-us-scientists-win-nobel-in-chemistry-for-work-in-genome-editing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The future is now? Scientists achieve superconductivity at room temperature in potentially revolutionary breakthrough
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-superconductor-technology-smaller-sooner-fusion.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/black-hole-breakthroughs-win-2020-nobel-physics-prize/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2020/10/middle-school-student-achieved-nuclear-fusion-in-his-family-playroom-631163
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/brain/brain-can-rewire-itself-compensate-missing-structures-new-research-shows/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kids really are the best scientists.
This Teenager Won $250,000 For Her Beautifully Simple Way Of Explaining Relativity
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/young-student-wins-400000-science-prize-explaining-relativity-beautifully-simple-say/
Kids really are the best scientists. Their sense of unflappable curiosity hasn’t been eroded away by the expectations of being an adult in an increasingly rat race-like world. They often ask the most cutting-edge, pertinent questions – and, as demonstrated by a young wunderkind, they often tell the most memorable stories.
An 18-year-old from the Philippines by the name of Hillary Diane Andales recently explained part of Einstein’s theories of relativity in a short video clip. For her efforts, she’s won the highly-coveted 2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge; consequently bagging $400,000 in education-related prize money, including $250,000 in scholarship funds.
The Breakthrough Prize, sometimes dubbed the Oscars of Science, aims to award those working in the fields of physics, life sciences, and mathematics. The initiative was founded back in 2012, and was co-founded and sponsored by a range of entrepreneurs and science aficionados across the globe, including Mark Zuckerberg.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge asks young people across the planet to conjure up creative, science-themed videos aimed at stoking the fact-based fires of people’s imaginations.
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The newly proposed mass-energy-information equivalence is part Einstein, part Landauer.
There is no dark matter. Instead, information has mass, physicist says
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/dark-matter-theory?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1604361338
Is information the fifth form of matter?
Researchers have been trying for over 60 years to detect dark matter.
There are many theories about it, but none are supported by evidence.
The mass-energy-information equivalence principle combines several theories to offer an alternative to dark matter.
We can tell how much matter is in the universe by the motions of the stars. In the1920s, physicists attempting to do so discovered a discrepancy and concluded that there must be more matter in the universe than is detectable. How can this be?
Many other galaxies were studied throughout the ’70s. In each case, the same phenomenon was observed. Today, dark matter is thought to comprise up to 27% of the universe. “Normal” or baryonic matter makes up just 5%. That’s the stuff we can detect. Dark energy, which we can’t detect either, makes up 68%.
Dark energy is what accounts for the Hubble Constant, or the rate at which the universe is expanding. Dark matter on the other hand, affects how “normal” matter clumps together. It stabilizes galaxy clusters. It also affects the shape of galaxies, their rotation curves, and how stars move within them. Dark matter even affects how galaxies influence one another.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/incredible-imaging-platform-shows-animals-like-youve-never-seen-them-before/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Looking At A Deep Red Light For Just A Few Minutes A Day Can Help Restore Damaged Eyesight
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/looking-deep-red-light-just-few-minutes-day-help-restore-damaged-eyesight/
One thing that almost everyone experiences as they age is a decline in their vision, although a new study in the Journals of Gerontology reveals that this problem may have a surprisingly simple and affordable solution. By staring at a deep red light for just 3 minutes a day, older participants were able to significantly improve their vision.
The human retina contains two kinds of photoreceptor cells, known as rods and cones because of their respective shapes. Rods are found around the boundary of the retina and provide us with peripheral vision while also helping us see in low light conditions, while cones give us color vision.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/engineers-build-retractable-lightsaber-that-cuts-through-steel-like-butter/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turing Award for Computer Scientists: More Inclusiveness Needed
https://spectrum.ieee.org/news-from-around-ieee/the-institute/ieee-member-news/turing-award-for-computer-scientists-more-inclusiveness-needed
Tomi Engdahl says:
Physicists cracked the mystery of teleportation — but it’s nothing like what you see in Star Trek
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-teleportation-really-works-physics-2017-11
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/biomedical/imaging/compact-terahertzlaser
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/physics/exotic-new-form-of-superconductivity-discovered-/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/11/06/ask-ethan-if-the-universe-is-expanding-are-we-expanding-too/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
By
GEORGE MUSSER
October 29, 2020
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-black-hole-information-paradox-comes-to-an-end-20201029/
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information, which seems impossible by definition. The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago.
Tomi Engdahl says:
X-Ray Studies Hint At The Romans’ Secret To Stopping Climate Change
https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/x-ray-studies-hint-at-the-romans-secret-to-stopping-climate-change/
Highly focused X-Ray beams have revealed the molecular make-up of concrete from a Roman pier, revealing how it gained its strength and longevity. The work could fill in one of the biggest missing pieces of our understanding on how to stop the world from heating up.
Superior engineering contributed to the Roman Empire’s success, but of course, we have long since surpassed their technology. Concrete, is the big exception, however. The ancient product was in many ways more advanced than the one we build with today, as demonstrated by the survival of some 2000-year-old roads and buildings, even in earthquake zones.
Moreover, Roman concrete didn’t cook the planet, having a fraction of the environmental impact. Unfortunately, we still haven’t worked out how it was made.
Tomi Engdahl says:
30 Scientific Ways Your Childhood Affects Your Success As An Adult
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-your-childhood-affects-your-success-as-an-adult-2016-11?IR=T
Tomi Engdahl says:
From copycat to tech trailblazer, China now inspires the West
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3108823/copycat-tech-trailblazer-china-now-inspires-west
With companies such as Ant, ByteDance, Huawei and Nio inspiring clones in the West, China is becoming an innovation epicentre
Rather than keep Chinese companies out, the West, especially the US, should make clear the areas of collaboration or protection
Back in 2014, e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding pulled off the largest-ever initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Merely six years later, Alibaba’s online finance spin-off, Ant Group, was set to break records by raising at least US$34 billion in Hong Kong and Shanghai. While the Chinese regulators have called a last-minute halt to the IPO, Ant’s move to become a major player in the Chinese finance industry is clear.
Chinese tech entrepreneurs are today increasingly taking the global spotlight. For a long time, Chinese companies, in particular tech companies, were dismissed by their Western counterparts as mere copycats.
But a legion of companies such as Ant, ByteDance, Huawei Technologies Co and electric-vehicle maker Nio have shown the world that the Chinese are also innovating – not just in products, but also in business models, concepts and philosophy.
The business model for the New York-listed Nio, for example, goes beyond simply product sales and includes building a “user community” – through digital connectivity, the company can interact with its user community, down to the individual. This intimacy allows Nio to leverage user data not only for product sales but also to monetise other services
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Despite global headwinds, Chinese hardware startups remain to take on the world
https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/chinese-hardware-global-expansion-geopolitics/
Designed in China
Zhang is just one of the many entrepreneurs looking to bring state-of-the-art Chinese hardware to the world. This generation of founders no longer hawk cheap electronic copycats, the image attached to the old “Made in China” regime. Decades of knowledge transfer, product development, manufacturing, export practice and policy support have made China a powerhouse for producing new technologies that are both edgy and still widely affordable.
Consumer sentiment is also changing. Europeans’ perception of “Made in China” quality and innovation has “improved significantly” over the last 10 to 15 years, said Frank Wang who oversees marketing at Xiaomi -backed Dreame which makes premium home appliances including cheaper alternatives to Dyson hairdryers and vacuums.
The new players are eager to replicate the success of their predecessors. They seek media attention and retail partners at international trade fairs like CES, teach themselves Facebook and Google campaigns, and court gadget lovers on crowdfunding platforms. Investors ranging from GGV Capital to Xiaomi rush to back scrappy startups that are already shipping millions of units around the globe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
40 Amateur Engineers Who Totally Fixed Things
https://scientificfeed.com/stories/40-amateur-engineers-totally-fixed-things/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineering writing instruction takes a math-based approach
https://www.edn.com/engineering-writing-instruction-takes-a-math-based-approach/
One of the skills that separates a good engineer from a great one is an ability to communicate ideas clearly, and writing well is a key component of that ability. Unfortunately, for many engineers, the mindset needed for good writing can seem disjointed from the mindset of engineering. There is now, however, a novel approach to learning to write that leverages math and engineering logic to bridge that gap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A mathematical approach to estimate probable errors in a measurement task
https://www.edn.com/a-mathematical-approach-to-estimate-probable-errors-in-a-measurement-task/
Tomi Engdahl says:
FUN: How IKEA was invented
https://www.facebook.com/meredithmasony/videos/997063530794620/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This woman makes robots designed to chop vegetables, cut hair, apply lipstick and more. They rarely succeed — but that’s the point.
Watch Simone Giertz’s full TED Talk here: http://t.ted.com/gnL7kOV
https://www.facebook.com/TED/videos/10164536646535652/